Superliminal has been updated by Pillow Castle so that the East-West Exit Sign puzzle shown in this video now has a DING sound effect, and the door has been visually updated to be a wall (written as spoiler-free as I can). This has fixed the specific puzzle in question in this video, we won internet? This does not, however, alter the core conceit of this video: Superliminal is a very good *experience,* but a very bad *puzzle game.* I understand that many people do not appreciate the nuance of this position, and think that I am "attacking" Pillow Castle and Superliminal. That they have so materially altered the puzzle as shown in this very video specifically to address it's complaints should clearly refute that.
WOW you are incredibly full of yourself. Clearly, the only reason why people don't like this video is because they just don't understand, they couldn't POSSIBLY just disagree! My point is so goddamn smart and ingenious that nobody could ever disagree if they actually understood it!
@@reallycool i do like this review it is actually really well written! However, there is one very big issue with it still. When you say your points you claim it like it's fact almost as if everyone had your experience. What you need to understand is taking a different approach to traditional puzzles in your game compared to other puzzle games does not make it "bad." Not liking a game is completely fine and justifiable because not everyone will like the game, but theres a difference from not liking a game and the game being "bad." I really hope you read this comment and maybe that this clears up why people don't really like the review. Though they shouldn't dislike it that much at the end of the day you did make really solid arguments to what makes it a bad puzzle game but again, not liking something and something being bad are two very different things.
I like the game a lot cause I had a open mind and took it in more like a ‘new experience’ game more than a ‘puzzle game’ It was not even a puzzle game to begin with-
I don't see Superliminal as a "eureka" portal-2 type of game, I see it more like an experience, like The Stanley Parable is. I'm pretty sure the dev team behind it had a lot of fun making it, and they surely gained a lot of experience. Seeing small teams making such interesting games while sharing a nice moral about perspective is really cool
Again, I really enjoyed the game. That's why I made sure to clarify that first and foremost. But, it is a bad puzzle game regardless of how good of a game it is, and that's the distinction here.
@@reallycool I know I'm almost an entire year late to the discussion but... By the same measure you could say Portal is a bad shooter, the entire point is that it wasn't one to begin with. To explain... It falls into a rare category of "Experiment Games", a small stable shared with the Portal predecessor Narbacular Drop, the 3 Alpha versions of Minecraft/Infiniminer, and Stanley Parable. To cut a LONG explanation short they're the "game as art" half that usually leads into a overall better game when "gaming as art" takes over, and depending how you want to look at it, is either a niche game genre, a form of concept art, or an incomplete game. I see it as the first one but hey, everyone's got their own opinions.
I honestly always thought that the change of mechanics is meant to represent dream layers, the deeper we go, the crazier things get.. Same with the horror part, we just go trough this experience and then move on to the next one, like layers.. I think it's supposed to be that way yep as someone in the replies said it's all about subversion of expectations. The game just tries to impress and surprise you and you never know what's going to happen next.
Things dont get crazier, its the thing dr glenn was trying to point out, seeing things in every angle, like encountering scary levels, calm levels, frustrating levels, your emotions gets affected, and seeing things as they were was another thing, that's why you often see in the game "perception is reality" that's the meaning, seeing things as they were, honestly only a few games penetrated my soul, this is one of them, well done
I’ve watched a video named “Minecraft to a Non-Gamer”. Let me talk about that video here. The person’s wife had only seen games which had an objective. She was not expecting that there was none. She was frustrated at first trying to find the objective. Then, she decided instead of “doing the objective” that she would build a house. And that’s *exactly* the premise of Minecraft. You can do whatever you want. Now why is this relevant to *you?* Well, I think that why you think this is a bad puzzle game is because you *expected it to be a normal puzzle game.* Just like the person's wife *expected Minecraft to have an objective.* And no, the puzzle you highlighted was not a bad one either. The puzzle was to *figure out the puzzle,* unlike a traditional puzzle.
you have to be more specific than that, ive seen some unconventional puzzles where there's a box and you're given pieces that all need to fit in there, normally they'd tessellate in a very specific way with maybe a few small odd areas that had gaps. But in the non traditional version any that tessellated wouldn't fit properly unless put in at an angle and then you'd try putting in other pieces and there'd be massive gaps in there. And by the end only about 2/3 of there was covered leaving massive gaps. The reason i bring up this example is that you still know what to do, you just need to find out how to do it.
@Dam Sen The game has puzzle aspects, and follows through with many puzzles within the game, but it's an experience, and the story behind it is what sets the game apart. There's a reason that there is narration throughout the game, and it's even explained what the game is about through the narration towards the very end. It's about taking problems in front of you that have no obvious solution and seem impossible, and looking at them from another (or every) angle, until you understand what you're dealing with. It's about retraining the mind to not give up and stop trying to look from other angles due to the fear of failure, and instead to continue to push through to find a solution. So yes, it's a puzzle game, but it's also much, much more.
@Damsen If say I had an adventure (albeit very linear) game, but I peppered a few (read: like 20 mini puzzles all around it), does the adventure game then become a puzzle game? I'd say no, you'd probably say yes. There in lies the problem. Difference in perspective. So I guess let's just agree to disagree.
I think the problem is that you think it’s a puzzle game. There’s nothing really to figure out in this game. You can understand what you have to do almost immediately after seeing it apart from the door puzzle. I think it’s more of a trippy experience
The problem is, even if it isn't a puzzle game, it acts like one. The puzzles aren't entirely trivial, but they're repetitive. If it is meant to be experiential, a lot of things could be improved - highlighting what objects you can interact with, or introducing more concepts rather than resizing. It would be fine if it didn't pretend to be a puzzle game, but it does
@@oxy612 the highlighting of objects to interact with would break immersion. immersion is very important in superliminal because it’s not a moving or trippy experience if you’re not all too engaged. the puzzles aren’t so much puzzles as they are more showcases of the mechanic in each segment of the game.
@@oxy612 I know this was 3 months ago, so it doesn't really matter, but highlighting objects would break the whole illusion and captivation of the game. Also, I'm not quite sure if you watched the full video or played the full game, but there IS more concepts rather than just resizing. For example, the cloning or the 2D objects turning into something you can move. Yes, the resizing aspect DOES follow through throughout the entire game, but that does not mean there aren't any new concepts they introduce, because there is.
i know this was 10 months ago but superliminal isnt a puzzle game in fact it looks like one but it never made sense of what it actually the game is. Oh and yes its like portal and stanley parable but consider this. Stanley Parable is not a puzzle game its..... fuzzy i know also superliminal IS NOT REALLY THE SAME AS PORTAL! LITERALLY there is no like backstory or anything its does not have lore ITS NOTHING COMPARED TO PORTAL it wasnt a puzzle game....... it was its own game.
I disagree! While playing through the game, I never once thought it was being cheap, and there was no solution that I just came upon randomly after bumping my head against the wall because the game didn't "prepare" me with similar puzzles beforehand. In fact, the brick door puzzle you complained so much about was one of the most fun (and surprising) ones to me. My point is, it's not a bad puzzle game, it's just not delivering on what you expect it to. Superliminal has a big emphasis on surprises and is big on the whole "making sense of the nonsensical" dream-like thing - and it honestly had a much stronger impact on me with its relationship of narrative/thematic imagery PLUS unexpected gameplay than your typical "push boxes but every time it gets harder" game. Matter of personal taste, ofc, but anyway. From watching the video, I assume you (as someone who loves puzzles) were just looking for a familiar experience and gameplay loop to what you're accustomed to. Of course, there are no puzzles in Superliminal which are as complex as something you'd find on Baba is You, but that's not the experience the game wants you to have. If the brick door puzzle mechanics had been slowly introduced to me before and I gradually learned about them, I wouldn't have had the same mind-boggling realization of the puzzle's "rules" when I got to that part. In fact, I lament that there weren't more puzzles like it. I don't think Superliminal is meant to be analyzed through the lens of a traditional puzzle game. I agree there are a lot of aspects that could be improved, including the puzzle design and some wasted opportunities. However, in the context of the game, the puzzles did their "job". They constantly had me look at things in a different perspective, and seek out-of-the-box solutions. Sure, we could strip them from their spooky dimension-bending narrative coating and say they're nothing we haven't seen before, or... we could just set aside expectations and experience it for what it is.
Thanks for the well thought out response. I believe it is a 'bad' puzzle game, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game by any means. I tried to stress that I actually think it's quite good, and worth trying. I don't think it'll be particularly memorable and in a few years it won't be on many lists of "Must Play" simply because it doesn't scratch that puzzle itch for most players. I never found the East West puzzle to be enlightening. I didn't look up a walkthrough for it, and I actually moved through it reasonably quick. The footage in the video is not my first playthrough, I needed more footage that didn't reveal the "trick" as quickly and so I ran through the hallways randomly. This should be semi-obvious by the fact that I then stop and show the correct way to do it and run through it 4-1 and then 5-0. Again, it's a fun game. I actually recommend it if you're looking for a puzzle game to play and you're okay with the fact that it suffers from "Wouldn't it be cool"-itis.
@@reallycool Hey no problem! I get where you're coming from. I personally think the game really is pretty cool, but feelings aside, I just want to clarify my argument: I agree that the game's not perfect or even close to it, but I do think that for what the game wants to accomplish, the puzzles worked fine. To me it seems like comparison is being the thief of joy here. It'd be like saying Zelda is a bad Action game because the combat's not nearly as complex (or rewarding) as something like Bayonetta, but I don't think that's true (at least, not because of that argument). That mechanic accomplishes what it needs to within the game, and its simplicity suits the rest of the experience, much like I felt Superliminal's puzzles did. I made the comment because I felt that to be the place where your criticism was coming from, a place of (familiarity). Alas, it's just opinions, of course. I'm sure you have other more nuanced criticism, and you're of course entitled to keep it off your Must Play list haha. Thanks for responding :) PS I didn't take long in the door puzzle either, but it was still a great solve to me. Looking back on it, the game had already taught me to expect even the most subtle things like "looking somewhere" to be effective mechanics in a puzzle, which helped me get to the solution rather quickly. In a way, I guess the game did "introduce" that concept earlier huh. Still, pretty simple and elegant.
I agree. I definitely felt the AHA! Moment with the blocked door puzzle. I thought it was clever, and fit perfectly well into the game. I knew something I was doing had to be affecting which side was chosen, I just had to figure out what.
I loved superliminal, I was going to look it up but i sat for a moment and I noticed the subtle numbers and the way the door I looked at was the blocked one. The game gave me the "aha moment" more then once
I just realized the those doors were a puzzle. I always look opposite of where games tell me to look in case of an Easter egg/collectible or incase I miss something. So I did it first try thinking it was just cause the elevator broke.
The door puzzle you mentioned was honestly one of my favorites throughout the entire game. I completely understand your argument about it but to me it was very entertaining and it was truly the only one in the game that really made me think and then when I understood it I felt that amazing AHA feeling. When looking at the game as a whole however, it is way too disconnected from itself to make it wholsesome as an experience. It is entertaining on a first playthrough but it is not one that I will ever revisit.
I don't think I agree with you on the east-west puzzle. It gave just enough hints for someone to figure out. The floor numbers that only go up if you do it right and if you walk in the wrong way they reset. Then you wonder how did the numbers changed, then you notice that they need to go up and you start figuring out how to reliably make them go up and as a result solve the puzzle. The AHA! moment is when you realize how the puzzle works. Just like any other mechanic in this game. This was one of the most interesting ones in the game BECAUSE its nothing like the rest of the mechanics previously showed. Don't get me wrong, I love portal, but a good puzzle game doesn't need to hold the player's hand like in portal and literally explain what everything does.
exactly this, this isnt a puzzle game, it is one a heart but it isn't really one. from the gameplay i can see that this just isnt his kind of game, immediately skipping past cool visual tricks and just rushing trough everything. this game is best played by pepole (imo ofcource) who like to think about the stuff that this game presents. -spoilers- this was allso apparent in the tech demo from a while back, stuff like jumping into paintings, changing your size with a set of doors, grabbing the god damn moon! this isnt a puzzle game its an experience with puzzle elements. and talking about the thing he said about the differing mechanics, it makes perfect sense with the whole dreaming thing, multiple diffrent mechanics like how someone dreams multiple different times per sleep, a nightmare, all that stuff.
Bullshit. I thought I had "figured out" how it works, but I was doing something completely different from what he described that just happened to work. You're basically just exhausting possibilities, not following hints. Trying out stuff until something happens to work isn't what most people consider a "puzzle" in a computer game.
Don't agree about the puzzle at 6:15, it highlights the game's exploratory nature and pushes the games message on thinking differently about obstacles in ones life. In fact I found its solution to be one of the more satisfying AHA moments I had in the entire game. It was the infinite Elevator Maze that I found kind of Infuriating. Still don't know how I stumbled upon its solution.
took me at least 2 minutes to figure it out but I thought you had to walk backwards in the direction the arrow was point I didn't know you could turn around after looking the wrong direction
@@MrCmon113 If that was the solution then I don't what happened because when I tried that it did not work for me. did not get through that part until I started choosing doors at random.
I ADORED this game. On a second playthrough trying to find all of the chess pieces. Can't wait to see what these developers do next. For puzzles I loved The Witness and Talos Principle, et al., but this isn't a puzzle game, it's a trip.
For the door puzzle I did have an Ah-Ha moment, even though it was a completely different from the main mechanics, because when I figured out what was happening, it was so cool! Also there are so many secrets in superliminal!! Constellations, collecting chess pieces, and interacting with every thing you can interact with
I can’t really agree with your statement about “east/west” hall. To be honest I got an idea of it after a minute or half, cause main mechanic is one word - perspective. All mechanics are based on this term and they can be easily named with it included. But I can agree about count of new “perspective” things, that sizing mechanic is obviously superior and used too much, when “moving in one way” thing was only in one room.
The most rage inducing gaming moment I had was when I got the dog ending and thought that was all the $20 game had to offer. I later finished the game, had to google the mentioned puzzle, and completed the apple fan level by spamming the fire alarm puller until I had a thick trail to the button. Also at one point I fell off a table as a tiny creature and it took minutes for me to crawl to a position I could get the portal from.
I finished Superliminal with an odd feeling. I had enjoyed it but was left a little bit disappointed and couldn't really understand why. It was good but left a bitter taste. This for me is a perfect review and totally encapsulates that feeling. Wish I could give you all the thumbs!
I enjoyed this game and I also enjoyed this review. I especially appreciate that you mentioned several other puzzle games that I will proceed to look up and play next!
I disagree with most of this video, but I do agree with your statement on the door puzzle. I played it twice and both times just came upon the answer by luck, thinking I had to just keep going for a certain amount of time. However, I think that is the point of the puzzle. It’s at a point where you’re supposed to feel desperate, where the game wants you to try doing the same things over and over again cluelessly. Still not a fan of that puzzle, but it’s meant to be annoying thematically.
Brother it's not that hard. After about 2 doors you realize "oh whichever door I look at first closes. I'm supposed to go to the exit. Better look the other way first.
I understand where you're going about the puzzles and you are right about them, but for me this game had another wonderful aspect which make it great to me and it was the surreal nature of game's views and mechanisms. It seems you're walking through a fantastic surreal gallery with beautiful paintings and wonderful music which is in harmony with the paintings.
Still the same, just with more indicators for when you get it wrong. You're supposed to look opposite of the arrow because the first door you see will always be blocked with bricks.
watching this, i kind of feel like it's a whole misunderstanding of the game's whole point, which is unfortunate, because it's bad advertising and i think it deserves to be played
Did you ever play Perspective? It was the puzzle platformer that Logan Fieth (one of the Superliminal developers) worked on while studying game design at college and is an absolute gem. It's where the 'change the scale of objects using perspective' mechanic in Superliminal came from, except in Perspective the item you're changing the size of is your own playable character. You change perspective to change scale, and then switch back into controlling the character at this new size. It's completely free to download and is one of the best puzzle games I've played. (Oh, and you always know _what_ you're doing, because it's getting a 2D platform character to an end goal)
I downloaded it just because of your comment. I'm really enjoying it, thank you! And yes, it reminds me a lot of Superliminal (which I enjoyed immensely).
I was tired of not finding any games to play cuz all i play is shooter games. I tried this and WOW it was a great experience, really comforting somehow i really enjoyed it.
It took me literally 8 seconds to realize that the exit sign above the door points in the direction you are supposed to go. As soon as It wrapped back around to the '1' option and then you went through to the '2' and I saw the sign was pointing a different direction.
That's not what the level is about, of course you're supposed to "follow the sign" that part is obvious, the bad puzzle is how it doesn't always match the door.
I really wish this game went further into the resizing aspects, and solely focused on that one mechanic because its so awesome and I could have spent hours playing around with it
Sounds to me like you just didn't understand the game or what it was going for, and you think its bad just because it didn't meet your entirely arbitrary expectations of what it should have been before you even played it. There's also some things in this video that are just outright false. For example, the horror segment is pretty much directly explained to you through the little radios. The whole game takes place in a dream. The premise is that you are participating in an experimental form of therapy where you are put into a deeper layer of subconscious while asleep that the therapists/scientists have a small amount of control over, they essentially tell your brain that you are in a science lab solving various puzzles, when in "reality" you are working through or "solving" your own psychological issues as if it was a puzzle. The horror segment comes from when the technology used to put you into this state fucks up and forces you into deeper and deeper layers of your subconscious, and your brain freaks out and starts having nightmares, but because you don't know that you're dreaming it becomes genuinely dangerous to you, which is why the radios in this part basically have the scientist guy panicking and trying to stop it.
Interestingly, everything that happened in each level was intentional from the doctors' perspective (this is explained in the last level), so they do actually understand where the player is yet created a facade to trick the participant into thinking everything was going wrong and falling apart. In doing so, each layer subtracts from reality until the natural is unnatural and force the player to think more and more abstractly the deeper they go. This all leads to the climactic section/sections at the end of the game where every level of perception the player has experienced is tested and strained on multiple levels, from using preprogrammed concepts like forced perspective to trick the player into falling down a gap to using the size changing mechanic to make the player unintentionally destroy the very floor beneath them. By making these constant changes to the player's perspective, the game further enforces the idea of thinking abstractly in any scenario to the point that the abstract becomes the norm, thus requiring further abstraction and so on and so forth. To summarize, the scientists knowingly allowed the participants into a controlled simulation with the idea that nothing is controlled with the intention that the player would in turn take control of these unfamiliar physics and concepts to tread even further until they reached a sort of enlightenment in the form of Whitespace. There, in that final section, Glenn and, in turn, the entirety of Somnasculpt reveal all of this information to the player just before finally waking them up from their lucid, fantastical dream of perspective.
There were several parts you could’ve put a period, but you didn’t. Stop using Grammerly to help you with your sentences and to seem older or more mature. I recommend using your own knowledge when it comes to sentence structure. Commas don’t fix run-on sentences. Do you even know what a run-sentence is?
@@Bone8380 Also if you’re not on PC then there’s a such thing as auto correct. I guarantee you that 60-75% of the words you’ve said so far, you didn’t know how to spell yourself.
See the thing is you complain about mechanics not being used more but the entire point of this is that the game is split into levels that focus on one single mechanic that dont repeat. You can even see on speedrunning videos what each level is called and it becomes clear why this is. By the way im no expert on this, im a pretty surface level guy and dont think about things too much, but I feel like one main point of your arguement is based of that point. Also i think you should clarify this because its not really put clear that this is entirely subjective. YOU may not have had a lot of 'AHAA' moments but boy did I, and So did a lot of people. And while YOU may believe the game is lacking in story throughout, I believe the incredible soliloquy at the end completely makes up for the strange and seemingly random nature of the game.
Bro, no. I was looking everywhere for a certain solution, some hint at what it could possibly be. I platformed around the area for years trying to figure it out for myself, and eventually i just thought it was RNG. I have no possible clue how you could possibly gain that from the little the game throws at you to figure it out. Perhaps a hint on the corkboard near the puzzle would help *a lot.*
I enjoyed the experience/world design. To me this felt more like a trippy walking simulator with a couple of not so hard puzzles thrown into the mix. Reminded me a lot of the stanley parable. This didn't scratch my puzzle game itch, but the playthrough was very enjoyable nonetheless.
I think the whole point of the dark puzzle horror was to play on the cliché of "horror games that trick you into thinking they aren't horror games" but in reality is subverting that expectation by showing that there was no actual horror to be have (they even ripped off a Simpsons' gag where the word "DIET" says "DIE") And I do think the ghost of Portal was looming over the developers when they were making the game, because it really seems every "Portal-like" game with the disemboided voice is going to end up revealing that the voice is actually a bad guy and the puzzles you have been solving have some ulterior motive to them (why is there a escape sequence in Superliminal if not because Portal has done it before?) But once again, the game believes that falling for a cliché and suddendly go "sike" is enough to be subversive, but it actually comes across just as forced as if they were earnest about it
About making things smaller - they could very much make a use out of "making big key small enough to fit in a door" or "making tiny objects big enough to see if they have a little detail that is important, then make them small again", or other various "thing fits in a thing so you need more info and are changing objects sizes to get it" puzzles. Or meta mindbending "make a big house in small house in big house in small house" puzzles. Amount of effort they made to hide a TON of collectibles, shows that they could, but it was an intentional choice to keep this game closer to an experience and a demoscene. I really hope superliminal 2 will be a thing someday
8:30 But I did have an "AHA" moment there. I really liked the puzzle, but I agree that it not following a mechanic that was previously taught is a flaw. Also I agree with the core message of the video, it IS a bad puzzle game but it's still fun and a great experience.
this is a puzzle game were most of the aha moment comes from figuring out the rules, not the solution. It's a game about looking at things from different perspectives, so actually believe the way it made it's puzzles are presented work much better in this particular game.
Gotta say, I was trapped in that "Hall 1-6" level for like an hour before I figured out what I was doing. Admittedly, I wasn't really paying attention, I was watching Elf.
To be fair, Outer Wilds has puzzle similar to that one, (game is fucking amazing, go play it) but that aspect without spoiling it, it's a core concept of the game. And if you accidently stumble into the answer, it's very clear of what just happened. And if you don't know what you did, you won't know how to beat the game
Do you mean quantum moon or ash twin? Quantum moon puzzle is a great puzzle, but ash twin can get a bit confusing if you don’t know that they count as the same celestial body. Great game though.
@@interdimensionalemployee1117 the ash twin. If you manage to make it there before getting the coordinates or finding the vessel, it can be really unclear what to do and prepatch, it would reset your log.
@@SaintMaxxi They added a patch so you keep your log recently. But yeah, If you follow from the attlerock and do progression normally it works. Best thing about outer wilds is how you can beat the game in 22 hours or 22 minutes. Mystery drives everything. Good point tho I got to sun station wayy earlier than i should’ve on my first playthrough. Incredible game still. Anyways have a happy new year.
I agree that the looking-at-doors puzzle was a bit off, but as there was nothing else to do, I figured it out fairly quickly without walkthrough. BUT, I got stumped at the 'paradox' room. I spent ages searching the room while making myself small, thinking that the music that played near the wall and in the small model had to be a hint. There was too much clutter to search for a simple solution. That's the only time I looked for a walkthrough.
I do agree that the game isn't the best puzzle game but I found your specific puzzle quite self explanatory when I saw the exit sign being the one thing that changed and how I always saw the brick wall first. I had to use a guide first for the apple cloning puzzle.
I found this game to be more like The Stanley Parable with some things borrowed from Portal. I'd like to say it was the best parts of both games, but I agree that it lacks the replay value of Portal, and The Stanley Parable captured my imagination MUCH more than this. That said, though; I did enjoy it, and had enough AHA moments to keep me interested. I would have liked to see more hidden areas and more rewards for finding them.
You do make things smaller, like the portal in the keyhole, or the cube into the mirror crack. They also do expand on the ideas with the checkered cubes perspective puzzles and portals with size changes are their own mechanic to learn. Its not abandoning the puzzles, it's all about perspective. That's the point of the game.... Also the hallway puzzle was given the clue "Perspective is reality" which refers to the idea that your initial perception of the hallway becomes the reality that you perceived.
Played this game yesterday, your take on it was on point and 100% correct(wth was that door puzzle?!), it also makes me feel less dumb for having to look for answers instead of just figuring it out I enjoyed the game, except for a couple of puzzles. I’m sold on the experience and atmosphere of the game- super great, loved it. But the difficulty curves were all over the place. It’s easy with some bizarre logical spikes. I thought the jokes were cute. I’m split on the tone shift for how they wrapped it up.
i just beat the game today and i have to disagree on the east/west hallway. it might be because i played an updated version that added a "ding" when a door you went through was correct, and a "buzz" when it was incorrect, but i thought the puzzle was enjoyable. i'll admit it stumped me for a few minutes and i did think about getting a walkthrough, but i DID have the aha moment, and when i figured it out i had the most pleasant feeling of satisfaction and felt pretty smart. maybe it was just you.
I think the flashlight was there to dhow you that lights can change perspective to help find the solution with the exit light and the new hallway it can illuminate. And for the east west hall after a couple loops I just resulted in saying "fine then i'll go the oposite way of the exit sign" resulting in me comming to a brick wall instead which triggered the Aha moment for me.
I think you're a lil harsh on the game. Maybe ok to say it isn't the best puzzle game as it clearly intend a different experience on the user, but it would be not fair to say it isn't a decent game to play. First, although the loop you mention is tough, it is not the hardest puzzle I encountered. I could have struggled more on a game like Active Neuron. What I didn't like was at time it turns out to be what is the clickable object, and very few are. Somehow, in all it's weirdness, it is a bit of a corridor gameplay. I disagree as well with the critic on the storytelling of the game. Although light, it is original and matches well with the dream-like feel of the game. There are good concept in game like these.
Now that I see the like to dislike ratio: thank you for making a game design video on it. Although I mostly disagree with your main point, I think it was a well made video 🙂 I think it’s a very cinematic, linear puzzle game, even more linear than Portal somehow, but in its own right I like it
I never really viewed this game as similar to portal except for that they had puzzles, a robot lady, and the door laser thing to stop you from bringing objects over, but besides that this is very very different. Because portal is more clean-cut and safer feeling, it feels more like a game, since you have those numbers that reward you for getting it right. SL doesn't have that, you don't even know if you going the right way half the time. You do things, and over time things happen that you don't really expect. But in portal, you knew that you weren't getting cake, you knew that when you went into the elevator, you would come out to face another number and white walls. In SL, you could exit the elevator and be looking at a brick wall, a hotel hallway, a soundstage, or your suite with that damn alarm. You never as much as other puzzle games, its not as level based.
Okay so I did figure out that last puzzle with the hallway on my own, the level I HATE is the cloning level because they never explain the mechanic to you, they just give it to you... The room with the fan is the worst level in the entire game and was the only level I had to look up simply because it wasn’t explained properly
That's said very well. Most of the time it's about figuring out what you can do and not how to solve a puzzle. Given an exhaustive list of what's possible in a level, there is rarely challenge in solving it. Btw I "solved" the Exit-Sign puzzle in a completely different way, apparently I just got lucky.
The door puzzle was honestly my favorite in the game BECAUSE it's so simple yet unexpected. Yeah, I looked for a walkthrough, only because I thought there was some object or interactable I'd missed, or thought it was a game-breaking bug. Even then the solution wasn't completely obvious (because it was a silent walkthrough and they didn't explain their actions). But after figuring out what the player was doing I thought, "oh yeah, that makes so much sense, I totally could've gotten that if I'd played through enough times, I feel like such an idiot." I get what they were going for, and the mechanic was even (mildly) foreshadowed at the beginning of the level in the elevator, although you certainly wouldn't have been able to tell it was part of the puzzle on a first playthrough. If the mechanic of objects changing when you look/look away was more established and I didn't have to look it up then this would've been a fantastic puzzle, but even as is you could still get a "Eureka" moment if the player was just told upfront that it uses a completely new mechanic and that there are no objects to interact with.
This might be way too late, but I did get that AHA moment during that "Labyrinth" puzzle. The sign says "RecycLing - CaRboaRd OnLy" looking at all the Rs and Ls from that sign we get the solution. It definitely isn't the best way to convey it, but it's a good note that that it wa there the entire time
Just played this game yesterday and I really feel the point was missed with this video. Story spoilers ahead: The whole game is a metaphor for life, how it's ever changing and doesn't always give you what you expect. Sometimes you are thrown a giant curve ball and nothing makes sense, but the point is to have confidence in yourself and not feel like it's impossible. The game even tells you at the end that even when faced with the seemingly impossible (like a "bad puzzle") you relied on yourself, persevered and never gave up. I feel that the door puzzle is symbolic of hitting rock bottom in life, whether it's depression, drugs, relationships, or whatever. It's easy to say "this doesn't fit my expectations so it's not fair" but it doesn't matter how you feel about it, this is what life has presented to you and it's up to you to be strong enough to not give up and find the solution. While I will agree that there are better puzzles and better puzzle games, I feel like everything in this game had it's purpose and served the greater narrative perfectly.
I know it is late but the scary part is explained. If you look toward the end of the level you see red paint and paint brushes. Like the employees were marking up the walls.
When I played the game, that puzzle felt like the most AHA! moment one. It feels really original but also confusing. I get what your point is but i don´t share it.
You can go backwards into the hall puzzle after completing it, it seems like its a thing, an extra puzzle. Nah pretty sure it was a bug, had to reload a checkpoint to get back out of it.
I just finished playing through this, and they updated that problem puzzle to make it a lot more solvable. It's still out of place, but SPOILERS BELOW: There is a ding or buzzer depending on whether you went in the correct direction which will clue you into the fact that some choice you made affects the outcome. Instead of East/West signs, there's a sealed room in front of you called Hall 01, with the number going up as you succeed and back to 1 if you failed, which further emphasizes that you need to find a pattern to solve it. Lastly, the closed door is replaced with a brick wall covered in do not enter signs. Personally I missed that there was a puzzle at all the first time because I always try to go the "wrong" way first in a game to look for secrets. Since I accidentalied-myself into the answer, I ended up struggling with this on replay when I was trying to just rush through it. I was so baffled at the fact that I didn't recall the puzzle at all even after I figured it out until I realized my way of playing games cause me to miss it completely
The problem this game has was that it only explored its mechanics shortly, rather than not using them at all, you use them all for a few minutes and then move on, with the exception of the object size changing one. take the character size changing mechanic for example, it's used a couple times but only for a segment and never really gets back to it. Yeah, it does craft a puzzle curve with the mechanics it's presenting, although it's always very short. That's why I think the door puzzle is actually one of the best, because it doesn't use any previous mechanic or any new mechanic, you actually feel the AHA! Moment (which btw, love how you say it) with the other puzzles, you feel it a lot less, but I think it's still there. There's the red apple one where you have to use your own perspective to skip the big fan, the one where you have to use the bouncy castle in order to get to a high platform but instead of using it like a bridge you have to turn an entrance into an exit, both are good examples of puzzles that use a certain mechanic for the last time and give you that AHA. Anyways, that was a really good video! Keep it up!
I can’t tell if the reasons superliminal was hard for me was because it was good or because I have the mental capacity of a cucumber. I was so confused how the devs coded the game. But the game itself, it helped me when I was battling more demons than I do nowadays. I love it, it has its funny moments, it has it’s ones that make you question why you played this game, and it has a lot that give you a good lesson. Idk bout you guys but I love Dr Glenn Pierce’s voice, his more monotone calm voice feels comforting. It’s a great game, it’s simplistic yet complicated. Dr Glenn Pierce’s speech at the end of the game was great. Anyway, I spent half my life writing this paragraph, I don’t even think I made the point I was trying to make, but I did have an A-Ha! Moment every two seconds of the game
I enjoyed the trip. Puzzles were semi basic but nonetheless a mind opener to dif point of view in the most literal of meanings. apply that experience even in the slightest on pov in real life. I won’t say this game ‘changed my life’ but the ending narration had me taken back and more patient on ‘point of view’ thoughts from other people. Sorry to carry on; just my once a year comment on TH-cam…Happy thanksgiving!
Played the game in one run some minutes ago and whoa I did a completely different thing at the doors puzzle. Just as an example when the exit arrow was right, I just pressed the D button so I thought it had to do with your character movement. Maybe it was just random, idk PS I would say superliminal isn't primarily a puzzle game. It's like more a storytelling game with few puzzle elements. That makes it not better when it comes to your arguments but yeah
I’m 3 minutes into the video and I think I see where this is heading and exactly what puzzle you’re going to have an issue with (eh em the hall 1,2,3,4 puzzle). It has to be, it’s so trial and error based that I still don’t actually know how it’s done!
I kinda feel like you're judging a fish on climbing a tree here. I don't think this game is meant to be a puzzle game like Portal. I think this game is much more about the environment than the actual gameplay. I think of it sort of like a parody of itself. You pick up a block and it does something different. Every message from Pierce starts off the same. The humorous amount of alarm clocks. The whole thing is like a very surreal joke. And that's why I like it.
Actually the door puzzle has intersting clues, one is the number of the door itself and I think a sound clue was there also. I was playing this with a friend and he actually noticed how it worked, just by the mechanics. I actually had many euroka momments through the game, only one of the times did I feel like I solved the game by mistake. It really is an experience and tough the story itself might not be that intersting the message at the end was a very touching and related to the game's identity. I do think that each of the mechanics changes help keep the game interesting, introduce a new mechanic, then play on that idea. With the door puzzle is about learning how it works by playing with it. Just keep going foward until you understand how it works. Some other parts are easier to navigate, which I think is great for the pacing of the game, that you have sections where you are just moving foward, until you find a real challenge to stop you for a couple of minutes. For me at least, this has been one of the best experinces I've had with a game, specially the later half had me amazed with all the creativity behind this ideas. Probably will be one of my favorite games.
Firstly, I think that the plot and story line is very interesting because it involves perception of reality and its very detailed. The horror aspect adds suspense and more plotholes for lore. The cloning puzzle concept may represent the deteriorating of the mind. I will add that the left right puzzle is confusing and I do think that should've been more obvious, and I agree that it isn't a puzzle at all, and makes use of guessing or searching for a video of the solution, which I did on my first playthrough, so that 'puzzle' is not very good. Overall, the resizing mechanic is very smart and fun to do. I also like that the game has a storyline, with most puzzles not having one. Also, the addition of the tapes and the doctor adds more lore, signifying that you are playing a person in a coma, therefore adding lots of conspiracies by doing so. The storyline is interesting, and is overall a good game. I like the concept of going behind the scene, behind the 'safe' and I think that it adds lots of suspense and depth into the game. Thank you for getting this far. These were just my views on the game and I do not dislike the person who made this video, I just feel like this game was a fun experience and I do recommend it. That is all.
I dont agree about that puzzle, ive so great AHA moment, that this is my most remebred puzzle, because i have figured out it. All friends i have shownd this game were to.
the corridor puzzle was too hard with no buildup, and i couldn't figure it out, but there is the hint of "perception is not reality" which i thought was clever afterwards
(Spoilers!) The horror stuff is simple there to help plant a ‘something is wrong’ seed in your mind (the robot going haywire and all) that to create context for the twist: nothing actually is wrong! The door puzzle was maybe one that gave me the biggest ‘oooh!’ feeling. I absolutely loved it. Didn’t really take that long to figure out either. I really liked the game in general. It fits in with what I’d call fairly-simple-puzzle-games-with-focus-on-vibe-and-aesthetics. In some ways I feel it has more in common with Monument Valley (or the more recent LEGO Builder’s Journey) than Portal, despite being first person perspective. Heh, you’ve made me want to check out The Turing Test and Quantum Conundrum. Anyway, it’s pretty subjective I guess. I found the game a lot of fun, including some of the stuff you disliked. Still, interesting to hear perspectives of others even tho I disagree. Thanks for making the video!
I think that the constant introduction and then conclusion of certain puzzle aspects (i.e. Light and Dark, Character Size, Image Matching, etc.) is more of a refresher in the overall consistency of the games’ primary use of perspective rather than just a hodgepodge of ideas. Stuff growing bigger and smaller is the constant while stuff like cloning and light sources are the variables. I do agree on the door puzzle being a giant deviation to the expectations the game has set this far in and that the story could’ve been more, but I definitely wouldn’t call the game incomplete in its role as a true puzzle game.
Why are you getting so much backlash for a well thought out and interesting video? I don't fully agree with everything you say, but I can see where you are coming from, additionally with some of the puzzles not being explained at all. Your willingness to be open about your opinions on this game and your commitment to your stance on the game, has won my subscription.
I recently beat the game and felt the same way about the puzzles. Some of them are basically pointing and clicking everything until you find an object that arbitrarily could be subject to changing perspective and that was pretty boring, like that puzzle involving the moon. One of the only puzzles that was a "Aha moment" was one of the first ones involving an exit sign and two buttons. That was the only one that i felt pretty smart figuring out. Also, i think that the exit doors one wasnt that bad. Granted, it doesnt involve any of the mechanics from the game, but is pretty straight forward with its elements. The "point and clicking everything" ones are the worst.
I like to think each puzzle is related therapy-wise. If you go back and look at certain layer, it may or may not be supposed to be related to a therapic problem. For example, the fake horror layer is supposed to either represent how u can dramatize situations which aren't really that problematic, or maybe it represents conquering fear or a whole bunch of other things. White space may represent how every one of us started as nothing, but became something through our actions and wills, or something like that from the speech. It's less of a puzzle game, and more of a exquisite and way more interactive therapy session. At least that's how I felt playing. What are your thoughts?
I actually figured out that puzzle on my own they've since updated it to have a buzzer and a ding and changed the closed door to a wall. Maybe that was enough to fix it or I was lucky, I'm not sure but I felt clever when I got it
Just finished this game today on the switch. I was kinda... disappointed? From the trailer it looked so much crazier and funny but the game was very linear, very few objects to interact with in each room and not much to explore outside the puzzles. I remeber playing the demo on PC (museum of simulation technologies, discovered through markiplier) and it was so much fun. Also the setting never changes it's always the same warehouse or fake hotel, except some areas there is nothing that gives that sense of "weird reality" you see in dreams. As for the door puzzle, now's different but I completed it without even knowing how. Honestly, liked it a lot but don't think it was worth 18€
The puzzles were pretty average but the story is pretty good. I really enjoyed the 'horror' segment the most. I frequently have nightmares and their portration of it is pretty close to it except without the screamers that I always had. The demographic is obviously the common puzzle gamers. If they made it out-of-the-box even more, it would be more likely frustrating than having that immersive dream-like play.
This was a good, well structured video. However, while I understand what you are trying to get at I think your core message of superliminal is a bad puzzle game is a bit vague. I don’t think the game is meant to strictly be a puzzle game but rather a exploration/experince game. I feel like if your core idea was something like “superliminal is a good game with poor puzzlemechanics people would agree more with you. Props on giving updates almost a year after uploading and the respectfull/constructive commenting in the comment section. This is great content and a great learning oppertunity. Side note: sorry for spelling/gramatical errors english isn’t my native langugue Edit: already spotted some spelling errors :/
They might add more content tho. And if they do, might you re visit it. Its not a puzzle game and i dont think it was their intention to make a puzzle game, just more of a one time experience kind of thing and i like those kind of games.
yeaaap, there were a lot of stuff with Superliminal where I felt like it was "cheating" and dropped it. It's like that guy who tries to tell you slick jokes, and because you dont know him like that, it's just awkward and you roll your eyes. It was cool until I had enough of it. (i read some comments saying it was suppose to be more of an "experience" than a puzzle game, as I was typing this comment. So now it's pretentious lol. Once again, rolling my eyes haha)
wtf are you talking about, the goal is to reach the exit. Doesn't really fit with the whole "change your perspective" theme but the gameplay objective is much clearer than scribblenauts or whatever
Superliminal has been updated by Pillow Castle so that the East-West Exit Sign puzzle shown in this video now has a DING sound effect, and the door has been visually updated to be a wall (written as spoiler-free as I can). This has fixed the specific puzzle in question in this video, we won internet?
This does not, however, alter the core conceit of this video:
Superliminal is a very good *experience,* but a very bad *puzzle game.*
I understand that many people do not appreciate the nuance of this position, and think that I am "attacking" Pillow Castle and Superliminal. That they have so materially altered the puzzle as shown in this very video specifically to address it's complaints should clearly refute that.
bro ur reaching way too hard to make this video work
WOW you are incredibly full of yourself. Clearly, the only reason why people don't like this video is because they just don't understand, they couldn't POSSIBLY just disagree! My point is so goddamn smart and ingenious that nobody could ever disagree if they actually understood it!
@@Bone8380 Correct.
@@reallycool i do like this review it is actually really well written! However, there is one very big issue with it still. When you say your points you claim it like it's fact almost as if everyone had your experience. What you need to understand is taking a different approach to traditional puzzles in your game compared to other puzzle games does not make it "bad." Not liking a game is completely fine and justifiable because not everyone will like the game, but theres a difference from not liking a game and the game being "bad." I really hope you read this comment and maybe that this clears up why people don't really like the review. Though they shouldn't dislike it that much at the end of the day you did make really solid arguments to what makes it a bad puzzle game but again, not liking something and something being bad are two very different things.
I like the game a lot cause I had a open mind and took it in more like a ‘new experience’ game more than a ‘puzzle game’
It was not even a puzzle game to begin with-
I don't see Superliminal as a "eureka" portal-2 type of game, I see it more like an experience, like The Stanley Parable is. I'm pretty sure the dev team behind it had a lot of fun making it, and they surely gained a lot of experience. Seeing small teams making such interesting games while sharing a nice moral about perspective is really cool
Again, I really enjoyed the game. That's why I made sure to clarify that first and foremost. But, it is a bad puzzle game regardless of how good of a game it is, and that's the distinction here.
@@reallycool Its not a puzzle........
It was a experience
@@reallycool well if you wanted to clarify, you'd instead opt for a congruent title rather than tacky clickbait...
@@reallycool I know I'm almost an entire year late to the discussion but... By the same measure you could say Portal is a bad shooter, the entire point is that it wasn't one to begin with.
To explain... It falls into a rare category of "Experiment Games", a small stable shared with the Portal predecessor Narbacular Drop, the 3 Alpha versions of Minecraft/Infiniminer, and Stanley Parable. To cut a LONG explanation short they're the "game as art" half that usually leads into a overall better game when "gaming as art" takes over, and depending how you want to look at it, is either a niche game genre, a form of concept art, or an incomplete game. I see it as the first one but hey, everyone's got their own opinions.
No entiendo nada haha
I honestly always thought that the change of mechanics is meant to represent dream layers, the deeper we go, the crazier things get.. Same with the horror part, we just go trough this experience and then move on to the next one, like layers.. I think it's supposed to be that way
yep as someone in the replies said it's all about subversion of expectations.
The game just tries to impress and surprise you and you never know what's going to happen next.
It was, but he didn't believe that the game explained anything, so I don't think he actually understood what was happening with the mechanics
The creators said that the core part is subversion of expectations.
Yes. It a little bit like watching paint dry the game.
Things dont get crazier, its the thing dr glenn was trying to point out, seeing things in every angle, like encountering scary levels, calm levels, frustrating levels, your emotions gets affected, and seeing things as they were was another thing, that's why you often see in the game "perception is reality" that's the meaning, seeing things as they were, honestly only a few games penetrated my soul, this is one of them, well done
@@alwynjavier5253 Me too. Still can’t stop thinking about it. The ending was so profound, I sat in silence looking at the credits for a good 5 min
I’ve watched a video named “Minecraft to a Non-Gamer”.
Let me talk about that video here. The person’s wife had only seen games which had an objective. She was not expecting that there was none. She was frustrated at first trying to find the objective. Then, she decided instead of “doing the objective” that she would build a house. And that’s *exactly* the premise of Minecraft. You can do whatever you want.
Now why is this relevant to *you?* Well, I think that why you think this is a bad puzzle game is because you *expected it to be a normal puzzle game.* Just like the person's wife *expected Minecraft to have an objective.*
And no, the puzzle you highlighted was not a bad one either. The puzzle was to *figure out the puzzle,* unlike a traditional puzzle.
you have to be more specific than that, ive seen some unconventional puzzles where there's a box and you're given pieces that all need to fit in there, normally they'd tessellate in a very specific way with maybe a few small odd areas that had gaps. But in the non traditional version any that tessellated wouldn't fit properly unless put in at an angle and then you'd try putting in other pieces and there'd be massive gaps in there. And by the end only about 2/3 of there was covered leaving massive gaps. The reason i bring up this example is that you still know what to do, you just need to find out how to do it.
@Dam Sen technically no. It's more of a life experience in such a way that it's a puzzle and also not a puzzle. It's very trippy.
@Dam Sen marketing.
@Dam Sen The game has puzzle aspects, and follows through with many puzzles within the game, but it's an experience, and the story behind it is what sets the game apart. There's a reason that there is narration throughout the game, and it's even explained what the game is about through the narration towards the very end. It's about taking problems in front of you that have no obvious solution and seem impossible, and looking at them from another (or every) angle, until you understand what you're dealing with. It's about retraining the mind to not give up and stop trying to look from other angles due to the fear of failure, and instead to continue to push through to find a solution. So yes, it's a puzzle game, but it's also much, much more.
@Damsen If say I had an adventure (albeit very linear) game, but I peppered a few (read: like 20 mini puzzles all around it), does the adventure game then become a puzzle game?
I'd say no, you'd probably say yes. There in lies the problem. Difference in perspective.
So I guess let's just agree to disagree.
I think the problem is that you think it’s a puzzle game.
There’s nothing really to figure out in this game. You can understand what you have to do almost immediately after seeing it apart from the door puzzle.
I think it’s more of a trippy experience
The problem is, even if it isn't a puzzle game, it acts like one. The puzzles aren't entirely trivial, but they're repetitive. If it is meant to be experiential, a lot of things could be improved - highlighting what objects you can interact with, or introducing more concepts rather than resizing. It would be fine if it didn't pretend to be a puzzle game, but it does
@@oxy612 the highlighting of objects to interact with would break immersion. immersion is very important in superliminal because it’s not a moving or trippy experience if you’re not all too engaged. the puzzles aren’t so much puzzles as they are more showcases of the mechanic in each segment of the game.
@@oxy612 I know this was 3 months ago, so it doesn't really matter, but highlighting objects would break the whole illusion and captivation of the game. Also, I'm not quite sure if you watched the full video or played the full game, but there IS more concepts rather than just resizing. For example, the cloning or the 2D objects turning into something you can move. Yes, the resizing aspect DOES follow through throughout the entire game, but that does not mean there aren't any new concepts they introduce, because there is.
i know this was 10 months ago but superliminal isnt a puzzle game in fact it looks like one but it never made sense of what it actually the game is. Oh and yes its like portal and stanley parable but consider this. Stanley Parable is not a puzzle game its..... fuzzy i know also superliminal IS NOT REALLY THE SAME AS PORTAL! LITERALLY there is no like backstory or anything its does not have lore ITS NOTHING COMPARED TO PORTAL it wasnt a puzzle game....... it was its own game.
the problem is i enjoy this game however it is i dont care if its a puzzle or not
I disagree! While playing through the game, I never once thought it was being cheap, and there was no solution that I just came upon randomly after bumping my head against the wall because the game didn't "prepare" me with similar puzzles beforehand. In fact, the brick door puzzle you complained so much about was one of the most fun (and surprising) ones to me.
My point is, it's not a bad puzzle game, it's just not delivering on what you expect it to. Superliminal has a big emphasis on surprises and is big on the whole "making sense of the nonsensical" dream-like thing - and it honestly had a much stronger impact on me with its relationship of narrative/thematic imagery PLUS unexpected gameplay than your typical "push boxes but every time it gets harder" game. Matter of personal taste, ofc, but anyway.
From watching the video, I assume you (as someone who loves puzzles) were just looking for a familiar experience and gameplay loop to what you're accustomed to. Of course, there are no puzzles in Superliminal which are as complex as something you'd find on Baba is You, but that's not the experience the game wants you to have. If the brick door puzzle mechanics had been slowly introduced to me before and I gradually learned about them, I wouldn't have had the same mind-boggling realization of the puzzle's "rules" when I got to that part. In fact, I lament that there weren't more puzzles like it.
I don't think Superliminal is meant to be analyzed through the lens of a traditional puzzle game. I agree there are a lot of aspects that could be improved, including the puzzle design and some wasted opportunities. However, in the context of the game, the puzzles did their "job". They constantly had me look at things in a different perspective, and seek out-of-the-box solutions. Sure, we could strip them from their spooky dimension-bending narrative coating and say they're nothing we haven't seen before, or... we could just set aside expectations and experience it for what it is.
Thanks for the well thought out response.
I believe it is a 'bad' puzzle game, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game by any means. I tried to stress that I actually think it's quite good, and worth trying. I don't think it'll be particularly memorable and in a few years it won't be on many lists of "Must Play" simply because it doesn't scratch that puzzle itch for most players.
I never found the East West puzzle to be enlightening. I didn't look up a walkthrough for it, and I actually moved through it reasonably quick. The footage in the video is not my first playthrough, I needed more footage that didn't reveal the "trick" as quickly and so I ran through the hallways randomly. This should be semi-obvious by the fact that I then stop and show the correct way to do it and run through it 4-1 and then 5-0.
Again, it's a fun game. I actually recommend it if you're looking for a puzzle game to play and you're okay with the fact that it suffers from "Wouldn't it be cool"-itis.
@@reallycool Hey no problem!
I get where you're coming from. I personally think the game really is pretty cool, but feelings aside, I just want to clarify my argument:
I agree that the game's not perfect or even close to it, but I do think that for what the game wants to accomplish, the puzzles worked fine. To me it seems like comparison is being the thief of joy here. It'd be like saying Zelda is a bad Action game because the combat's not nearly as complex (or rewarding) as something like Bayonetta, but I don't think that's true (at least, not because of that argument). That mechanic accomplishes what it needs to within the game, and its simplicity suits the rest of the experience, much like I felt Superliminal's puzzles did. I made the comment because I felt that to be the place where your criticism was coming from, a place of (familiarity).
Alas, it's just opinions, of course. I'm sure you have other more nuanced criticism, and you're of course entitled to keep it off your Must Play list haha. Thanks for responding :)
PS I didn't take long in the door puzzle either, but it was still a great solve to me. Looking back on it, the game had already taught me to expect even the most subtle things like "looking somewhere" to be effective mechanics in a puzzle, which helped me get to the solution rather quickly. In a way, I guess the game did "introduce" that concept earlier huh. Still, pretty simple and elegant.
Can yall stop writing paragraphs and stuff. An opinion is an opinion, live with it
@@giornogiovanna4140does discussion bother you
I agree. I definitely felt the AHA! Moment with the blocked door puzzle. I thought it was clever, and fit perfectly well into the game. I knew something I was doing had to be affecting which side was chosen, I just had to figure out what.
I loved superliminal, I was going to look it up but i sat for a moment and I noticed the subtle numbers and the way the door I looked at was the blocked one. The game gave me the "aha moment" more then once
Thanks for your feedback, but you're wrong
I just realized the those doors were a puzzle. I always look opposite of where games tell me to look in case of an Easter egg/collectible or incase I miss something. So I did it first try thinking it was just cause the elevator broke.
The door puzzle you mentioned was honestly one of my favorites throughout the entire game. I completely understand your argument about it but to me it was very entertaining and it was truly the only one in the game that really made me think and then when I understood it I felt that amazing AHA feeling. When looking at the game as a whole however, it is way too disconnected from itself to make it wholsesome as an experience. It is entertaining on a first playthrough but it is not one that I will ever revisit.
Yeah, I think that's really my end feeling about it as well.
I don't think I agree with you on the east-west puzzle. It gave just enough hints for someone to figure out. The floor numbers that only go up if you do it right and if you walk in the wrong way they reset. Then you wonder how did the numbers changed, then you notice that they need to go up and you start figuring out how to reliably make them go up and as a result solve the puzzle. The AHA! moment is when you realize how the puzzle works. Just like any other mechanic in this game. This was one of the most interesting ones in the game BECAUSE its nothing like the rest of the mechanics previously showed. Don't get me wrong, I love portal, but a good puzzle game doesn't need to hold the player's hand like in portal and literally explain what everything does.
exactly this, this isnt a puzzle game, it is one a heart but it isn't really one.
from the gameplay i can see that this just isnt his kind of game, immediately skipping past cool visual tricks and just rushing trough everything.
this game is best played by pepole (imo ofcource) who like to think about the stuff that this game presents.
-spoilers-
this was allso apparent in the tech demo from a while back,
stuff like jumping into paintings, changing your size with a set of doors, grabbing the god damn moon!
this isnt a puzzle game its an experience with puzzle elements.
and talking about the thing he said about the differing mechanics, it makes perfect sense with the whole dreaming thing,
multiple diffrent mechanics like how someone dreams multiple different times per sleep, a nightmare, all that stuff.
Bullshit. I thought I had "figured out" how it works, but I was doing something completely different from what he described that just happened to work.
You're basically just exhausting possibilities, not following hints.
Trying out stuff until something happens to work isn't what most people consider a "puzzle" in a computer game.
Don't agree about the puzzle at 6:15, it highlights the game's exploratory nature and pushes the games message on thinking differently about obstacles in ones life. In fact I found its solution to be one of the more satisfying AHA moments I had in the entire game. It was the infinite Elevator Maze that I found kind of Infuriating. Still don't know how I stumbled upon its solution.
yer i agree I figured it out pretty quickly and its a reminder to be paying attention.
With the elevators, if you look at the ground there are sometimes arrows, keep going that way until you meet the new arrow. Eventually you'll exit.
took me at least 2 minutes to figure it out but I thought you had to walk backwards in the direction the arrow was point I didn't know you could turn around after looking the wrong direction
Isn't the elevators literally just following arrows?
Imo the entire level was just random shit being thrown at you.
@@MrCmon113 If that was the solution then I don't what happened because when I tried that it did not work for me. did not get through that part until I started choosing doors at random.
CryMor Gaming: There isn't any puzzle that has you make things small.
Apple Room and Door Puzzle: Am I a Joke to you.
fuck your god
I ADORED this game. On a second playthrough trying to find all of the chess pieces. Can't wait to see what these developers do next. For puzzles I loved The Witness and Talos Principle, et al., but this isn't a puzzle game, it's a trip.
For the door puzzle I did have an Ah-Ha moment, even though it was a completely different from the main mechanics, because when I figured out what was happening, it was so cool! Also there are so many secrets in superliminal!! Constellations, collecting chess pieces, and interacting with every thing you can interact with
7:40 this is my favorite puzzle cuz it's the only one that took me more than 5 minutes to figure out
I can’t really agree with your statement about “east/west” hall. To be honest I got an idea of it after a minute or half, cause main mechanic is one word - perspective. All mechanics are based on this term and they can be easily named with it included. But I can agree about count of new “perspective” things, that sizing mechanic is obviously superior and used too much, when “moving in one way” thing was only in one room.
Nothing about "perspective" tells you anything there.
The most rage inducing gaming moment I had was when I got the dog ending and thought that was all the $20 game had to offer. I later finished the game, had to google the mentioned puzzle, and completed the apple fan level by spamming the fire alarm puller until I had a thick trail to the button. Also at one point I fell off a table as a tiny creature and it took minutes for me to crawl to a position I could get the portal from.
How in the heck did you manage to get the dog ending on accident?
I finished Superliminal with an odd feeling. I had enjoyed it but was left a little bit disappointed and couldn't really understand why. It was good but left a bitter taste. This for me is a perfect review and totally encapsulates that feeling. Wish I could give you all the thumbs!
I appreciate your thumbs =)
I don't understand that feeling. I felt completely the opposite.
I enjoyed this game and I also enjoyed this review. I especially appreciate that you mentioned several other puzzle games that I will proceed to look up and play next!
Hope you enjoy them ;)
I disagree with most of this video, but I do agree with your statement on the door puzzle. I played it twice and both times just came upon the answer by luck, thinking I had to just keep going for a certain amount of time.
However, I think that is the point of the puzzle. It’s at a point where you’re supposed to feel desperate, where the game wants you to try doing the same things over and over again cluelessly.
Still not a fan of that puzzle, but it’s meant to be annoying thematically.
Brother it's not that hard. After about 2 doors you realize "oh whichever door I look at first closes. I'm supposed to go to the exit. Better look the other way first.
I understand where you're going about the puzzles and you are right about them, but for me this game had another wonderful aspect which make it great to me and it was the surreal nature of game's views and mechanisms. It seems you're walking through a fantastic surreal gallery with beautiful paintings and wonderful music which is in harmony with the paintings.
It's a really enjoyable experience, well worth playing through once.
Played it Yesterday. The door Puzzle is now complety different
Did you get what was the player supposed to do? I completed it without even knowing how
@@doctorteapot5480
Me, too. Tried three different things, last one worked. Had no idea whether that was "right".
Still the same, just with more indicators for when you get it wrong. You're supposed to look opposite of the arrow because the first door you see will always be blocked with bricks.
watching this, i kind of feel like it's a whole misunderstanding of the game's whole point, which is unfortunate, because it's bad advertising and i think it deserves to be played
That's sort of the point of this video.
@@reallycool yeah but i mean making a video with "superliminal is a bad puzzle game" may stop people from buying it :(
@@arcesmo he said it was a good game but not a good puzzle game, if it dissuaded people then it cant really be helped
@@Fire5stone I mean, the video could have had a less deceiving title, but sure
@@arcesmo not only that... when was superliminal ever a puzzle game
Portal really mastered the aha moment, but this game is definitely worth playing
Did you ever play Perspective? It was the puzzle platformer that Logan Fieth (one of the Superliminal developers) worked on while studying game design at college and is an absolute gem. It's where the 'change the scale of objects using perspective' mechanic in Superliminal came from, except in Perspective the item you're changing the size of is your own playable character. You change perspective to change scale, and then switch back into controlling the character at this new size. It's completely free to download and is one of the best puzzle games I've played. (Oh, and you always know _what_ you're doing, because it's getting a 2D platform character to an end goal)
I'll check it out, definitely.
I downloaded it just because of your comment. I'm really enjoying it, thank you! And yes, it reminds me a lot of Superliminal (which I enjoyed immensely).
I was tired of not finding any games to play cuz all i play is shooter games. I tried this and WOW it was a great experience, really comforting somehow i really enjoyed it.
Super glad you enjoyed it
It took me literally 8 seconds to realize that the exit sign above the door points in the direction you are supposed to go. As soon as It wrapped back around to the '1' option and then you went through to the '2' and I saw the sign was pointing a different direction.
Nim plays Dr Glenn Pierce Literally tells you that your supposed to follow the signs.
That's not what the level is about, of course you're supposed to "follow the sign" that part is obvious, the bad puzzle is how it doesn't always match the door.
I really wish this game went further into the resizing aspects, and solely focused on that one mechanic because its so awesome and I could have spent hours playing around with it
Sounds to me like you just didn't understand the game or what it was going for, and you think its bad just because it didn't meet your entirely arbitrary expectations of what it should have been before you even played it.
There's also some things in this video that are just outright false. For example, the horror segment is pretty much directly explained to you through the little radios. The whole game takes place in a dream. The premise is that you are participating in an experimental form of therapy where you are put into a deeper layer of subconscious while asleep that the therapists/scientists have a small amount of control over, they essentially tell your brain that you are in a science lab solving various puzzles, when in "reality" you are working through or "solving" your own psychological issues as if it was a puzzle. The horror segment comes from when the technology used to put you into this state fucks up and forces you into deeper and deeper layers of your subconscious, and your brain freaks out and starts having nightmares, but because you don't know that you're dreaming it becomes genuinely dangerous to you, which is why the radios in this part basically have the scientist guy panicking and trying to stop it.
Interestingly, everything that happened in each level was intentional from the doctors' perspective (this is explained in the last level), so they do actually understand where the player is yet created a facade to trick the participant into thinking everything was going wrong and falling apart.
In doing so, each layer subtracts from reality until the natural is unnatural and force the player to think more and more abstractly the deeper they go. This all leads to the climactic section/sections at the end of the game where every level of perception the player has experienced is tested and strained on multiple levels, from using preprogrammed concepts like forced perspective to trick the player into falling down a gap to using the size changing mechanic to make the player unintentionally destroy the very floor beneath them. By making these constant changes to the player's perspective, the game further enforces the idea of thinking abstractly in any scenario to the point that the abstract becomes the norm, thus requiring further abstraction and so on and so forth.
To summarize, the scientists knowingly allowed the participants into a controlled simulation with the idea that nothing is controlled with the intention that the player would in turn take control of these unfamiliar physics and concepts to tread even further until they reached a sort of enlightenment in the form of Whitespace. There, in that final section, Glenn and, in turn, the entirety of Somnasculpt reveal all of this information to the player just before finally waking them up from their lucid, fantastical dream of perspective.
Longest run-on sentences I’ve ever read in my entire life.
@@megabyte2695 You must be real bad at reading because that isn't a run-on sentence.
There were several parts you could’ve put a period, but you didn’t. Stop using Grammerly to help you with your sentences and to seem older or more mature. I recommend using your own knowledge when it comes to sentence structure. Commas don’t fix run-on sentences. Do you even know what a run-sentence is?
@@Bone8380 Also if you’re not on PC then there’s a such thing as auto correct. I guarantee you that 60-75% of the words you’ve said so far, you didn’t know how to spell yourself.
See the thing is you complain about mechanics not being used more but the entire point of this is that the game is split into levels that focus on one single mechanic that dont repeat. You can even see on speedrunning videos what each level is called and it becomes clear why this is.
By the way im no expert on this, im a pretty surface level guy and dont think about things too much, but I feel like one main point of your arguement is based of that point.
Also i think you should clarify this because its not really put clear that this is entirely subjective. YOU may not have had a lot of 'AHAA' moments but boy did I, and So did a lot of people. And while YOU may believe the game is lacking in story throughout, I believe the incredible soliloquy at the end completely makes up for the strange and seemingly random nature of the game.
If you're paying attention to the door puzzle, you'll figure it out quickly
Bro, no. I was looking everywhere for a certain solution, some hint at what it could possibly be. I platformed around the area for years trying to figure it out for myself, and eventually i just thought it was RNG. I have no possible clue how you could possibly gain that from the little the game throws at you to figure it out. Perhaps a hint on the corkboard near the puzzle would help *a lot.*
@@jockohomosexual years? It took me minutes
rebecca kimpel 6 months later but you have to look at the exit sign which tells you which doorway to go through.
Yeah, I got it after a few tries. When I noticed that I always got the wrong door on the first try, it kinda clicked
It's weird because like, he literally didn't even stop to think about it.
I enjoyed the experience/world design. To me this felt more like a trippy walking simulator with a couple of not so hard puzzles thrown into the mix. Reminded me a lot of the stanley parable.
This didn't scratch my puzzle game itch, but the playthrough was very enjoyable nonetheless.
Pretty much,
I think the whole point of the dark puzzle horror was to play on the cliché of "horror games that trick you into thinking they aren't horror games" but in reality is subverting that expectation by showing that there was no actual horror to be have (they even ripped off a Simpsons' gag where the word "DIET" says "DIE")
And I do think the ghost of Portal was looming over the developers when they were making the game, because it really seems every "Portal-like" game with the disemboided voice is going to end up revealing that the voice is actually a bad guy and the puzzles you have been solving have some ulterior motive to them (why is there a escape sequence in Superliminal if not because Portal has done it before?) But once again, the game believes that falling for a cliché and suddendly go "sike" is enough to be subversive, but it actually comes across just as forced as if they were earnest about it
About making things smaller - they could very much make a use out of "making big key small enough to fit in a door" or "making tiny objects big enough to see if they have a little detail that is important, then make them small again", or other various "thing fits in a thing so you need more info and are changing objects sizes to get it" puzzles.
Or meta mindbending "make a big house in small house in big house in small house" puzzles.
Amount of effort they made to hide a TON of collectibles, shows that they could, but it was an intentional choice to keep this game closer to an experience and a demoscene.
I really hope superliminal 2 will be a thing someday
I passed the hall puzzle by luck, I never got it until now and I just finished the game, and I never looked up a walkthrough
Did we play the same game?
8:30 But I did have an "AHA" moment there. I really liked the puzzle, but I agree that it not following a mechanic that was previously taught is a flaw.
Also I agree with the core message of the video, it IS a bad puzzle game but it's still fun and a great experience.
this is a puzzle game were most of the aha moment comes from figuring out the rules, not the solution.
It's a game about looking at things from different perspectives, so actually believe the way it made it's puzzles are presented work much better in this particular game.
Gotta say, I was trapped in that "Hall 1-6" level for like an hour before I figured out what I was doing. Admittedly, I wasn't really paying attention, I was watching Elf.
To be fair, Outer Wilds has puzzle similar to that one, (game is fucking amazing, go play it) but that aspect without spoiling it, it's a core concept of the game. And if you accidently stumble into the answer, it's very clear of what just happened. And if you don't know what you did, you won't know how to beat the game
Do you mean quantum moon or ash twin? Quantum moon puzzle is a great puzzle, but ash twin can get a bit confusing if you don’t know that they count as the same celestial body. Great game though.
@@interdimensionalemployee1117 the ash twin. If you manage to make it there before getting the coordinates or finding the vessel, it can be really unclear what to do and prepatch, it would reset your log.
@@SaintMaxxi They added a patch so you keep your log recently. But yeah, If you follow from the attlerock and do progression normally it works. Best thing about outer wilds is how you can beat the game in 22 hours or 22 minutes. Mystery drives everything. Good point tho I got to sun station wayy earlier than i should’ve on my first playthrough. Incredible game still. Anyways have a happy new year.
I agree that the looking-at-doors puzzle was a bit off, but as there was nothing else to do, I figured it out fairly quickly without walkthrough. BUT, I got stumped at the 'paradox' room. I spent ages searching the room while making myself small, thinking that the music that played near the wall and in the small model had to be a hint. There was too much clutter to search for a simple solution. That's the only time I looked for a walkthrough.
I do agree that the game isn't the best puzzle game but I found your specific puzzle quite self explanatory when I saw the exit sign being the one thing that changed and how I always saw the brick wall first. I had to use a guide first for the apple cloning puzzle.
I found this game to be more like The Stanley Parable with some things borrowed from Portal. I'd like to say it was the best parts of both games, but I agree that it lacks the replay value of Portal, and The Stanley Parable captured my imagination MUCH more than this.
That said, though; I did enjoy it, and had enough AHA moments to keep me interested. I would have liked to see more hidden areas and more rewards for finding them.
0:50 this could be used for so much evil lol. Such a great sound bite.
I look forward to hearing some.
You do make things smaller, like the portal in the keyhole, or the cube into the mirror crack. They also do expand on the ideas with the checkered cubes perspective puzzles and portals with size changes are their own mechanic to learn. Its not abandoning the puzzles, it's all about perspective. That's the point of the game.... Also the hallway puzzle was given the clue "Perspective is reality" which refers to the idea that your initial perception of the hallway becomes the reality that you perceived.
1:04 what is this game called
Antichamber, the game that inspired Superliminal.
Played this game yesterday, your take on it was on point and 100% correct(wth was that door puzzle?!), it also makes me feel less dumb for having to look for answers instead of just figuring it out
I enjoyed the game, except for a couple of puzzles. I’m sold on the experience and atmosphere of the game- super great, loved it. But the difficulty curves were all over the place. It’s easy with some bizarre logical spikes.
I thought the jokes were cute. I’m split on the tone shift for how they wrapped it up.
this is some seriously good rat
i just beat the game today and i have to disagree on the east/west hallway. it might be because i played an updated version that added a "ding" when a door you went through was correct, and a "buzz" when it was incorrect, but i thought the puzzle was enjoyable. i'll admit it stumped me for a few minutes and i did think about getting a walkthrough, but i DID have the aha moment, and when i figured it out i had the most pleasant feeling of satisfaction and felt pretty smart. maybe it was just you.
As my pinned message says, they updated the puzzle in response to this complaint.
@@reallycool oh sorry 😅 I must've skipped it somehow.
Just clarifying that you are correct, they did change it
I think the flashlight was there to dhow you that lights can change perspective to help find the solution with the exit light and the new hallway it can illuminate. And for the east west hall after a couple loops I just resulted in saying "fine then i'll go the oposite way of the exit sign" resulting in me comming to a brick wall instead which triggered the Aha moment for me.
I think you're a lil harsh on the game. Maybe ok to say it isn't the best puzzle game as it clearly intend a different experience on the user, but it would be not fair to say it isn't a decent game to play. First, although the loop you mention is tough, it is not the hardest puzzle I encountered. I could have struggled more on a game like Active Neuron. What I didn't like was at time it turns out to be what is the clickable object, and very few are. Somehow, in all it's weirdness, it is a bit of a corridor gameplay. I disagree as well with the critic on the storytelling of the game. Although light, it is original and matches well with the dream-like feel of the game. There are good concept in game like these.
I did not say it wasn't a decent game.
superliminal is a good game but it only is if you don't see it as a puzzle game
Yes.
Now that I see the like to dislike ratio: thank you for making a game design video on it. Although I mostly disagree with your main point, I think it was a well made video 🙂
I think it’s a very cinematic, linear puzzle game, even more linear than Portal somehow, but in its own right I like it
I never really viewed this game as similar to portal except for that they had puzzles, a robot lady, and the door laser thing to stop you from bringing objects over, but besides that this is very very different. Because portal is more clean-cut and safer feeling, it feels more like a game, since you have those numbers that reward you for getting it right. SL doesn't have that, you don't even know if you going the right way half the time. You do things, and over time things happen that you don't really expect. But in portal, you knew that you weren't getting cake, you knew that when you went into the elevator, you would come out to face another number and white walls. In SL, you could exit the elevator and be looking at a brick wall, a hotel hallway, a soundstage, or your suite with that damn alarm. You never as much as other puzzle games, its not as level based.
Okay so I did figure out that last puzzle with the hallway on my own, the level I HATE is the cloning level because they never explain the mechanic to you, they just give it to you... The room with the fan is the worst level in the entire game and was the only level I had to look up simply because it wasn’t explained properly
It seriously felt like the game and me were both trying to figure out what the game is about.
Can someone please tell me the name of the game from 1:05 to 1:20? It’s on the tip of my tongue and I can’t remember it
Antichamber
CryMor Gaming thank you man!
That's said very well.
Most of the time it's about figuring out what you can do and not how to solve a puzzle. Given an exhaustive list of what's possible in a level, there is rarely challenge in solving it.
Btw I "solved" the Exit-Sign puzzle in a completely different way, apparently I just got lucky.
The only time I EVER looked at a walkthrough for Superliminal is for REALLY hard achievements.
The door puzzle was honestly my favorite in the game BECAUSE it's so simple yet unexpected. Yeah, I looked for a walkthrough, only because I thought there was some object or interactable I'd missed, or thought it was a game-breaking bug. Even then the solution wasn't completely obvious (because it was a silent walkthrough and they didn't explain their actions). But after figuring out what the player was doing I thought, "oh yeah, that makes so much sense, I totally could've gotten that if I'd played through enough times, I feel like such an idiot." I get what they were going for, and the mechanic was even (mildly) foreshadowed at the beginning of the level in the elevator, although you certainly wouldn't have been able to tell it was part of the puzzle on a first playthrough. If the mechanic of objects changing when you look/look away was more established and I didn't have to look it up then this would've been a fantastic puzzle, but even as is you could still get a "Eureka" moment if the player was just told upfront that it uses a completely new mechanic and that there are no objects to interact with.
I appreciate that. Obviously, I didn't feel the same way, but it's very neat that you did =D
This might be way too late, but I did get that AHA moment during that "Labyrinth" puzzle. The sign says "RecycLing - CaRboaRd OnLy" looking at all the Rs and Ls from that sign we get the solution. It definitely isn't the best way to convey it, but it's a good note that that it wa there the entire time
Just played this game yesterday and I really feel the point was missed with this video.
Story spoilers ahead:
The whole game is a metaphor for life, how it's ever changing and doesn't always give you what you expect. Sometimes you are thrown a giant curve ball and nothing makes sense, but the point is to have confidence in yourself and not feel like it's impossible. The game even tells you at the end that even when faced with the seemingly impossible (like a "bad puzzle") you relied on yourself, persevered and never gave up.
I feel that the door puzzle is symbolic of hitting rock bottom in life, whether it's depression, drugs, relationships, or whatever. It's easy to say "this doesn't fit my expectations so it's not fair" but it doesn't matter how you feel about it, this is what life has presented to you and it's up to you to be strong enough to not give up and find the solution.
While I will agree that there are better puzzles and better puzzle games, I feel like everything in this game had it's purpose and served the greater narrative perfectly.
I know it is late but the scary part is explained. If you look toward the end of the level you see red paint and paint brushes. Like the employees were marking up the walls.
That's not explained.
When I played the game, that puzzle felt like the most AHA! moment one. It feels really original but also confusing. I get what your point is but i don´t share it.
You can go backwards into the hall puzzle after completing it, it seems like its a thing, an extra puzzle. Nah pretty sure it was a bug, had to reload a checkpoint to get back out of it.
I just finished playing through this, and they updated that problem puzzle to make it a lot more solvable. It's still out of place, but SPOILERS BELOW:
There is a ding or buzzer depending on whether you went in the correct direction which will clue you into the fact that some choice you made affects the outcome. Instead of East/West signs, there's a sealed room in front of you called Hall 01, with the number going up as you succeed and back to 1 if you failed, which further emphasizes that you need to find a pattern to solve it. Lastly, the closed door is replaced with a brick wall covered in do not enter signs.
Personally I missed that there was a puzzle at all the first time because I always try to go the "wrong" way first in a game to look for secrets. Since I accidentalied-myself into the answer, I ended up struggling with this on replay when I was trying to just rush through it. I was so baffled at the fact that I didn't recall the puzzle at all even after I figured it out until I realized my way of playing games cause me to miss it completely
The problem this game has was that it only explored its mechanics shortly, rather than not using them at all, you use them all for a few minutes and then move on, with the exception of the object size changing one. take the character size changing mechanic for example, it's used a couple times but only for a segment and never really gets back to it. Yeah, it does craft a puzzle curve with the mechanics it's presenting, although it's always very short. That's why I think the door puzzle is actually one of the best, because it doesn't use any previous mechanic or any new mechanic, you actually feel the AHA! Moment (which btw, love how you say it) with the other puzzles, you feel it a lot less, but I think it's still there. There's the red apple one where you have to use your own perspective to skip the big fan, the one where you have to use the bouncy castle in order to get to a high platform but instead of using it like a bridge you have to turn an entrance into an exit, both are good examples of puzzles that use a certain mechanic for the last time and give you that AHA.
Anyways, that was a really good video! Keep it up!
I can’t tell if the reasons superliminal was hard for me was because it was good or because I have the mental capacity of a cucumber. I was so confused how the devs coded the game. But the game itself, it helped me when I was battling more demons than I do nowadays. I love it, it has its funny moments, it has it’s ones that make you question why you played this game, and it has a lot that give you a good lesson. Idk bout you guys but I love Dr Glenn Pierce’s voice, his more monotone calm voice feels comforting. It’s a great game, it’s simplistic yet complicated. Dr Glenn Pierce’s speech at the end of the game was great. Anyway, I spent half my life writing this paragraph, I don’t even think I made the point I was trying to make, but I did have an A-Ha! Moment every two seconds of the game
I enjoyed the trip. Puzzles were semi basic but nonetheless a mind opener to dif point of view in the most literal of meanings. apply that experience even in the slightest on pov in real life. I won’t say this game ‘changed my life’ but the ending narration had me taken back and more patient on ‘point of view’ thoughts from other people. Sorry to carry on; just my once a year comment on TH-cam…Happy thanksgiving!
I agree. Despite being an hour and a half long I thought it dragged on. I still enjoyed the game but I didn't love it
Played the game in one run some minutes ago and whoa I did a completely different thing at the doors puzzle. Just as an example when the exit arrow was right, I just pressed the D button so I thought it had to do with your character movement. Maybe it was just random, idk
PS I would say superliminal isn't primarily a puzzle game. It's like more a storytelling game with few puzzle elements. That makes it not better when it comes to your arguments but yeah
Wow i was able to figure out the door puzzle after a few seconds of you showing it
I guess i am a puzzle wizard (not really)
I'm so proud i actually understood the door puzzle.
it just took me something like half an hour
(and it was so AHA!!!!! when it actually worked)
I’m 3 minutes into the video and I think I see where this is heading and exactly what puzzle you’re going to have an issue with (eh em the hall 1,2,3,4 puzzle).
It has to be, it’s so trial and error based that I still don’t actually know how it’s done!
I kinda feel like you're judging a fish on climbing a tree here. I don't think this game is meant to be a puzzle game like Portal. I think this game is much more about the environment than the actual gameplay. I think of it sort of like a parody of itself. You pick up a block and it does something different. Every message from Pierce starts off the same. The humorous amount of alarm clocks. The whole thing is like a very surreal joke. And that's why I like it.
Actually the door puzzle has intersting clues, one is the number of the door itself and I think a sound clue was there also. I was playing this with a friend and he actually noticed how it worked, just by the mechanics. I actually had many euroka momments through the game, only one of the times did I feel like I solved the game by mistake. It really is an experience and tough the story itself might not be that intersting the message at the end was a very touching and related to the game's identity.
I do think that each of the mechanics changes help keep the game interesting, introduce a new mechanic, then play on that idea. With the door puzzle is about learning how it works by playing with it. Just keep going foward until you understand how it works. Some other parts are easier to navigate, which I think is great for the pacing of the game, that you have sections where you are just moving foward, until you find a real challenge to stop you for a couple of minutes.
For me at least, this has been one of the best experinces I've had with a game, specially the later half had me amazed with all the creativity behind this ideas. Probably will be one of my favorite games.
It pivoted into a "find hidden item" game, and I think most player enjoy more about treasure hunting than the main puzzles themselves.
I appreciate the review, though I do feel you missed the point of the game. Still, I appreciate the critique.
8:01 i agree with you in this one, but i got to say that i did get that ahaa moment when i figured this out.
I loved that puzzle, just gotta pay attention
Firstly, I think that the plot and story line is very interesting because it involves perception of reality and its very detailed. The horror aspect adds suspense and more plotholes for lore. The cloning puzzle concept may represent the deteriorating of the mind. I will add that the left right puzzle is confusing and I do think that should've been more obvious, and I agree that it isn't a puzzle at all, and makes use of guessing or searching for a video of the solution, which I did on my first playthrough, so that 'puzzle' is not very good. Overall, the resizing mechanic is very smart and fun to do. I also like that the game has a storyline, with most puzzles not having one. Also, the addition of the tapes and the doctor adds more lore, signifying that you are playing a person in a coma, therefore adding lots of conspiracies by doing so. The storyline is interesting, and is overall a good game. I like the concept of going behind the scene, behind the 'safe' and I think that it adds lots of suspense and depth into the game. Thank you for getting this far. These were just my views on the game and I do not dislike the person who made this video, I just feel like this game was a fun experience and I do recommend it. That is all.
I dont agree about that puzzle, ive so great AHA moment, that this is my most remebred puzzle, because i have figured out it. All friends i have shownd this game were to.
"It's a bad puzzle game"
"But it's not a puzzle game!"
"So.... it's bad at being a puzzle game..."
Literally the first five words on their store page are "a first person puzzle game."
That you would say this is very very dumb.
@@reallycool but it worked rather well with most of us didn't it? Rather, look at yourself!
@@doneedanickname3522 It's false advertising.
@@reallycool I think what he's saying is marketing isn't always truthful. I call it an art game.
the corridor puzzle was too hard with no buildup, and i couldn't figure it out, but there is the hint of "perception is not reality" which i thought was clever afterwards
The person who made this video needs a big ol WOOOOSH
(Spoilers!)
The horror stuff is simple there to help plant a ‘something is wrong’ seed in your mind (the robot going haywire and all) that to create context for the twist: nothing actually is wrong!
The door puzzle was maybe one that gave me the biggest ‘oooh!’ feeling. I absolutely loved it. Didn’t really take that long to figure out either.
I really liked the game in general. It fits in with what I’d call fairly-simple-puzzle-games-with-focus-on-vibe-and-aesthetics. In some ways I feel it has more in common with Monument Valley (or the more recent LEGO Builder’s Journey) than Portal, despite being first person perspective. Heh, you’ve made me want to check out The Turing Test and Quantum Conundrum.
Anyway, it’s pretty subjective I guess. I found the game a lot of fun, including some of the stuff you disliked. Still, interesting to hear perspectives of others even tho I disagree. Thanks for making the video!
Thanks for the rational comment ;)
I think that the constant introduction and then conclusion of certain puzzle aspects (i.e. Light and Dark, Character Size, Image Matching, etc.) is more of a refresher in the overall consistency of the games’ primary use of perspective rather than just a hodgepodge of ideas. Stuff growing bigger and smaller is the constant while stuff like cloning and light sources are the variables. I do agree on the door puzzle being a giant deviation to the expectations the game has set this far in and that the story could’ve been more, but I definitely wouldn’t call the game incomplete in its role as a true puzzle game.
Why are you getting so much backlash for a well thought out and interesting video? I don't fully agree with everything you say, but I can see where you are coming from, additionally with some of the puzzles not being explained at all. Your willingness to be open about your opinions on this game and your commitment to your stance on the game, has won my subscription.
It's a nuanced position that I think it's a good game but a bad puzzle game, and people seem to think I'm saying it's a bad game.
I recently beat the game and felt the same way about the puzzles. Some of them are basically pointing and clicking everything until you find an object that arbitrarily could be subject to changing perspective and that was pretty boring, like that puzzle involving the moon.
One of the only puzzles that was a "Aha moment" was one of the first ones involving an exit sign and two buttons. That was the only one that i felt pretty smart figuring out.
Also, i think that the exit doors one wasnt that bad. Granted, it doesnt involve any of the mechanics from the game, but is pretty straight forward with its elements. The "point and clicking everything" ones are the worst.
Dude I do fucking love Superliminal. Hell yeah.
I like to think each puzzle is related therapy-wise. If you go back and look at certain layer, it may or may not be supposed to be related to a therapic problem. For example, the fake horror layer is supposed to either represent how u can dramatize situations which aren't really that problematic, or maybe it represents conquering fear or a whole bunch of other things. White space may represent how every one of us started as nothing, but became something through our actions and wills, or something like that from the speech. It's less of a puzzle game, and more of a exquisite and way more interactive therapy session. At least that's how I felt playing. What are your thoughts?
I'm sure that is where the design came from.
I personally don't think this game was meant to be good. Its an experience, a lesson, and a therapy session. Because it teaches about perspective.
I actually figured out that puzzle on my own they've since updated it to have a buzzer and a ding and changed the closed door to a wall. Maybe that was enough to fix it or I was lucky, I'm not sure but I felt clever when I got it
Just finished this game today on the switch. I was kinda... disappointed? From the trailer it looked so much crazier and funny but the game was very linear, very few objects to interact with in each room and not much to explore outside the puzzles. I remeber playing the demo on PC (museum of simulation technologies, discovered through markiplier) and it was so much fun. Also the setting never changes it's always the same warehouse or fake hotel, except some areas there is nothing that gives that sense of "weird reality" you see in dreams. As for the door puzzle, now's different but I completed it without even knowing how. Honestly, liked it a lot but don't think it was worth 18€
The puzzles were pretty average but the story is pretty good. I really enjoyed the 'horror' segment the most. I frequently have nightmares and their portration of it is pretty close to it except without the screamers that I always had. The demographic is obviously the common puzzle gamers. If they made it out-of-the-box even more, it would be more likely frustrating than having that immersive dream-like play.
It's a good game. It's just not a good puzzle game.
@@reallycool CUZ ITS NOT A PUZZLE GAME.
JESUS
@@Bamburfix the steam page would disagree with you
Yes it is. twitter.com/CryMorGaming/status/1335998692986408963
This was a good, well structured video.
However, while I understand what you are trying to get at I think your core message of superliminal is a bad puzzle game is a bit vague. I don’t think the game is meant to strictly be a puzzle game but rather a exploration/experince game. I feel like if your core idea was something like “superliminal is a good game with poor puzzlemechanics people would agree more with you. Props on giving updates almost a year after uploading and the respectfull/constructive commenting in the comment section. This is great content and a great learning oppertunity.
Side note: sorry for spelling/gramatical errors english isn’t my native langugue
Edit: already spotted some spelling errors :/
I wouldn't have known you didn't speak English natively if you hadn't said so ;)
@@reallycool thanks!
They might add more content tho. And if they do, might you re visit it. Its not a puzzle game and i dont think it was their intention to make a puzzle game, just more of a one time experience kind of thing and i like those kind of games.
Yeah, of course. Like I said, I enjoyed the game quite a bit for what it is.
yeaaap, there were a lot of stuff with Superliminal where I felt like it was "cheating" and dropped it. It's like that guy who tries to tell you slick jokes, and because you dont know him like that, it's just awkward and you roll your eyes. It was cool until I had enough of it. (i read some comments saying it was suppose to be more of an "experience" than a puzzle game, as I was typing this comment. So now it's pretentious lol. Once again, rolling my eyes haha)
wtf are you talking about, the goal is to reach the exit. Doesn't really fit with the whole "change your perspective" theme but the gameplay objective is much clearer than scribblenauts or whatever