Superliminal Review – a question of perspective
Our dreams are often exciting, arresting and frightening – sometimes they are all three at the same time. Superliminal is a puzzle game that tries to explore those feelings and the fuzzy logic that only exists in our dreams. Impressive it evokes many of the emotions we have in our sleep. Unfortunately, using dream logic to solve real puzzles is also part of the frustration.
Superliminal is an ego-puzzler who plays with forced perspectives. One of the strongest tricks is how to use your perspective to manipulate objects. For example, if you hold an apple close to your face, it looks bigger than it actually is. In Superliminal you can use this to your advantage. So if you keep small objects close, they actually get bigger. It works both ways, and I got the thrill of picking huge houses off the horizon to make them smaller so I could put them on a table as if they were a doll accessory. This perspective manipulation mechanic is really neat and I enjoyed pulling together large objects to fit through tiny holes and enlarge small cracks of cheese to create ramps to second-floor doors.
As superliminal progresses, his puzzles develop naturally. However, things are rarely what they seem, and developer Pillow Castle is constantly playing with your expectations. For example, I grabbed a box once to see it break up in my hands. Some of the superliminal levels are less puzzles than interactive optical illusions, and the environment changes and warps as you move. These moments are neat, but they can also be confusing, like going through a door and suddenly falling through the floor.
The exploration of the illogical spaces of Superliminal is new and unfortunately leads to one of the biggest mistakes of the game: It is sometimes difficult to know what the game requires of the player. At some point I got stuck in a winding corridor. Every time I tried to leave the area, I entered the same room again. I finally solved this puzzle by touching a certain object every time I walked by, but the game never tells me why I had to do it or how I could evolve. Many of the puzzles of Superliminal provide clever solutions, but I was occasionally trapped in a dull situation that scratched my head, even after I stumbled upon the solution.
This entire trippy experience is wrapped around a loose tale about waking up dreams. At the beginning of the game you “wake up” in a clinic to participate in an experimental dream therapy program, but it quickly becomes clear that you are trapped in your own mind. The founder of the clinic, dr. Glenn Pierce occasionally sends cheeky messages that make fun of New Age therapy and ultimately encourage players to look at the world from a different perspective. Overconscious humor is pretty harmless, but the jokes do not always end up, and the story leaves no lasting impression.
Overall, I see Superliminal like that. When the mechanics of Superliminal worked, I felt like I was in a magic trick, but when they did not, the developers played a trick on me. I was both amused and frustrated when I played Superliminal, but did not think much about the game after the merit. Like a fading dream, Superliminal is also a bit transient.
