A Few Nice Words about Viewfinder

<p>Have you played <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/">Viewfinder</a> yet? I picked it up last night on a whim and I wasn’t prepared for how brilliantly designed and creative and straight-up weird it all is. Here’s the gist: the game is about solving little puzzles by taking photographs and then “pasting” those objects into the real world. So a photo of a wall, once turned on its side, can be used as a bridge that helps you cross a void. It’s all super smart.</p> <p>I love the way the story is told in Viewfinder, too. Lots of games bash you over the head with cutscene after cutscene to explain things. They take control away from you whilst some dude twirls his mustache and gives you the same speech you’ve heard fifty thousand times. But Viewfinder doesn’t do any of that, opting instead to let the environment tell the story. I’ve heard the game fizzles out and the story leads to nothing in the end but regardless, this format at the very beginning is so much more mysterious and interesting than 99% of other games.</p> <p>Viewfinder reminds me of being a kid, imagining Spiderman jumping across street poles when you’re in the car. Or perhaps the way kids make games with the shadows on the pavement as they walk around, dodging imaginary holes and pits full of lava.</p> <p>The world is this big playground, where you only have to turn your head to imagine something completely new.</p> <p>And so, naturally, I love it.</p>