Viewfinder is puzzle game heaven

By James On Jul 17, 2023

Perhaps you, like me, have someone in your life who is not very well versed in video games. Maybe you can give them a controller sometimes, after they show interest in what you’re playing. Suddenly problems arise. Mainly with camera controls. They don’t know how to look where to look as they move where they should be. The camera juts up to the sky and then, just as suddenly, down to the ground. They cry for help and you try to explain, struggling for metaphors. The, uh, left stick is the body? And the right stick is the head? This won’t help. They return the controller to you. In your hands, the game will look like a movie again, and not an arthouse film designed to induce motion sickness.

After a while, the basics of driving a first-person game, shooter or otherwise, feel as natural as riding a bike. It’s not something you actively think about. (It’s certainly not something you mention in your intro to Polygon dot com.) But while playing Viewfinderthe first game from developer Sad Owl Studios, all I could think about was the details of the first-person camera controls.

Viewfinder is a first-person puzzle game in which you must place pictures over existing geography to adjust your terrain so that you can reach the stage exit.

Like all great puzzle games, it starts simple: it hands you a pre-made photo of a bridge and sends you in the direction of a place where a bridge could go. You lift the photo, roughly align it to where you want it, and then, wham, presto change-o, you’ve got a real bridge, out of the photo and into the traversable world at the touch of a button.

Image: Sad Owl Studios/Thunderful via Polygon

The player observes a newly formed bridge in Viewfinder, after placing a black and white photo of a bridge in a floating position

Fast of course Viewfinder introduces complications. The output now requires a battery. Simple enough: here’s a photo of a battery. Place it in the landscape and now it’s yours. Ah, well, now you need two batteries. Simple. There is a conveniently placed photocopier that allows you to copy an equally convenient photo from a single battery. Eventually you take possession of a camera and unlock it Viewfinder‘s true potential: the game’s laser focus on observing, searching for what needs to be replicated in order to progress.

[Ed. note: Early game spoilers for Viewfinder follow.]

Comparisons with Portal emerged, especially as the game shows its narrative hand. In the beginning, you accidentally create an error in the simulation that reveals the true setting. Gone are the warm spots littered with benches and snacks. As you’re taken out of the simulation, you’re now wandering through a cold, Brutalist building, overlooking a city skyline blanketed in red, dusty sky. The game takes place in a future where the Earth is ravaged by the effects of climate change. For this East Coast writer, the choice of the red-hued sky was made all the more terrifying by Canada’s ongoing wildfires and their downstream effects on East Coast air quality. The images of the day also came to mind the sky turned orange in San Francisco in 2020. This means everything: Viewfinder is sci-fi, but closer to realism than one would like to admit.

The player looks out of skyscraper windows at a city covered in a reddish-orange mist in Viewfinder

You quickly solve the problem that threw you out of the simulation and return to the world of photos and bridges. However, you don’t do VR for escapist reasons. Somewhere in this digital world, you are told, is the solution to the climate crisis.

It’s quite a dramatic setup, bolstered with copious notebooks to read and audio logs to listen to, as is typical for these sorts of games. There’s also a talking cat named Cait, a Cheshire-like figure, who talks to you throughout your journey. (Yes, you can pet the cat.) It’s an engaging enough narrative wrapper, but it was the puzzles that pulled me through.

The player prepares to talk to the Cheshire feline Cait in Viewfinderq

If Portal is about creating openings to traverse the world, Viewfinder is about creating the worlds through which openings can be traversed. At the end of the game, the levels go way beyond the simple “make a bridge using a picture of a bridge” and move into much more complicated – and satisfying – territory.

I was amazed by a puzzle that involved a sphere, a geography that couldn’t be photographed, and a slope. I stared at it for 10 minutes, totally stunned, when I finally laughed as the lightbulb went off in my head. Without spoiling anything, the solution was to turn what would normally be a photo posting error into a solution. It’s a smart game that you learn to play not only through your successes, but also through your mistakes.

The player, holding a Polaroid-style camera, approaches a brick wall covered in purple ivy

Viewfinder leaves you wanting more. I was hoping, as the credits rolled, that maybe some extra challenge levels would unlock, but alas, I had done everything that needed to be done. Still, I suspect there’s more lurking in the game. Aside from the early-required simulation break, in which you discover the red sky world you call home, I found another opportunity to break the game’s intended boundaries. What I encountered was strange, magical and physically impossible. It made me grin, a big stupid grin. Immediately I wanted to go back and play it all over again, sure there were more geometry like this waiting for me to ask, “What if I tried?” this?”

Viewfinder is the heaven of the puzzle game. You’ll never look at a Polaroid the same way again, if you’ve ever looked at a Polaroid.

Viewfinder will be released on July 18 on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a Thunderful pre-release download code. Vox Media has partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy here.