Well… I genuinely regret wasting my time on this. But we need to start at the…

During this review i’ll be doing a lot of comparisons to “Superliminal”, since this game was clearly “inspired” by it. It was also “inspired” by a leaked concept of “F-Stop”, which is my first main grudge - Viewfinder is not a unique game and it lead me to believe, that an entire idea was simply stolen from a multitude of other projects. And it could explain why this game is such a mess. But it is a puzzle game, what can be so wrong with it? Well…

Puzzles are the main issue here - they are braindead. Like, there weren’t a single “Aha!” moment through my entire playthrough, and each puzzle may be solved within 5 minutes. And once you compare them to “Superliminal”, it becomes pathetic.
See, the core premise here is you taking pictures and being able to place those pictures back into the world. Sounds fun, right? Imagine, that you can make a picture of a wall in a weird angle and place that wall in an absurdly stretched way…
Well, keep imagining. It is not “Superliminal”, where perspective matters. Instead, distance - is the only thing that matters. Seriously, no perspective during the shot or its placement, nothing. Nada. Simply step away a bit further and you’ve made a necessary shot. But that makes too much sense, so…
Your photo does not only captures what is in front of you. If you photograph a wall, everything behind it is also captured. Like, how dumb this is?
And the worst part - there is no consistency. The world isn’t continuous and instead - it is a series of disjointed puzzles.
You have a 4 hub worlds, each containing about 5 teleporters to a different set of puzzles. Once you’re done with a set, you simply return to a Hub, walk to the next teleporter, repeat. This might’ve had any sense, if not for the…

Yeah… There is a story, unfortunately. The whole world - is a simulation. And you go through it in order to find a technology to save your real world. A technology, that works in an unrealistic simulation, should work and save the real world. A 5 year old written this?
But if this game was trying to NOT make any sense, it definitely succeeded. Because you also discover CAIT (an artificial cat, sort of an archival brain of this simulation), which, for some reason, has emotions. And also lies. A computer, that has emotions, that can also lie, that “lives” in an unrealistic simulation, however not being able to interact with his own world. And the worst part about all of it? There is no relief, not conclusion or anything. It isn’t “Superliminal, which felt like a therapy that actually made sense. It genuinely felt like a kid writing his fever dream, and this kid was “special”… And even if this wasn’t enough, you do not actually experience any of the story - all of it is presented in a form of voice memos, scattered through puzzle islands. And “scattered” goes to their context as well.
Yeah, i’m loosing sanity by just describing it. So let’s transition to…

Credit where it’s due - graphics is very pleasant and nice. It isn’t anything remarkable, but it is good. Most of the assets belong here, and overall it is an eye relief. Also, i liked the artstyle - it is soft, somewhat realistic, with some color painting vibes. It is simply good, unlike…

Well, sound should be separated into 2 things: overall sound, music and effects AND voiceover.
Sounds are nice, soundtrack is surprisingly decent and I’ve actually bought it to listen. And sound effects, well, they’re there, nothing remarkable.
And then you get voiceover… Jesus… There are some actors, who are genuinely trying, and then there is CAIT and your “supervisor” form a real world. Both of them are obnoxious, acting terribly, with a worst sound balancing I’ve experienced in a while.
Compare this narration to something like “Superliminal” with an extremely well paced and played acting, or “Portal” with a single GLaDOS doing all the work, and you’ve got yourself a huge disappointment. So…

You want to literally waste your evening or a even couple of them? Then it is a perfect “game” for the occasion. And if not - just stay away. There is nothing to discover here, no inspiration, no nothing. It is a student project at best, and it was never supposed to be released. Maybe it is a decent “proof of concept” (i’m being generous here), but it isn’t a finished worthy experience.
And if you want something interesting and fun in a puzzle genre - go play Superliminal, both Portal games, whatever game that has puzzles, but not this one.

And what rating i would give? 4/10, tops.

An absolute must play, especially if you enjoyed Portal and Portal 2. Very impressive mind bending puzzles that are a joy to solve.

The basic concept is a clone of the Talos Principle - you're wandering around inside a computer simulation, solving puzzles and listening to a story about how the world is coming to an end because of climate change, and you're somehow trying to find a way of stopping it. But it's a very bland and disappointing clone - whereas the Talos Principle is (in places) quite visually stunning, this is just cartoon-like. The puzzles are mostly pretty simple - think 5 minutes max to solve each one - and all revolve around just one concept - taking photos which you can then step into in order to achieve something. Unlike Talos, the music is very bland and repetitive, and the running commentary which tells you the climate change story is simply trite - the Talos story makes you think, here it just irritated me. Talos has little side-challenges, Viewfinder doesn't. And in Talos, once you've finished each puzzle you feel reluctant to leave and WANT to go on and explore that world further, whereas here I felt a sense of relief that I could get away and do something more interesting for a while. It's mildly entertaining, but it's certainly not brilliant and I wouldn't recommend it. Both Talos and Talos 2 are available for about the same price and both are much more satisfying to play than this.