Superliminial Spiel

by Rian

I don’t know what makes puzzle-solving as a genre so ripe with indie games. The Portal franchise started as an indie project until Valve scooped them up, more recent Baba Is You is a literal indie game filled with programmer jokes. Perhaps it’s the financial limitations that translate into developments, or the metas and homages the indie developers wanted to play with. But ultimately what makes your game independent from its heritage should not be the money nor amount of respects it’s paying.

What should make Superliminal special would be its core mechanics. Surely we cannot expect all games to be like Valve’s, nor should we. Unfortunately, this is where the game becomes janky and unpolished. More often than not I was stuck in a level not because its difficulty in puzzles, but rather the controls themselves would not adhere to my expectations. The puzzles would require finer control beyond what seems to be the design limit of what the in-game control provides.

Superliminal is a contemporary game. If someone were to twist my arm for more details, I’d say it’s a homage game, not a puzzle game. Truly the later part of the game is defined by ‘hold on, isn’t that also a homage?’ moments. With reused assets to create lab environment atmosphere, and run-down, ill-maintained part of the map as story progression, it has those moment from Portal to The Unfinished Swan. However the transitions do not necessarily work in favor of the game, as predecessors simply had different puzzle mechanics.

And this is where the game felt short, shorter than it should be. In puzzle as a genre, mechanics are only added in the beginning. The rest is development in complexity of the puzzles, so that players can solve the puzzles with already familiarized mechanics. Because Superliminal is adding new mechanics per chapter with new homage, I was more interested in what the game could offer in current chapter setup then to hurry to the next chapter.

Conclusion: Not More, But Longer Please

As much as I appreciated what Superliminal is trying to achieve, —playing with one solid mechanic in old fashioned way— it deviated too much to add more contents. Some chapters had interesting atmosphere with fun puzzles that are well incorporated into the environment to the point where I was curious if I was hoping to see it again in the next chapter. The game also doesn’t offer hardcore modes, or community map support, as far as I am aware, which is not in alignment with other puzzle games that offer extra challenges for returning players. It left me wanting to see something longer, more in-depth, but not more chapters.