Page 108 - PC Gamer - UK (February 2020)

NOW PL AY ING
THE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW
Where did I leave
my bag again?
“The challenge is discovering the rules
of spacetime in a liminal dream state”
Reality is what you make it in SUPERLIMINAL
I ’ve duplicated the
same apple no less
than 400 times.
There’s intent here. I
can’t carry the apple
onto the switch at the top of the
ramp I’m standing on. So the goal,
from what I can tell, is to duplicate
the apple – it’s an apple the size of a
baby elephant, mind you – until the
fan blowing the apples off the ramp
and into the next room can’t
anymore. Because there are too
many apples in the way.
Once the next room is crammed
with fruit, I move my left hand from
the keyboard to steady the mouse
for some violent, rapid-fire clicking.
See, if I click on the apple fast
enough, it will duplicate itself up
the ramp towards me, growing
slightly smaller all the while, until a
tiny apple (it maintains the baby
elephant weight) arrives on the
switch and opens the door at the
back of the room allowing me
passage into the next tricky mind-
punch puzzle box.
Things were simpler back when
all I had to do was build a massive
staircase out of a few tiny toy blocks.
Superliminal’s opening bits are
confusing enough, navigation puzzles
108 FEBRUARY 2020
JAMES DAVENPORT
THIS MONTH
Drowned in an ocean of
red fruit.
ALSO PLAYED
I Am Alive,
Death Stranding
that use perspective as a tool for
altering reality. If I pick up a toy
block from the floor and it appears
tiny on the screen, it will stay tiny.
But if I get right up next to it, so close
that it fills the screen, and then pick it
up, it will become as big as it appears:
a massive block, perfect for building
an impromptu exit. To shrink the
thing down, I drop it at the far end of
the room so it appears tiny before
picking it up. Bloop. It’s little again.
Just like my brain.
Sure, the narrative framework is
extremely Portal-but-dreams-not-
exactly-test-chambers (there’s even a
sardonic robot narrator that outlines
the rules of the layered dream
SENSE IS BESIDES THE POINT,
AND SUPERLIMINAL ALWAYS
KEEPS IT JUST OUT OF REACH
C for Cerebral.
Apples to apples
to apples to…
worlds), but it barely matters. This is
a place where sense is besides the
point, and Superliminal always keeps
it just out of reach at all times. I wake
up in the same bed, things slightly
altered every time, the hope that this
reality is reality-reality while
knowing full well that I’ll get dumped
into a new room of block and chess
pieces with their own specific rules
for matter and gravity that won’t
meet me halfway. It’s OK. I like it
when videogames hurt me.
REALITY BITES
Everything is suspect in Superliminal.
Its realities are, often literally, what
you make them. It’s not even a game
strictly about puzzles, but walking
from room to room. The challenge is
in discovering the rules of spacetime
in a liminal dream state. One reality
pops physical objects into existence
from perfectly angled shadows.
Another applies the perspective-
changing trick to a doorway, so if you
enter, make the door smaller, and
then find a way to circle back around
and enter the door again, you, too,
will become little. Darkness can be an
exit and walls aren’t always walls
(never trust a solid colour). Learning
to distrust yourself is the first step
towards success.