What Happens If You Take A Picture Of YOURSELF? - Viewfinder
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2023
- Viewfinder Part 4 - the selfie mechanic has arrived, which is a lot more terrifying when anything photographed can be placed into the environment. What happens when that 'anything' is your own being? Also, you have to see the final challenge in this video, it's one of my favorite puzzle game experiences period.
Edited by: Dan White
#aliensrock #puzzle #puzzlegame
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**VIDEO SPOILERS BELOW**
The original concept of Viewfinder's camera comes from F-Stop, a Valve prototype intended to be the foundation of Portal 2. This was scrapped for the Portal 2 we all know and love today, and for some reason, Valve never tried to use the camera again. Today’s Viewfinder realizes Valve’s dreams and combines them with modern advancements in technology and game design. The environments are clever and gorgeous, the mechanics are natural and satisfying, the puzzles are logical and novel, and the writing is a giant step backwards.
Walking around Viewfinder feels like a beautiful dream, and it diegetically being a simulation does not remove its awe. It’s the perfect balance of relaxing, trippy, and digestible. For gameplay, the small levels prevent the player from getting lost, and the important puzzle elements are never obnoxiously hidden. In a puzzle game, it is incredibly frustrating when non puzzle aspects get in the way of puzzle solving.
One such aspect is dexterity. There is no correlation between dexterity and puzzle solving ability, and I’m positive that many people play puzzle games to avoid dexterity challenges. Many puzzle games still suffer from the dexterity issue, which Viewfinder solves by adding the rewind function. Feeling like first person Braid, there is now no external barrier between you and the sweet dopamine of puzzle solving. Ramping up the puzzle difficulty now comes with much less frustration, and everything is in its right place for some awesome puzzles.
Unfortunately, every single puzzle in Viewfinder was easy. That’s not always a bad thing, because at least you can still provide value through novelty. Thankfully, nearly every single puzzle provides a new interaction, and this continues through the entire playtime of the game. They never gave a chance for a mechanic to get old, and that aspect goes underappreciated. So many puzzle games sputter out in the second half because they can’t innovate, but Viewfinder quits while it’s ahead. Superliminal, the most similar game out there, is half Viewfinder’s length and still manages to sputter out in the second half. Both games are piss easy.
Viewfinder is so easy because every puzzle teaches you a novelty in extremely tiny increments. A harder puzzle game would take a concept that needs 5 steps to learn and teach it over 2 puzzles, whereas this game teaches that same concept over 5 puzzles. This is the same way that Patrick’s Parabox taught its mind bending mechanics, and it’s extremely effective at teaching to non puzzle experts. It also makes the game very easy.
There was exactly one hard puzzle, and that was solving the timed challenge on my first try. I know it was hard because I spent hours afterwards watching other UA-camrs play, and not a single other person got it first try. Solving this was a huge rush and the pinnacle of my enjoyment here. There is simply no better way to prove mastery on an easy skill set than to set a timer and to force the player to think fast. The length was just right for not needing dexterity, though I admit it doesn’t cater to puzzle novices like the rest of the game. If a level editor is added like it should be, then I hope they include a countdown timer. I would actually return to this game to play some timed puzzles, and I bet you guys would love watching it.
Adding a level editor would be the best way to address the game being “too short”. They could have added hard puzzles, but they must have realized that due to the overpowered nature of the camera, hard puzzles would be unfun to solve. They also could’ve let the story drag the game on like Portal 2, but after replaying the game to see the writing, I am incredibly glad that they didn’t.
As much as I want to rip on the writing, they did include an option to mute dialogue, and the game is perfectly fine to play without the story. If I had to ask one thing, it would be for an option to only mute Jessie and the cat, so you can experience the mediocre main story without the infantilizing narration of those two. I’d enjoy talking about why I don’t like the story and narration, because the reasons are greater than “I just want to play the game”, but I don't know if people would be interested.
Is it the best puzzle game it can possibly be? No, but playing it was a lot of fun. I recommend Viewfinder to puzzle game novices and anyone who can appreciate a truly special main mechanic. I hope a level editor comes out one day, and if it does, I’ll see you right back here.
Overall Rating: 8/10 (Great)
Had a feeling this game was going to be around an 8/10 just comparing how you reacted to the puzzles in this game vs your 10/10 games. I think 8 is a fair rating, especially with how easy this game is
I actually would be interested in hearing what you didn't like about the story elements. This may be because I haven't seen that much regarding the story in the first place though.
I completely agree, this entire time I was watching your playthrough, I couldn’t help but get reminded of Portal’s own puzzles. Also, I didn’t know you wrote game reviews (I’ve only discovered this channel recently) and this was really fun to read. You have a very impressive vocabulary.
@@prototype1795 Ya, he does this at the end of every puzzle series he completes, it's pretty cool engagement.
"infantalizing narration of those two" is not a wrong statement, but is really, really funny
that’s called a selfie tyler
bhitting sricks nr
You became a selfie Tyler?
Honestly I kind of expected the game to end by destroying yourself with your own camera taking a selfie
Ok that's a good one, take my like
@@aa01blue38Same
The fact that you got the final level first try with only a few pictures is crazy. I spent like two days gameplanning a route and thinking about every picture lmao
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
Crazy?
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room.
A rubber room with rats.
And rats make me crazy!
The big thing was he kept things simple and didn't overthink his solutions. And while in panic mode at the start of every stage he made sure to locate his resources and formulate the path required of him. Which for many I think overthinking and not properly forming a path seems to be a common problem for first tries based on this comment section and other playthroughs.
Its really not hard, XD, i did it first try by keeping battery and tp fotos on me as backup.
I got the first 4 faster than him
@@RTOmegathey go away when you flip the switch lol
I was somehow expecting the game's final interaction to be a mirror/selfie with a black camera to delete yourself (with maybe a clever way around towards the real solution of the puzzle).
that would be insane
it getting destroyed by the void isn't that big of a deal. it's just instead of being able to infinitely duplicate anything, you are moving it instead
yeah it's basically like if you put a blank photo there at the same time as taking a picture of it
think of it as CTRL + X instead of CTRL + C
@@Hlebuw3k oh that's a MUCH better way to put it
@@Hlebuw3k
Instead of "Copy & Paste", it's "Cut & Paste".
holy shit that final level was the coolest thing ever. seeing tyler the puzzle game veteran barely make it through the challenging and well thought out puzzles that required him to think on his feet was so awesome wow
Holy shit, the final level was such a good way to send the game off. This was such a good game
Thank you editors for putting in gameplay notes every so often!
They're too much sometimes. I watch on 2x speed and have to pause every now and then just to read something that turns out to be not really important.
@@tritoner1221that’s because they don’t plan for people to be at 2x speed, it’s your problem, not the editors
@@mangoman1096 Everything is a consumer problem, but the loss of potential revenue is the problem of the producer. I am not merely an individual, but rather a part of a percentage of income, and the experience of the group I belong to may be impacted negatively. Even if said percentage is negligible, some compromise always maximizes profit.
@@tritoner1221 bro is acting like hes paying for these videos lmao
@@techheck3358 We are all paying for them, in some sense. Be it a possibility of becoming a patron, youtube ads, or even just watch time.
So the catch with the last time based puzzle was, that you can bring pictures with yourself from earlier puzzle, for example, there was a boombox that doesn't needed at that part of the challenge, but you can take a picture of it, and then use it in the music puzzle
Thank you Tyler for finding out what happens when you take a picture of yourself
So in other words, all of this effort was put in so that we could effectively manifest a plant and bring it back.
Guess they've got a lot of wind and solar farms to replace with forests again.
IMO, Viewfinder is far from being one of the bests in puzzle games, but it deserves a very high spot for displaying to us what's in store for us in the future, like Superliminal and The Stanley Parable. These are just games that open your mind to new concepts, and for me, it makes me wonder what kind of experiences could be born from those concepts in the future, and how polished and fleshed out they could be, like how gaming became more and more complex specifically because we are now capable of merging several aspects of genres and ideas and making them blend well together.
That possibility, the novelty they introduce, and the sense of fascination and discovery they provide will always be a winner in my book. 8/10 sounds like a very fair rating. Imagine if this mechanic was fully explored, and well-implemented into all kinds of genres. The possibilities are endless.
Mixed up Stanley’s Parable and Patrick’s Parabox lol
@@Joey-rf2ld Good spot, forgive my brainfarts XD
I am fearful that there may come a day where Tyler becomes so good at puzzle games that he ends up losing interest in them all together. It is a very real possibility to become too good at something, and thus ruin the enjoyment of it for yourself.
If every puzzle game had the same mechanics, yes, this would be true. But when you have to think about things differently, i dont think this could ever happen in a humans lifetime. Baba Is You is so fundamentally different from this game, they are both puzzlers, yes, but the way you think about solving a BiY level is just so much different the general skills only take you so far. A good puzzle level forces you to use both general puzzle solving and game-specific puzzle solving.
Wonderfully tense timer puzzle. Must've been a real rush getting that first try. Well done!
Man, what a sick game. Was a ton of fun watching this series, glad to see such a climactic ending.
Whenever you see the comments and there’s an Aliensrock comment that says “Video spoilers below,” you know some stuff is about to happen
Wow, Tyler was so coolheaded in the final puzzle, it's actually insane! The first time I got to it I panicked a lot lmao
I LOVE the reference to the goosebump book "say cheese and die" at the beginning. one of the few that actually stuck with me to current time
Is there any secret hidden behind the boombox and the pole puzzle in the last segment? It looks like there was instructions as to how you could walk around a single pole, like the one he got a picture of at 15:15 in a later section, and that boombox probably wasn't just for show. Anyone seen someone try messing with those?
There are quite a lot of things in this game purely for achievements and/or little lore tidbits. But seeing as the lore is always done with audio recordings and the final section is on a very tight timer, it's probably only an achievement there.
boombox might just be for an alterative solution to the sound puzzle that's what I did instead of interacting with the batteries at all as far as I can tell there is only one achievement tied to the final level and it has nothing to do with the pillar or the boombox
just figured it out the picture is the solution to the previous puzzle if you follow it the illusion stopping you goes away
6:40 I’m pretty sure that your camera is consuming whatever object is in your photo. Since the blue battery can’t be in your photo, it probably can’t be consumed by the void.
I’m really happy to see how far you’ve come since the beginning of your youtube career Tyler. Keep up the great work we love the constant good content and improvements!
To be honest, my one gripe with the otherwise superb editing of this game was that there was so much of the story cut that using every context clue I could find, all I got was "World ended, god knows who made a simulation for fun, mc and someone named Jessie probably heard it contained secret to saving planet, which turned out to be plant that could somehow be removed from a simulation. Also there's a cat named "Cait" that can talk for some reason."
There's nothing else. Why's the plant in there? Who the hell is the cat? Why is the simulation falling apart? Like I get that Tyler prefers his gameplay to story ratio 80/20, but what we got was at best 97/3. If you're not going to show the whole story, which I would prefer but I do understand that most of the people watching are probably more of a fan of Tyler's 80/20 ratio, so at least make a ratio resembling that, rather than cut out all of it.
I think you're supposed to learn about that when you play the game yourself
@@aeaeeaoiauea Counterpoint, by the same logic you're supposed to learn the puzzles' solution when you play the game yourself.
Way the cat at the end spoke "I suppose our time has come to an end" almost makes me think maybe somehow there is a secret ending but.. doubt it since in most puzzle games secret ends also tie into bonus challenges, which you were doing as you went.. unless.. the plant *was* the true ending and not doing all the challenges just is a more generic "welp we tried" since.. that is what it sounded like until the lady asked you about the plant...
I was totally expecting to have another twist of getting "out of the simulation" just to find a teleporter in your own room
I was actually wondering if that was the case too. I noticed that at 15:15 there was a pole like the ones used in an earlier section. The same mechanic appeared alongside it in the time trial too. I noticed that later, at the like 2nd or 3rd to last puzzle, there was also directions to walk around the pole on a wall, which led to a bridge in the other level. Wonder if there is a secret behind that.
1:46 It's a "bark-code"!
"I see. I suppose our time has come to an end. I wish you well."
Thank you, Cat. I'd be _touched_ if I knew or cared who or what you are.
*Cait
I’m about to get this game, it looks like a lot of fun and calming
This was delightful to watch, both with the art of viewfinder and the interesting puzzles and your narration and playing them!!
For future games: have you ever come across Obduction? I played it with my friends a couple years ago, and it's definitely more story-based but has some fascinatingly tricky puzzles (at least they were tricky to us!)
I like the way the character looks, it feels like no one and anyone at the same time
I would like to hear Tyler's complete opinon of narrative and visual design on puzzle games. Because the way he talks about it you can tell is not just that he straight up hates ithe idea of narrative and in the video where he presented his new banner he mentioned that he does believe that more puzzle games should try to have a more distinguished look.
Wow, well done solving the timed one just in time, you know how to keep the audience at the edge of their seat. Been watching your videos for a long while now, and I must say I've never been disappointed. Keep up the good work and thank you.
My guy Became the Inscryption camera.
Solving the timed challenge in one go was impressive. Not a lot of time to do it without any knowledge of the level. I don't think i'd have made it.
After the first video on this game here i jumped and bought it, really had a blast playing it! And very much enjoyed seeing how you took on the final and only actual challenge the game had to offer.
: )
I find it funny how apparently in the post apocalypse all you need to save the world is a single plant or tree or something...
Yeah sure, that's totally how it works in nature... a single plant can rebuild the entire destroyed ecosystem... right? :D
I sounds so good when in game timers go with the music
congratz on doing the final puzzle first try took me two 15:44 figured this out after watching this that is the solution to the previous puzzle if you follow that path you don't need to use a photo in the previous puzzle. Interesting seeing how the sound puzzle was probably supposed to be solved I just took a picture of the boom box from earlier in the sequence and used that
great series for a short game and props to the editing team(i think) for tying it together
I just realized how honestly quick this popped up in my recommended after a minute of watching so I'll just leave this here as a sort of landmark
You don't usually get a video in your recommended that was uploaded literal minutes ago, love ya Tyler for cracking the algorithm that quick
im pretty sure the confusing image during the timed challenge related to the random pillar in the stage before it
Tyler's review makes a great point of the game being pretty easy for even beginners of puzzle games, then suddenly making an advanced level for a finale.
Jeez the editing is getting better and better
If i hadn't watched some of the previous eps i would've thought some of those tooltips were from the game
I must be one of the few that noticed or understood that editor easter egg at 0:10 and I am infuriated. Well played, my dude. Well played....
I don’t know what you’re paying your editor but they deserve a raise
Lol they just got one recently afaik
Well played, Tyler. Down to the wire on the final challenge.
The Game is really really good and I'd love to see more puzzles comin'
so excited, and hoping for more news on tandis!
5:13 omg that pun was terrible and I simply LOVE it! I shouldn't be laughing so much hahahaha
Thanks for the content!
That was freaking clutch!
enjoyed watching this series , great game 🙂
Impressive tyler!!! Great video.
I have basically all of the old school paperback goosebumps books, so that “Say Cheese and Die” gives me some serious nostalgia!
amazing series
Don't think I didn't see what you did at 0:10...
Cool game and even better gameplay
ooh that ending gave me shivers
Only thing I'm left wondering about is what happens if you aim straight down with the void camera.
You fall and fall and fall and fall and fall
This was awesome!
10/10 for the Ghostbusters reference at the start
WOAW THAT WAS SO GOOD
That’s a fancy replacement for a mirror.
The way Tyler pronounces -alm words with schwa instead of a always gets me.
culm
If you meant 5:13 , that's not schwa? Schwa's more of an "uh" sound.
(Also that was probably a pun.)
pronouncing it with a schwa would give you "cum"
great video!
So cool but so short!
The photo in portrait mode capturing the landscape 💀
You can save stuff from previous areas in the finale, i did it in 3 mins by copying the battery and my tp for other areas. XD
Don't have time to watch the entire video but I totally endorse the first 90 second of it.
congrats! what was your play time? (minus any time you possibly spent getting content shots)
I also finished the game and it was a ton of fun and Finnaly a puzzle game that I see here that I can finish
(I still couldn’t do the last part)
Thank you editor for that first picture 😊
0:10 damn you Dan
I really liked that earlier when you break the simulation you can have a glimpse of the real world, and it seems the final place is a different part of the real world teleportation with spawning new life (tree) ???
This gives me massive superliminal vibes, especially the barcode Forrest.
Wish there was some sort of meta puzzles, but still a great game with an amazing mechanic
The end of viewfinder made me think of Waiting For Godot, with the single dead tree and barren landscape
The plant at the end reminded me of Wall•E
If there was a shaking selfie camera, you could I.M. Meen yourself.
Personally, this game definitely was not able to fully grip me much, but I watch because it's Tyler.
The witness challenge has returned
Tyler learned to cast misty step
Damn you, Editor, for making me lose the game! Lmao
That’s the most entertaining 4 minutes and 55 seconds minutes ever 😂
I found that last part really hard, I took a picture of the stereo to use the sound activated one.
Talk about a photo finish
35 minutes, Quick I need to take a photo of this so I can go back!
Wow first try four seconds left that’s crazy!
Gameplay reminds me a little of Submachine series.
You should play Prune, it's a game about trees, I was looking though my old i-pad and found the game, I think you would like it (:
I got so hyped when he beat the time puzzle that I pumped my hands in the air but my phone charger got caught on my fist so I ended up just slingshotting my phone
The final puzzle is giving me heavy *The Gauntlet* ptsd
The cat made me cry 😢
i am also very thankful for tylers melons
Can you play through the game trying for completion of all the achievements?
there was a hint that said to go around something, what if you had to go around the tree to get a different ending?
also great game gg
@@knight4878 15:15 There is a singular pillar in the puzzels
@@thekingoffailure9967 the hint was after it tho
The previous camera did Ctrl+C, this one now does Ctrl+X
What I'm disappointed in is the fact that there wasn't a sequence where the life support system went down, forcing you to find a way to boot yourself out of the simulation to then restart the life support before you asphyxiate
Oh my god I lost the game, thanks editor
it's funny when he used the camera to take a photo and then used the photo to remove a wall when he could've just took a photo of the wall to remove it
Hey! Here's a suggestion, a strange but interesting one. There is game called "Device 6" by SimoGo. It's 1 part mystery novel and 1 part puzzle game. It would be an interesting watch if you play it.
R.I.P Dustin