Viewfinder

A first-person puzzle game with a conceit that feels truly magical and is pushed to delightfully creative limits.

It's relatively easy, at least compared to other games of this type. Indeed, some levels provide no challenge at all and are just there to show off cool stuff. And, yeah, the cool stuff is indeed cool. It works.

Where the game falters somewhat is in its storytelling. The basic premise is fine, but the framing and execution not so much. It's arranged a lot like The Talos Principle: you're in a simulation, there are tests you have to complete for some contrived reason, and you find various recordings and documents that slowly reveal what this is all about. Unfortunately, the text snippets are not very well written and fail to flesh out the story's characters. Even more unfortunately, poor acting direction (if there even was any) has resulted in somewhat annoying and disjointed over-acting. It seems some reviewers really hate it. I didn't hate it. But I wasn't inspired either. It's OK, I guess, as a way to tie the game together.

Another problem is that some of the (many) achievements are buggy. If you do the right thing but not in exactly the right way, they might not trigger. I had to watch video walkthroughs to get some of them.

Also there is a cat and you can pet it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Viewfinder is easy to recommend for people who enjoy first-person puzzle games. It's not very long and not very challenging, but it will give you a few hours of joyful brain tickles.