What sets Superliminal apart from other first-person puzzle games is how it plays with perspective. The game knows that the viewer can only see things through a single screen, and all the mechanics in the game make use of this forced perspective. Grab an object and pull away, the object will grow larger. Grab an object and walk forward, the object becomes smaller.
And since you're in a dream world, those objects can range from rubber duckies, alarm clocks, and computers, to entire toy houses that turn into real houses the moment you take a few steps back.
In our review, Sam Watanuki said that Superliminal's puzzles feel a lot like Portal in terms of presentation. He was never too challenged by what objects he needed to grow or shrink in order to escape whatever room he found himself in, and reported that the best parts of Superliminal was when the tense dreamscape started throwing him into completely darkened rooms filled with blood--or possibly cans of red paint. Again, perspective is key here.
Originally released in Nov of 2019 for the Epic Games Store, Superliminal made its way to Switch, PS5, and Xbox One in July of this year. And now that it's been almost a year, developer Pillow Castle has dropped the big news that Superliminal will arrive on Steam on November 5.
But it won’t just be the same Superliminal you’ve already played. The game will come with an update that adds three new features, including Challenge Mode, Developer Commentary, and Steam Workshop support.
Challenge Mode was apparently requested by the Superliminal speedrunning community. It adds challenges like time trials, limited object grabs, and jump tests that add a score component to each run through the game. According to Speedrun.com, the fastest time to complete Superliminal is 8 minutes and 42 seconds, which is ludicrous.
Developer commentary is just as you’d expect: various devs narrating your journey in between the usual announcements from Dr. Glenn Pierce that shines a light on the making of superliminal. Veterans of the game will certainly appreciate the new insights and likely will also appreciate the “very experimental” Steam Workshop support. Pillow Castle is aiming to allow anyone to import any 3D object into the game to use in solving Superliminal’s puzzles, although they note that they can’t predict the results ahead of time.
If you’re a puzzle fan, mark your calendar for November 5.
Source: Pillow Castle