Viewfinder: The grade is in!
A review of Viewfinder, a perspective-based puzzle game from Sad Owl Studios
Welcome back to The Report Card. Today, I’m taking a snapshot of:
The Grade
At The Report Card, we get right into it. Here’s what you need to know:
GRADE: B-
DEV: Sad Owl Studios
DEV GPA: N/A → 2.70
PRICE: $24.99
HIGHLIGHTS: Mechanics, Gameplay, Atmosphere
LOWLIGHTS: Difficulty, Playtime, Story
Is it worth the money? The Report Card community says:
The Basics
Viewfinder is a puzzle game where you manipulate the world around you using photographs (see above). The objective of the game is to take pictures, then use those pictures to power or reach teleporters, which transport you to the next level.
The Good
Viewfinder is a fun game — I had a good time playing it. And I’d attribute that fun-ness mostly to the game’s creatively implemented mechanics. As you can probably guess, the bulk of Viewfinder has to do with photographs. You take photos or use photos you’ve found to duplicate items, create makeshift bridges, teleport yourself, and much more. But there’s also one of my favorite mechanics: Rewinding. In Viewfinder, it’s impossible to die. If you get into a sticky situation, you can just hit the rewind button and undo your mistake. Jump off a cliff? No worries! Get stuck? Not a problem! Accidentally rip apart the fabric of reality? Just rewind!
The photo mechanics and the rewinding are quite enjoyable to learn, and the introduction of new concepts and mechanics is decently paced so that you never end up feeling overwhelmed. The tools Viewfinder gives you are a breath of fresh air in a genre that can sometimes feel stale. And because the mechanics are so well executed and unlike anything I’ve seen before, the resulting gameplay is refreshing as well.
There was an “ah-ha!” moment with nearly every puzzle in the game, where I figured out what the game wanted me to do and then came up with a plan to get there. And I liked playing the game beyond solving the puzzles — simply traversing the world and taking photos was enjoyable on its own. Treating the game like a sandbox and seeing what kind of crazy stuff I could get away with was half the fun.
And throughout my playthrough, I was thinking, “Wow, this level looks cool,” or, “Man, I love the art in this section!” And now, looking back on the game, it’s obvious that its visuals and atmosphere are incredibly well executed. The floating islands in the sky, the warm pastel color palette, the shifting art styles — the visuals really elevate the game and add to the experience in a meaningful way. In a game about photos, I’m glad that the visuals did the gameplay justice.
So. You’re probably wondering why I sing the game’s praises and still give it a B-. And here’s my question to you: Did you read the heading of this section? I think lots of people these days play a game and either call it a “bad game” or a “good game” and forget that most games have qualities of both.
Yes, I gave Viewfinder a B-. It’s a good game, and the core concept is one of the best I’ve seen in a puzzle game in a long time. However, there’s a lot of room for improvement. And I mean a lot.
The Bad (And Potential Fixes)
First off, Viewfinder is too easy. The mechanics, while interesting and fun to use, don’t have all that much depth. The skill ceiling is on the floor. The result is that the game ends up being very casual. Even my mother, who doesn’t do well with video games, could probably play without too much difficulty. A game being casual can be a pro or a con, and is, in this case, both. This is definitely a game you can go to if you just want to chill, and I can appreciate that. Ultimately, though, I’m left wishing the game was just a little harder.
Throughout my entire playthrough of Viewfinder, I only got stuck twice. I don’t think that should happen in a good puzzle game, because if it does, then the solves don’t feel nearly as satisfying. There was even a point during the story when I felt as though I was just grinding. I wasn’t challenged at all, and was just trying to complete the levels as fast as possible so I could move on to the next zone (which I was hoping would provide some sort of difficulty). Look, I’m not asking for the Dark Souls of puzzle games here. The game shouldn’t be too difficult. But I do think that the devs went a little too easy on us.
Now, I wouldn’t be so pissed off at the difficulty of the game if there was a way for players to make levels. If there was some sort of level builder and a community level system, the difficulty of the main game wouldn’t matter nearly as much because the players could make super hard levels for each other to enjoy. But nope, the story mode is all we get. No level builder, no mod support, nothing. And don’t tell me it isn’t feasible — Portal 2 did it in 2012 and Escape Simulator, an indie game like Viewfinder, had it on release in 2021. I think this is a huge miss for a puzzle game released this year, and dooms it to fade into irrelevance in record time.
But the difficulty isn’t the only reason why I’m flabbergasted there’s no community levels — the game itself is heinously short. I spent less than five hours in total on the entire game. That’s counting the entire story mode, all the optional levels I did, and all the time I spent on the menus and watching the credits. I was actively tried to kill time and still finished the game in under five hours. It took me a few sittings to get through it, but I’m sure I could have finished it in one.
I spent $25 on this game! That’s five dollars an hour! Compare that to a game like Halls of Torment, where I’ve spent 30 cents an hour, or League of Legends, where I’ve probably spent .0002 cents an hour, and you can see how the bang-for-your-buck factor is really lacking in Viewfinder. This is probably the biggest downside of the game. It’s a good experience while it lasts, sure, but when I can only get five meaningful hours out of it, I start to question if it was worth it.
Maybe you’re hoping there’s some sort of replayability to it somewhere, but, besides speedrunning, I can’t think of any. I went back and played a level in preparation for this article, but it wasn’t nearly as captivating as the first time because I already knew the solution. And almost all the levels have only one or two ways to solve them. I messed around with the physics and the camera for a bit, but then grew bored. It’s super disappointing.
And don’t even get me started on the story. I have one word for it: Cringe. I’m sorry if you played it and you like the story. But seriously? If you’re not in the know, the game is about… climate change? The majority of Viewfinder takes place in an abandoned simulation where a team of forgettable characters were once working on solutions for global warming. The objective of you, the player, is to find some giant gun that can change the weather so that you can save the dying world. So you solve the puzzles to try to get to different chapters, each one centering around a different character and a different gimmick. I honestly cannot tell you the name of a single character except Cait, because Cait is a cat.
I don’t want to talk about the story any more. It was asinine, it made no sense, and its attempts to convey some deep and meaningful message fell completely flat. “Climate change is bad” has got to be the most obvious and shallow moral of them all. And if you listened to all the in-game collectibles, like I did, you would know that there’s another subplot surrounding the personalities of the characters whose names I can’t remember, and the moral there is: Don’t be close-minded. Huh.
Honestly, the game would have been better off with no story, because what we got is the narrative equivalent of an empty garbage bag.
The End
So yeah, Viewfinder gets a B-. It’s an interesting game that keeps you entertained until you beat it, but then you sort of sit there as the credits roll and think to yourself, “That’s it? Really?”
I was very close to giving this one a solid B, but it’s just lacking such important features that I’ve come to expect from video games in the modern era.
There is no future for Viewfinder. Without community support, there is no way it will remain in anybody’s mind (or Steam library) for long. But for some, that’s absolutely fine. A one-and-done game is acceptable. My advice; pick this one up if you’ve got money to burn, you like easy puzzles, and don’t mind if a game is a one-off. The question isn’t, “Is it fun?” Because it is. The question is, “Is it worth it?”
What did you think of this review? What do you think of Viewfinder? Let me know in the comments.