**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 KZfaqrs 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)

that’s called a selfie tyler

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

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).

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

Thank you editors for putting in gameplay notes every so often!

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

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.

Thank you Tyler for finding out what happens when you take a picture of yourself

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.

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.

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

Wonderfully tense timer puzzle. Must've been a real rush getting that first try. Well done!

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.

Whenever you see the comments and there’s an Aliensrock comment that says “Video spoilers below,” you know some stuff is about to happen

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.

Man, what a sick game. Was a ton of fun watching this series, glad to see such a climactic ending.

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?

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 like the way the character looks, it feels like no one and anyone at the same time

My guy Became the Inscryption camera.

1:46 It's a "bark-code"!

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!

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.

"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.

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.

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’m about to get this game, it looks like a lot of fun and calming

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. : )

im pretty sure the confusing image during the timed challenge related to the random pillar in the stage before it

great series for a short game and props to the editing team(i think) for tying it together

I don’t know what you’re paying your editor but they deserve a raise

Don't think I didn't see what you did at 0:10...

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!)

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.

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.

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

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 sounds so good when in game timers go with the music

The Game is really really good and I'd love to see more puzzles comin'

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

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

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....

Well played, Tyler. Down to the wire on the final challenge.

Thanks for the content!

The way Tyler pronounces -alm words with schwa instead of a always gets me.

WOAW THAT WAS SO GOOD

10/10 for the Ghostbusters reference at the start

That was freaking clutch!

The photo in portrait mode capturing the landscape 💀

That’s a fancy replacement for a mirror.

enjoyed watching this series , great game 🙂

so excited, and hoping for more news on tandis!

Don't have time to watch the entire video but I totally endorse the first 90 second of it.

Cool game and even better gameplay

This was awesome!

amazing series

ooh that ending gave me shivers

The plant at the end reminded me of Wall•E

Thank you editor for that first picture 😊

5:13 omg that pun was terrible and I simply LOVE it! I shouldn't be laughing so much hahahaha

great video!

So cool but so short!

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)

Damn you, Editor, for making me lose the game! Lmao

I have basically all of the old school paperback goosebumps books, so that “Say Cheese and Die” gives me some serious nostalgia!

Impressive tyler!!! Great video.

Personally, this game definitely was not able to fully grip me much, but I watch because it's Tyler.

I found that last part really hard, I took a picture of the stereo to use the sound activated one.

Wish there was some sort of meta puzzles, but still a great game with an amazing mechanic

Tyler learned to cast misty step

Only thing I'm left wondering about is what happens if you aim straight down with the void camera.

This gives me massive superliminal vibes, especially the barcode Forrest.

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) ???

The end of viewfinder made me think of Waiting For Godot, with the single dead tree and barren landscape

The witness challenge has returned

Talk about a photo finish

If there was a shaking selfie camera, you could I.M. Meen yourself.

That’s the most entertaining 4 minutes and 55 seconds minutes ever 😂

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

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

there was a hint that said to go around something, what if you had to go around the tree to get a different ending?

The previous camera did Ctrl+C, this one now does Ctrl+X

Gameplay reminds me a little of Submachine series.

R.I.P Dustin

Reminds me of superliminal; an indie team discover a great concept for a puzzle game, demo it, and then spend a few years just to botch it by having the game focus on some pseudo-philosophical nonsense and crappy narration, while the puzzles are too easy or mediocre at best.

DOPE!!!

congrats! what was your play time? (minus any time you possibly spent getting content shots)

If You Take A Picture Of YOURSELF, it´s called a selfie...

0:10 damn you Dan

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 (:

The final puzzle is giving me heavy *The Gauntlet* ptsd

The cat made me cry 😢

I wonder what happens if you photocopy a photo of your self multipul times, will your vision (in game) get blurrier and blurrier

Wow first try four seconds left that’s crazy!

35 minutes, Quick I need to take a photo of this so I can go back!

Oh my god I lost the game, thanks editor