14 DAY TRIAL // 
Is it a plane? Is it a twister? Is it big? Is it small? Is it Portal? Is it The Stanley Parable? Yes it is and well no, it is not – it all depends where are you looking from. “It” is Superliminal, a new take on puzzle games, a title that combines the best features of the games that came before, proving to be a must-have for all the fans of the genre.
In other words, if you liked Portal of The Stanley Parable you will love Superliminal. If you have lived under a rock and somehow managed to avoid any contact with the new generation of puzzle games, this title is the best way to catch up with what you have missed.
The basic elements remain the same in all the representatives of this new wave of puzzle games: first-person view, a more or less elaborate story that constitutes the motivation to go and solve tons of puzzles, and a setting that makes the whole package believable. The scope is to solve your way to the ending, by manipulating different objects, while taking advantage of the creative use of perspectives and the laws of physics.
In the case of Superliminal, the story takes us to an institute that studies dream therapy. As one of the candidates, our main mission is to dream and through it manipulate our surroundings until we get to the end. While it may sound simple and banal, the level design ensures the constant sweating of our neurons, in a perpetual chase of solutions and of finding the correct perspective.
The latter is the key feature of the game, Superliminal challenging you to remodel the surrounding reality by changing the angle from which you observe it. But what is perspective? Well, the simplest explanation is related to the way different objects are conveyed to create the illusion of 3D and spatiality.
Let’s take for example a chess piece, the knight. The closer it is to use the larger it seems, while the further it is the smaller it appears. If we pick it up from the table and hold it in our palm we will perceive it at its regular size, if we move it in front of our eye it will seem huge, but if we move it to the furthest corner of the room it will seem very small.
Superliminal takes advantage of these changes in perception and tasks the player to solve different puzzles by manipulating various objects through changing perspectives. Thus a small triangle can become a room-size ramp that helps you reach a door placed closed to the ceiling, just as a medicine ball can be shrunk to the size of a billiard ball to fit in a hole.
Superliminal plays in an ingenious, subtle, yet so straightforward way with the players’ perceptions, nudging them through the room after room of ever-growing challenges. After you get somewhat used to manipulating sizes, the game throws at you devious set-ups, where the solutions become less and less obvious.
Without revealing all the surprises that await you beyond magnifying and shrinking various objects, encountering optical illusions, and cloning various objects, we can say that there is one common denominator: the humor of it all.
Superliminal is a funny game that does not take itself seriously. The best example for this is your two companions, who will be with you during the entire experiment, always as a vocal presence, but never as physical ones. The 1st will be an AI, supervising your performance, while the other one is the head of the clinic. Both of them have a strong personality, and the developers made sure to build these up through a series of funny and witty dialogues. Beyond advancing the story these remarks contain several easter eggs, in the same way as the decorum of your surroundings does.
The biggest problem with the game is that it is short, very short. Even novice players can rush through it in a couple of hours. Some collectibles are very well hidden, and after the first playthrough, you unlock the director’s commentary along with a speed run mode. Still, everything that Superliminal has to offer can be completed on a rainy afternoon, having enough time left to see a movie as well.
The console version coming late to the party compared to the PC release has its benefits, most, if not all the bugs having been eliminated. The graphics are not great, not terrible, and the framerate is constant, but overall it seems a bit too simplistic and outdated. The nine chapters have different visual themes, that are well supported acoustically, but the transition among them could be smoother.
The Good
- Brilliant ideas, although not fully explored
- Challenging, ingenious puzzles
- Great sense of humor
The Bad
- Too short with no real replay value
- Somewhat outdated graphics
- The ending could have been better
Conclusion
Overall Superliminal is a great puzzle experience, and you feel throughout it that the developers had fun putting it together. This is a dream therapy that actually works, being funny and creative at the same time.
