izigame.me

I had Superliminal on my wishlist since it came out, and I really, really wanted to love it. I did. I love puzzle games and the hook of solutions being based on your perspective sounded like a great premise- it reminded me of the obelisk puzzles in The Witness, which felt very mind-bending and rewarding. Exploring "out of bounds" of the shiny dream facility was reminiscent of Portal when you get to peek behind the grand curtains of science to the dirty behind-the-scenes, and they did a great job on the aesthetic and atmosphere.
However, even with these similarities to two of my favourite puzzle games of all time, Superliminal fell flat.
The key to a good puzzle game is when it introduces you to a mechanic, gets you used to it and makes it harder, then pushes the mechanic beyond recognition and forces you to look at the puzzle completely differently than you've gotten used to. Superliminal barely even got to the second step. The mechanics are cool in theory but never explored to a fulfilling degree, much less pushed to their limits as one might expect of a dream world. I also had qualms with how such a small number of objects had interactions enabled that it was obvious when something was key to a puzzle- it requires no thinking to just click around until you finally happen across something you can interact with.
After completing the game, it felt like every solution was either make this object bigger, make that object smaller, or stand in this specific place to perceive things the right way. All the levels flowed into one another and were not very memorable. I want a puzzle game to make me feel stupid (and trust me, it's not that hard) but it didn't happen once. You'll end up solving puzzle after puzzle after puzzle and never getting that dopamine hit when everything finally clicks into place. It is still a game with lovely graphics, intriguing story, and top-notch atmosphere, but the actual gameplay feels quite unrealized, falling well short of its potential.
If you want to explore a dream, sleep is free.