Superliminal on Steam: Indie game achieves cult status

A “mind-bending” puzzle game has been described as the perfect antidote to 2020. So much so that people are crying when they’ve completed it.

REVIEW

Can I grab the moon? This was a question I asked myself while playing Superliminal, and just one of many kinds of quandaries you’ll experience throughout this indie game, which – although it was released last year – has recently found a whole new fanbase upon its release on Steam.

Superliminal is a first-person puzzle game, but that almost doesn’t seem to do justice by this mind-bending, three-hour journey through the subconscious.

As you work your way through the levels, you’re forced you to rethink our three-dimensional planes of existence and, while I admit there were a couple of times I was so stuck I had to consult the internet for clues, each solution leaves you with a huge sense of achievement as well as delight and awe at the developers’ creativity.

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Superliminal is a challenging puzzle game with impressive aesthetics.

There’s really not a whole lot to the story, but rather the complex and challenging level design and beautiful aesthetics take centre stage. You play an unnamed character who ventures to the Pierce Institute to test its SomnaSculpt technology, a sort of dream therapy program in which you solve optical illusions and forced-perspective puzzles.

But Dr Glenn Pierce, who communicates to you via the radios placed in the world, explains he’s completely lost track of you and suspects you’ve become trapped in a recurring dream cycle.

The only way to escape, he says, is to trigger the Emergency Exit Protocol by initiating an Explosive Mental Overload. As you’d expect, the scenarios become more surreal the deeper you go, concluding with a dream paradox and arrival in Whitespace, where all sense of reality is lost.

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As you progress the scenarios get more and more surreal.

The game provides you with very little guidance (which might frustrate some) other than the reminder that “perception is reality”, a message you’ll encounter frequently throughout the levels and, without giving too much away, serves you well to put it into practice as you uncover each level’s mechanics.

No two solutions are ever exactly the same, either. Discovering something new and then figuring out how to apply it to solve the puzzle is the most rewarding part.

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The game is both rewarding and beautifully created.

Superliminal could not be better suited to what has been a very tumultuous year and its finale is philosophical, deeply introspective and honestly a tad emotional.

“Okay I just finished Superliminal and did not expect how emotional that ending was, it was brilliant,” one player tweeted.

“Finished Superliminal and now I’m going to go sob,” wrote another.

I mean, same.

Superliminal

Platforms: PC, Mac, PS4, X Box One, Nintendo Switch

RRP: $27

Publisher: Pillow Castle Games