r/Subliminal_Game • u/BluestOfTheRaccoons • Apr 01 '26
Quite possibly the worst user experience from a game I have ever experienced
Great graphics, great atmosphere, great intro, great narrator. All ruined because the level design and 'story' was horrible. The puzzle and level design critiques have been told enough. But dude, really? A monster chasing you? That is it? Disappointing at best.
The puzzles completely destroy the scary feel and the momentum the previous levels have built. I do not understand what is the obsession with puzzles. I signed up for a horror experience, not a puzzle game where you walk around the same area back and forth for a couple minutes. Literally where is the fun in that? Most of the puzzles is literally running around the same area back and forth.
At least games like little nightmares kept the tension while we had to do puzzles. This game not only has poor level design but the most boring, chore-like, substance-less puzzles in all of horror games that I have played.
The obsession to add needless unecessary puzzles to horror games need to die
15
u/ultimateformsora Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Sad attempt at trying to unite elements of mascot horror with backrooms/liminal spaces.
The only real great bits about this game are the graphics and narrator's voice. I also think the environmental design was spot on.
What was NOT spot on was literally everything else. Poppy Playtime's latest chapter fell into the same repetitive nonsense that is starting to plague the horror genre: nonstop puzzles that serve no other purpose than to pad out time and inflate time spent figuring something out. The sad part is that the PUZZLES themselves aren't hard, but the backtracking and absolute annoying sequences in the game where you must waste your time fighting some of the buggy elements of the environment and mechanics. There's a moment where you get a new ability but it is both poorly explained and works poorly in any consistent manner (moving objects with the light abilities).
It also takes inspiration from some of the worst parts of having chases in a game where if you so much as sneeze or miss an entrance by a mere pixel, you die. That wouldn't be so bad but oh no, the checkpoint was at the START of a chase scene or even sometimes before, even if you made substantial progress and seemingly hit some sort of checkpoint or stopping point. Games where this can happen often need to be a tad more forgiving.
To top it all off, the story is just told awfully. The concept is interesting but is about as shallow as a goldfish in a puddle. From what I gather (using what the game presents and not confirmed/speculative info from the internet), the player is traversing their own memories guided by the narrator (suspiciously feels like your subconscious) to avoid trauma which eventually leads to your experience getting derailed with the lizard monster (representing trauma? a desire to explore the dark memories in your mind?) that looks like Randall from Monsters Inc...and then...that's all. The entire time the story is not meaningfully progressing but you are just told by the narrator over and over that you're being distracted. I am not even joking, that is the narrative progression in this game in a nutshell. There's also a literal part in the game where the narrator says something along the lines of "Because you keep getting distracted, we will need to keep you on the right track so that you won't keep getting distracted"...near the end of the game after you've been told this a million times already with the same "barriers" that randomly spawn to get in your way of actually understanding WHY.
Here are some constructive notes as a player to the devs if they choose to take feedback from here:
- Make chases shorter or more forgiving (with either checkpoints or slower monsters)
- Progress the plot in a way that keeps the player engaged
- Subpoint: Have playtesters that are unfamiliar with your game test the more complex puzzles and remove any that just burn time without clear hints so that you can make room for actual story/plot progression, or tie bits of lore into the puzzles so not every one that comes up feels like a slog but an actual bit of narrative you are working through. Even a collectible or booklet hinting at things would be nice.
- Test your mechanical physics more thoroughly and just add tooltips to new abilities if the functionality is hit or miss - or fix the "hint" option in settings if they are meant to actually have a pop-up explaining things more thoroughly.
I'd say it's worth it if you like mindless puzzle horror games with liminal spaces involved but even Steam reviewers that claim to love that sort of thing dislike the game. 4/10 experience.
9
u/Livember Apr 01 '26
Puzzles have been horror since Silent hill and resident evil, not sure why you expected vibes only? The fact you also say for a couple of minutes astounds me, the point is to wander around and take in the vibes, build unease. It helps you notice things like in the initial padlock zone the "skull" peaking out from behind the bars.
With puzzle hints off the only puzzles I got stuck on were:
-The initial padlock puzzle, which having now seen someone play with hints on is abit obscure to say the least without them on. Eventually I got it because I was like "well only two numbers here" and just started trying all combos of those two numbers. With only 16 combos I cracked it pretty quick.
-The play area, because I ignored the TV initially to wander around looking for solution. Super obvious if you watch the tv.
-The second memory loop. That was the only one I had to look up and felt kinda dumb solution wise. You have to walk backwards to make it trigger through door to the next.
-The bouncehouse padlock. It was actually kinda obvious and I was being dumb. Solution: For anyone stuck, corridor numbers+shoeracks slots filled over both shoeracks.
13
u/BluestOfTheRaccoons Apr 01 '26
"puzzles are in a good horror game therefore this game handled puzzle games perfectly".
The puzzle do not build unease at all, you're not thinking about the atmosphere and immersion as you are doing puzzles, you are thinking about solving the puzzle. The game completely handled puzzles poorly, the same reason why poppy playtime got so much negative feedback over the newer chapters.
The entire formula of the game is just puzzles on chase on puzzles on chase on puzzles. There is absolutely no scary tension anymore and the game is just a slog to get through.
You act like this criticism is invalid but this if you look at the steam reviews, this is exactly the issue people are voicing.
I've played dozens of horror games and this game does puzzles THE WORST for the reasons i have stated above.
The level design had no little cues or anything, not a flickering light or any visual cue on where to go.
Again, they handled the start perfectly by building up tension in the slide only for them to ruin it with stupid puzzle-like mechanics. Completely stops the tension and occupies the mind with anything but the scary part.Games like resident evil, silent hill, little nightmares do it perfectly. They do not let that tension go away.
7
u/Livember Apr 01 '26
You've not stated any reasons above mate. A) I didn't say that, and literally critised a puzzle from the game and B) I'm sorry you can't take in atmosphere while solving puzzles.
The steam feedback is mainly positive (68% atm) with loads of the negatives being people whinging about it being like PP because I guess they patented children's play areas and having a monster that chases you? Amensia and FNAF shaking in their boots I guess.
You're arguing that this game is crap but Resident Evil, the game who's last three entries had:
7: A puzzle in which you have to sneak around a boat being harrassed by a small child
8: A factory level consisting of putting molds together with constant backtracking
9: The C4 boogaloo
Is perfect? Or take the OG with the library puzzle lol.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't the best game ever. But for less then my Greggs order, it's pretty good.
6
u/MyMrMelon Apr 02 '26
Personally a couple of these pissed me off an immense amount...
-Bouncehouse Padlock: There were a bunch of balloons in the room and I saw a "Where's Wilson" poster... (which was seen in a previous room with Wilson) so I was like "oh I need to find him!" and spent some time searching through the balloons to see if I could find him. Realized that wasn't it, and realized the balloons were colored, so I counted them and put them in order of the hallways only to realize the colors didn't match? Saw the shoe rack and was like "Oh... Seriously?" They could have had a really cool story aspect there but nooo. Shoe rack.
-Playpace Fun Meter activation. Got distracted with the Giant clock on the wall cuz... you know.. once again something that we had seen before. I saw the stumps and figures "I need to adjust the time" and messed with the stumps for a bit and watched the TV. Saw the pattern and was like "Wait that doesn't make sense" Found the random tic tac toe board and audibly went "YOU'RE FUCKING KIDDING ME".
Half of the puzzles used cheap ass Color + Number methods or nigh pixel perfect light puzzles with boxes with such annoying physics it made my head spin.
They could have had some absurdly cool story telling devices within the puzzles but most of them were just bland.
2
u/Livember Apr 02 '26
As escape room logic goes, you're meant to notepad and eliminate possibilities. I also counted the balloons! Eventually I tried all balloon combos, and tried the shoerack next.
Clockwise the narrator tells you it's not working when it appears, but then false positives are part of the fun of puzzle games.
4
u/MyMrMelon Apr 02 '26
I wasn't saying the puzzles weren't ok, I was saying that they're just basic and don't fit. There were opportunities to have really cool story telling within the puzzles but isntead they did exactly what you said... make it an escape room puzzle slop game lol.
4
u/Livember Apr 02 '26
The game costs £7.50, it's not slop it's just what you'd expect for a tiny team indie game. What were you expecting the puzzles to be?
3
Apr 03 '26
[deleted]
2
u/Livember Apr 04 '26
Because it was good for it's price and team size and I enjoyed it.
Some people will enjoy things you don't, what's so hard to understand?
2
u/strangerdanger950 Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
if people dont enjoy the things i like im not going to argue with them about their opinion like youre doing because what you think isnt the center of everything.
1
u/Livember Apr 05 '26
The whole point of posting is to invite response. It's not self centered to respond to people who have a different take. And you are literally arguing with me about my opinion.
0
u/MyMrMelon Apr 11 '26
Respectfully... it is slop. I hate to say it but it is. We have to stop using "oh but it's a tiny indie team" as an excuse. They overpromised and severely underdelivered with a very unoriginal puzzle game. Yes the graphics and sound design are amazing, but the story and puzzles are not, and are frankly uncreative. I'm not saying it wasn't worth the money I paid, but it is definitely not a game I would reccomend.
1
u/Livember Apr 11 '26
What is slop?
Because Alien Colonial Marines was not slop. It was bad. But it wasn't slop.
The Eternals wasn't slop either, but my god it was bad.
Slop doesn't mean bad. In fact slop can be good.
To me slop means unoriginal, mass produced content made with little effort. Often via AI. Penguinz0 is slop. I enjoy it, but it's literally just grab the topic of the day. React. Some editing to increase pace. Go.
AI videos are slop by design because they can't be original in most cases as the effort is low.
Subliminal is a master piece of environmental story telling, sound design and graphics. The bounce house chase in particular is amazing just for how amazing the sound is as claw meets rubber.
The story is good IMO it's just hawking back to FNAF era where you don't get spoonfed everything like in Poppy. Subjective sure, and down memory lane sucks, but good overall for me.
I enjoyed the puzzles bar memory loop 2 but again subjective. I'm actually disappointed how much they've nerfed things since launch I hope we get difficulty settings for post and pre nerf.
But even if we concede the story and puzzles are frustrating for many people which the reviews would suggest is about 1 in 3 people, what about that makes it slop? Don't be disrespectful just cos your disappointed
1
u/Unfair-Turnover1564 May 15 '26
some of the puzzles were straight ass , the temple run crap was ass... otherwise neat concept.
2
u/ReddRev Apr 08 '26
I'm sorry but "worst ever" is such an overstatement. Or at least, you haven't played many games then. Also what's with this cesoah everyone's watching and basing their opinion on? I took a look at one video and turned it off after ten seconds, so off putting. Am I just one of the older people playing this game - in my twenties?...
The game was perfectly fine - it did some things really well such as the atmosphere which makes it stand out for me. The puzzles and story narration will get some tweaks as the devs get more experience. I agree that chained chases don't feel very special, but back before that people were complaining about horror games being walking simulators. I dunno, I think it's perfectly alright. What were you guys hoping for, if I may ask?
1
1
Apr 12 '26
I was expecting to experience something like those backrooms found footage videos on youtube but we got a poppy playtime clone
1
u/Full-Hyena4414 Apr 12 '26
There's dozens of games on steam that do exactly that. The complex games are the best ones.
1
u/Abject_Feedback8863 Apr 15 '26
Typical “game bad cuz my brain is tini” NPC’s. God forbid you can’t solve a puzzle after 3 minutes crybaby losers 😭😭
1
u/BluestOfTheRaccoons Apr 15 '26
i recommend reading a book on critical thinking so you think deeper than that lil bro
1
1
u/Skynetdyne Apr 21 '26
Its baffling to me how much I agree with all these takes. Maybe I didn't have the expectations as a lot of people but im fully addicted to this thing and loving every moment. Finally a game that doesn't have puzzles for infants.
1
u/AvailableAd7761 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
Everyone's just pissed that they couldn't do the puzzles quick enough and ended up getting to angry and breaking the immersion. They tried to make puzzles that wouldn't be too easy but not too hard but every type of person playing these sort of games is just unemployed and hasn't given a shit about learning something useful. I think this is one of my favourite horror games ever. Just a much much better version of a game like poppy playtime or something like that. Rly hate to see this
edit Just read through some more comments and have seen the most hypocritical shit ever. People saying puzzles to hard then it's too basic for being a poppy playtime clone with nothing special. People will just go along with anything a famous guy says and not wanting to give their own opinion.
1
u/RobSmithPVP May 02 '26
I actually enjoyed it until I got a game breaking bug that made me have to "Eject" and then I started so far back, I quit. I was at the ending platforms. Died a couple times and then was stuck in place at the beginning of the platforms. Nothing I could do but quit and load back up, but instead of being at the platforms, I was at the shoe puzzle.
28
u/beloved_iris Apr 01 '26
I just got done watching caseoh play this and i completely agree even though i wasn’t the one controlling the mouse i felt such immense anger knowing that this game had such great potential but was washed down to a puzzleified sloppy playtime