Superliminal

Things are not what they appear in Superliminal, the clever new puzzle game where perception truly is reality. It's a mind-bending journey through a world of optical illusions and dream logic that is guaranteed to leave your head spinning. It's also one of my favorite games of the year, offering the perfect mix of creative puzzles and light jazz. Never underestimate the soothing sounds of light jazz.

Do you feel anxious whenever you need to solve one of life's many problems? Do you prefer to ignore the issue and hope it goes away? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may want to check yourself into Pierce Institute, where they'll use a patent-pending form of dream therapy to get to the root of the problem and force you to look at life in a brand-new way. There's just one catch -- there's a small chance you'll get stuck in the dream without a way to wake up.

This is the dilemma we face in Superliminal. The testing chambers all seemed to work perfectly, but the damn simulation isn't letting us exit. This forces us to break down the walls and explore our surroundings, which leads to a series of increasingly trippy scenarios that all seem to be tied to an alarm clock. In order to escape this dream world, we'll first need to understand its constantly-changing logic and solve its puzzles, all while Dr. Glenn Pierce works hard to bring us out of our deep sleep.

Between the testing chambers and female robot voice, there's a lot about Superliminal's setup that will remind you of Portal. But don't dismiss this as another clone, because this game knows you've played Portal and goes out of its way to toy with all of those expectations. Instead of playing with portals, a lot of these puzzles revolve around depth perception. This is the rare game where you can grow and shrink items based on how you're looking at them. It's a concept that will be used early on to build simple stairs or a ramp to the exit door, and then innovated on over and over until there's nothing left to do with the gimmick.

What I love about Superliminal is how varied all of the puzzles are. There was never a point where I felt like they were leaning too heavily on one type of solution, mostly because each of the nine chapters has its own unique spin on the concept. There are items that will multiply every time you touch them, levels where you're literally walking on the walls, a labyrinth that wants you to look the wrong way and a whole section that hopes you'll embrace the white space. This is one of those times when I had no idea where the game was headed and was surprised at every turn.

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It's the weirdness and its ability to constantly shift the perspective that made me fall in love with Superliminal. The fairly straight-forward story helps to anchor the trippy visuals and more outlandish puzzles, keeping what could have been a crazy acid-fueled roller coaster ride from spiraling out of control. It's baffling and confusing in all the right ways, and I especially like the message the game leaves us with. I found the conclusion to not only be emotionally satisfying, but also relevant to where I am in my life. The whole experience left a big impact on me, which I wasn't expecting going in.

If I had to look for negatives, I suppose I could bring up the easy difficulty. There are a few tricky puzzles here and there, but most sections will only need a few tries to complete. I ended up beating the game in around three hours, but somebody could probably whip through the whole thing in around eighty or ninety minutes. In that sense the game is a lot closer to the original Portal than its 2011 sequel, both in length and scope. I like the bite-sized nature of it, especially since every level in this game is so damn memorable. Even after I knew the solutions, I wanted to immediately jump back in and play in the dream world they've constructed.

A lot of this comes down to how they play with the visual presentation. There are a lot of different moods and styles they're going for in this game, and I like how it all works together cohesively. From the cold and almost horror-tinged backstage area to the drudgery of always waking up in the same room to the way the washed-out whitespaces make you feel alone, there's a lot to unpack here. And I love how it all comes together with a nice, slightly funky jazz beat. Superliminal is an absolutely spellbinding puzzle game that is going to stick with me for a long time to come.