Superliminal is a puzzle game in the vein of Portal, albeit one with its own unique twist: your perspective determines the relative sizes of objects and can create new objects needed to solve puzzles by finding a spot where patterns all align into something coherent. You play as someone who becomes trapped within a dream, much to the chagrin of a borderline-abusive AI and reassuring scientist who remain in contact through loudspeakers and stereos. Superliminal is mostly a game about subverting expectations—you’re given just enough time with objects such as cubes that you learn to take them for granted, after which they may fall apart when touched or create an unexpected doorway to the next area.

The most common mechanic is changing the size of objects. If you move close to an object and pick it up, it becomes possible to drop it across the room at the same size as it is in your hands, which is mostly used for creating platforms. If you pick a large object up from a distance and pan the camera down to your feet, meanwhile, that object shrinks.

Superliminal‘s puzzles have thus far made good use of these mechanics. It takes a few minutes to acclimate to picking things up from a distance because grabbing items from neighboring rooms runs contrary to every gaming instinct you’ll have developed over the years, but that only makes the puzzles more rewarding to figure out. I haven’t played too far yet, but the difficulty is in a comfortable place. Some rooms are immediately solvable. Others have stopped me in my tracks and forced me to look at things from a different angle.

If I had a single complaint, it’s that the mouse sensitivity is a little too low. Even when cranked to the highest sensitivity value, a swipe of the mouse doesn’t pan quite as far as I want. That’s a very minor complaint, though, and Superliminal is otherwise fantastic. Each area is designed to one-up the previous area in terms of unexpected moments, so the gameplay promises to become even more bizarre as it goes along.

Superliminal impressions (PC/Epic): Escalating weirdness first appeared on Killa Penguin