84) Viewfinder (2023)

Starting as an experiment by Matt Stark in 2019, early footage of the prototype went viral in 2020, leading to him dropping out of university to focus on development. By 2021, he had developed the concept enough to establish the studio Robot Turtle in order to fully build out the game alongside Robot Teddy. The team took influence from other puzzle games, chief among them being Portal, including the way in which Portal slowly introduces players to new mechanics. The game centers around what creator Matt Stark calls the "Polaroid Effect", making full use of the player's ability to change three dimensional environments using two dimensional images.

It's a bit hard to fully explain in simple words how the game plays. At its most basic, you can alter the landscape based on simple perspective. Sometimes you're tasked with making an object appear by lining up images in your eyesight not unlike a traditional puzzle. Other times, you're tasked with holding a photo in such a way that when you activate it, it creates a tangible place for you to travel to. As the story progresses, you're given more options and new mechanics that never seem overwhelming thanks in large part to the expert way in which things are paced. Most puzzles have multiple ways in which to complete them, and while I was proud of myself for finding clever ways to solve a puzzle, I also found myself able to brute force my way through a few without fully grasping the intended lesson, which speaks more to my stupidity than it does to the game.

The story of the game is fairly bare and more than a little intentionally vague. We play as someone inserted into a simulation developed by researchers looking for a way to revitalize plant life on a now barren Earth. We explore the worlds created by these researchers, finding notes and audio recordings that give a bit more insight into the work being done. Along the way, we're assisted by a partner in the real world who speaks to us from time to time, as well as a digital assistant cat named Cait, who helps guide our understanding of what happened in this digital realm.

Though a relatively short experience, the puzzles are fun and challenging, with the later ones truly testing your ability to utilize all that you've learned and think outside the box. The narrative often comes off as tertiary, with the puzzles and the beautiful visuals taking center stage. Though not necessarily a complaint, it does come off as a fairly weak justification for the puzzles we're presented with. It's fun to test things out and see other ways in which we can solve the same puzzle, and the game has enough challenges and hidden collectibles to offer a reason to revisit. If you're looking for a beautiful puzzle game that will bend the way you think of perspective in games, then I highly recommend Viewfinder.