Publisher: Pillow Castle
Developer: Pillow Castle
Platform: PC, XB1, PS4, Switch
Genre: Puzzle
What's the human mind like when it no longer can function properly, are we constricted from our abilities to be better by the current world order, mental anguish, a higher power or any jenesequa unknown to man as of now. Superliminal doesn't answer that with something more powerful and poignant that it helps us transcend our perceptions of current reality and how to deal with personal angst, least it tried.
Released on Steam last year, it finally got released for consoles now. This game is a tryhard trip to the surreal kind. Involving a lot of optical illusions, perception changes and object manipulation. Yeah, that's pretty much it. There are a lot of other puzzle games like Portal, Stanley Parable, Turing Test, Talos Principle and so on that does what it sort of did in a much better way.
My gripes with this game extends to its concept, story and several sections of the game where it felt like just dribble and right after the first few levels when it ruined my suspension of disbelief, I was having a hard time convincing myself to continue playing and I often got confused by the super obtuse puzzle settings enough to take breaks even though this is an extremely short game.
Story
You are a test subject, you roam around levels, you get from point A to point B, do puzzles, hear cassette tape recorded commentary from the doctor in charge while exploring a bunch of mind twisting stuff and maybe figure out why the color blue becomes annoying at times.
This game doesn't have much of a story other than assertions, theories, ways to try to make you realize "huh, I didn't think of that". But games aren't just think pieces, they are supposed to be evocative enough to have actualized effects right after the story ends. This does a checklist of that but it feels perfunctory. At one point, you feel like Stanley Kubrick is pulling your leg with some of the visual oddities in this story but after getting stretched out and playing with my higher expectations, I wasn't feeling obligated to continue playing.
The story does end with a happy ending, but it ends on a very short run and did little to sometimes go beyond its basic premise. My feelings towards it didn't change much at all.
Gameplay
Superliminal's puzzle sections are simple yet tricky and pretty elegant. You have the ability to increase or decrease size and density of certain objects on the optical trajectory you place them on, you mess up somehow, you can reload the checkpoint and do it again. Other times, you replicate objects for the sake of the puzzle or just throw away spectacle. That's mostly it.
Unfortunately this level design structure feels pretty outdated here, games like Stanley Parable and Turing Test have done far better job with this. Allowing the user(you) to solve certain puzzles while finding ways to add subtextual meaning behind the experiments pretty well. There's obviously a story here, but it feels absent most of the time till you start listening to the doctors talking to you on the radio.
Now some of these puzzles aren't that hard, it does require you to observe, look for clues and use your brain to solve puzzles. As you trudge along in the later levels, the puzzles get more obscure and will make your head spin even for a short interval.
So you're playing, you're thinking to yourself "how far does this go?" well, depends on how you play it, it can last from 1-2hrs. Yeah so this game is shorter than the first portal game. If the game manages to give you migraines, well mission accomplished, this game immersed you into its goal of absolutely annoying your conscious state of mind.
And here's the odd thing, it's not that the game is dull per say. It throws weird wrenches at you. But the problem was for the most part, was maintaining this suspension of disbelief. Like I honestly believe there was something very interesting going on, like one of the sections involved very low lighting, ominous and atmospheric sound, gush of bloods only to have the carpet pulled under me and it turns out that I was being punked.
Superliminal's biggest issue is it doesn't do much metasubversion(is that a word even?) when playing through most of the game. You are scratching your head, feeling as if this game cheats you out on your intellectual curiousities just for some psychobabble about finding solutions in life rather than circling around your problems. Thinking outside the box or whatsoever.
It fails to draw me in as much any of the aforementioned games did, there was more that could have been done. But this game sure somewhat fails, for more casual players. It's alright, the parallel illusion of enlarging objects infront of you or replicating them can be pretty trippy. But they are gimmicks that overstayed their welcome and pretty left me wanting for more, something little more different at times to really spice things up. Least it was a really short game even if that also is a disappointing aspect in and of itself.
Production Value
This is basically a Unity game, if you've done programming with Unity, most of the assets here look plain and simple. Yet, there's a good rigor maintained while evoking a sense of feel thanks to its great lighting and bizarre visual effects. It was eye candy, only for awhile. Progressing through the game, it gets more weirder and surreal to the point of existential obscurity.
This is a simple puzzle game, you'll hear mostly noises of box, cakes, walls, etc. Anything interactive object you pick that can be shrinked or enlarged. The only voices you hear are the doctor's or the A.I warden.
Music is soothing, it works well to accompany the tone and mood of the game. Nothing much else to detract from it.
Verdict
Superliminal isn't a bad game, it's just trying hard to act like it is. While it had some profound affect on me, it isn't something I actually gush about though.
There were far better games that learned from the other greater puzzle games out there. Heck if you want a great bonafide puzzle game released in current-gen systems, play The Turing Test. Or Return of the Obra Dinn.
This Epic Store exclusive sure wasn't worth the playthrough. It just made me wish there was a game of this premise that was a bit better instead.