Sad Owl Studios · Thunderful Publishing
Fixed graphical issues that could occur when playing at exactly 50% render scale Tweaked collision handling when a held object intersected both the player & another surface
This is a small quality of life with a bunch of improvements to little details throughout the game! Technical: Updated unity version to 2022.3.62f2 - This update fixes a security vulnerability found in the unity runtime (CVE-2025-59489) New: You can sit on the train seats now! Ad
This is a small quality of life with a bunch of improvements to little details throughout the game!
Technical:
New:
Improvements:
Performance:
Viewfinder is now live in the Thunderful Publishing Sale! Are you ready to reshape reality? The sale is live until 21 October and you can pick Viewfinder up for 45% off until then. Whatever you check out during the sale, we hope you have a Thunderful time ⚡
Viewfinder is now live in the Thunderful Publishing Sale! Are you ready to reshape reality?
The sale is live until 21 October and you can pick Viewfinder up for 45% off until then.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/35370473/view/4606706877639912657
Whatever you check out during the sale, we hope you have a Thunderful time ⚡
As if you needed more proof that Baldur's Gate 3 is, in fact, a pretty damn fine video game, Larian’s D&D RPG swept through the video game BAFTA awards yesterday, picking up five of the British entertainment org’s top trophies. Even more impressively - after all, Baldur’s Gat
As if you needed more proof that Baldur's Gate 3 is, in fact, a pretty damn fine video game, Larian’s D&D RPG swept through the video game BAFTA awards yesterday, picking up five of the British entertainment org’s top trophies. Even more impressively - after all, Baldur’s Gate 3 winning a shedload of awards is old hat by now - its latest Best Game triumph means that the sprawling RPG-slash-fanfic machine is now the first video game to win all five of the industry’s major Game of the Year awards.
Huge congratulations to Viewfinder and the whole team at Sad Owl Studios for last night's incredible win! It was truly surreal. Viewfinder took home TWO awards at this year's BAFTA Games Awards - British Game and New Intellectual Property 🏆🎉 This is an incredible achievement fo
Huge congratulations to Viewfinder and the whole team at Sad Owl Studios for last night's incredible win! It was truly surreal.
Viewfinder took home TWO awards at this year's BAFTA Games Awards - British Game and New Intellectual Property 🏆🎉
This is an incredible achievement for a small studio with their first game.
For more information and to watch their acceptance speeches, visit BAFTAGames on X.
Hey friends! Viewfinder has been nominated for two awards at The Game Awards this year. ✨ Best Independent Game ✨ Best Debut Indie Game We couldn’t be more proud of the team and with us announcing Viewfinder at The Game Awards last year, we've now come full circle. The winner wil
Hey friends!
Viewfinder has been nominated for two awards at The Game Awards this year.
✨ Best Independent Game
✨ Best Debut Indie Game
We couldn’t be more proud of the team and with us announcing Viewfinder at The Game Awards last year, we've now come full circle. The winner will be decided by the public, so please vote!
~ The Viewfinder Team
Sea of Stars is genuinely one of the most breathtaking little RPG gems I've had the pleasure of playing this year, but Sabotage Studio's pixel-art indie is just one of many brilliant games to come from great independent developers in 2023. The Game Awards revealed its nominees fo
Sea of Stars is genuinely one of the most breathtaking little RPG gems I've had the pleasure of playing this year, but Sabotage Studio's pixel-art indie is just one of many brilliant games to come from great independent developers in 2023. The Game Awards revealed its nominees for the Best Independent Game category, including the ever-enchanting Sea of Stars as well as other cozy entries like Mintrocket's Dave the Diver and Black Salt Games' Dredge.
RELATED LINKS:
New game from Limbo and Inside dev gets rave reviews, already on sale
Hey Friends! We've got some exciting news to share. Viewfinder is now Steam Deck verified! So next time you go out of the house with your Steam Deck, Cait will be right there with you on the train, bus, or plane!
Hey Friends!
We've got some exciting news to share. Viewfinder is now Steam Deck verified!
So next time you go out of the house with your Steam Deck, Cait will be right there with you on the train, bus, or plane!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
Hey there friends! As of today, you can immerse yourself back into a beautiful world full of mystery with the breathtaking soundtrack composed by Aether (Jason Taylor). The Viewfinder Soundtrack is available to purchase for $/€9.99 and can also be found on your favourite music st
Hey there friends!
As of today, you can immerse yourself back into a beautiful world full of mystery with the breathtaking soundtrack composed by Aether (Jason Taylor). The Viewfinder Soundtrack is available to purchase for $/€9.99 and can also be found on your favourite music streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, and many more!
Listen to the Viewfinder Soundtrack on Spotify or Purchase it on Bandicamp!
Sad Owl Studios & Thunderful
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
If there's one game that has flown under the radar in 2023, it's Viewfinder . Easily one of 2023's most relaxing games , Viewfinder is an absolutely gorgeous puzzler that tasks you with reshaping the world around you using only a camera and various different perspectives. It's ab
If there's one game that has flown under the radar in 2023, it's Viewfinder. Easily one of 2023's most relaxing games, Viewfinder is an absolutely gorgeous puzzler that tasks you with reshaping the world around you using only a camera and various different perspectives. It's absolutely beautiful, and perfect for whiling away the winter hours - oh, and did I mention it's going cheap on Steam, alongside loads of other games? There's also that.
RELATED LINKS:
Valve reveals the surprising winner from Steam Next Fest
Viewfinder draws inspiration from Portal to blend puzzles with story
Hey adventurers, We’ve just released version 1.0.6 of Viewfinder, in which we’ve fixed various bugs and issues as well as added a few small changes to make your experience better. Changes: Lowered minimum field of view from 90 to 70. Added a count the collectibles popup, i.e. 2/4
We’ve just released version 1.0.6 of Viewfinder, in which we’ve fixed various bugs and issues as well as added a few small changes to make your experience better.
If you have experienced any other bugs or want to share feedback, please join our Discord and make sure you drink enough water and pet Cait regularly.
The Sad Owl Studio team!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
Welcome back to Behind The Lens! A series where we give you a closer look at what exactly has been going on behind the scenes when It comes to creating Viewfinder. With last week’s formalities out of the way, this week, we really want to focus on a specific aspect of the developm
Welcome back to Behind The Lens! A series where we give you a closer look at what exactly has been going on behind the scenes when It comes to creating Viewfinder.
With last week’s formalities out of the way, this week, we really want to focus on a specific aspect of the development process and really hone in on the overall puzzle design of the game and what exactly makes a great puzzle!
The design of puzzles is a delicate art. It’s about finding the right balance between logical thinking and creativity to find the solution to the objective set from the beginning. To put it in the context of viewfinder, it’s all about using the available game mechanics, such as the camera, photocopier and pictures to activate and reach the teleporter.
This is also where the challenge comes in, as it’s up to us to teach you the basics of the various mechanics and build upon them over time within the puzzles. If we teach and show you too much of the solution, the puzzles will feel unrewarding and easy. On the other hand, if the solution to a puzzle is too far fetched and uses a completely new not seen before or illogical solution, it will feel frustrating.
In order to hit the sweet spot between teaching you the logic of Viewfinder, applying your creativity to find the solution and providing you with that ‘Ahaa!’ moment, there is a lot of testing involved. We’ve played around a lot with the order we teach mechanics and asked ourselves often can and do we need to break this mechanic down further.
When you’re playing Viewfinder you’ll start out with individual pictures and over time the difficulty ramps up and we introduce more items such as the Photocopier and camera, each providing additional options in your ‘toolbelt’ to solve a puzzle. The examples above are just a few of the things you’ll encounter. rest assured that there is a lot more in Viewfinder and there will be plenty of ‘Ahaa!’ moments for you to encounter!
Once we’ve got an idea of what the puzzle will be, the team create the level in a greybox environment. This greybox version of the level contains the essential objects and layout so that the puzzle is complete and can be solved. As development progresses you’ll see that the level itself will not have changed much, however the visuals have improved a lot.
Below you can see the progression of one of the levels from its early prototype, the greybox, to it’s final version how it will be available in the game.
One of the things we can’t repeat often enough, it’s all about testing and adding finishing touches to make the game feel better and make the experience smoother.
A good example of this is the moment the player first finds a battery. In early prototypes the battery was found on the floor and we noticed that some players would forget where the battery came from and that it was actually from inside a picture. In order to help the player we added a pedestal, so that once the player picked up the battery, the pedestal would be empty and act as a reminder of its original location.
Another example in the same level is where we wanted to give the player more freedom and not punish the moment they learn about the photocopier. We learned that players would often place the picture with the photo very quickly in the world. to help with this we’ve opted to add various other pictures nearby where it’s obvious that there isn’t anything useful inside off.
Following this choice we learned that the players would actively search the forest, assuming it concealed something of importance to solve the puzzle. We tried various other pictures afterwards and decided to settle on pictures depicting oil paintings of small areas of the level. These worked a lot better because it was easy to see that there wasn’t anything useful inside them.
See above a selection of the oil paintings. Rumour has it that if these are placed ‘correctly’ you might be rewarded with an achievement too.
That’s it! Viewfinder launches in less than one week! You can look forward to plenty of mind-bending puzzles and other surprises in the full release. Don’t forget that our cat photo contest is still ongoing and you can see more details on our Twitter & Discord!
Join us next time where we will talk more about how the team met and decided to work on Viewfinder!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
In Viewfinder , you solve puzzles by figuring out the right way of looking at things, and you do that here by both physically moving around its abstract 3D spaces, and by mentally wrapping your brain around its mind-bending rule set. Perspective is key because here's the thing: t
In Viewfinder, you solve puzzles by figuring out the right way of looking at things, and you do that here by both physically moving around its abstract 3D spaces, and by mentally wrapping your brain around its mind-bending rule set. Perspective is key because here's the thing: this is a world where you can bring photos to life, the 2D image becoming a 3D reality when you place it within the puzzle world.
It's an incredible hook and one which I've never seen in a puzzle game before. There are echoes of The Witness, Gorogoa, and Superliminal here, but Viewfinder's dizzyingly mind-melting puzzles are still very much its own. It impresses from the get-go and continues to pull tricks out of its silky tophat right until the end of its four hour run time. It's compact, brilliant, and one of the best puzzle games of 2023.
House Flipper 2 is the big winner of Steam Next Fest, in a somewhat surprising reveal as the sequel to one of the most relaxing games on PC proves once again that sometimes a laid-back experience can be more thrilling than a high-octane one. House Flipper 2 tops the most-played N
House Flipper 2 is the big winner of Steam Next Fest, in a somewhat surprising reveal as the sequel to one of the most relaxing games on PC proves once again that sometimes a laid-back experience can be more thrilling than a high-octane one. House Flipper 2 tops the most-played Next Fest demos, trumping even Lies of P, the 'Bloodborne meets Pinocchio' game that was the talk of the event.
RELATED LINKS:
Steam cult classic House Flipper is getting a sequel
Welcome to Behind the Lens , a series of blog posts focused on various aspects of what exactly is going on when it comes to creating Viewfinder! Over the next few weeks we will be diving deep into specific topics, whether that’s puzzle design, world inspiration or in game lore, y
Welcome to Behind the Lens, a series of blog posts focused on various aspects of what exactly is going on when it comes to creating Viewfinder!
Over the next few weeks we will be diving deep into specific topics, whether that’s puzzle design, world inspiration or in game lore, you can expect some great insights into different aspects of the game.
After more than four years of game development, a lot of iterations, and with still a long laundry list of things we want to do and improve, we are releasing Viewfinder.
We are quite happy that the game has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and we want to show everyone the world we’ve created. There are things we wished we could have done differently but generally we are very proud of the team we have, and the game we’ve made.
We also want a vacation, and we want to rest after all of the anxiety and the stress of making a game. It is very hard, but it's also one of the most rewarding things we've ever done and sharing it with you all is so exciting. Right now, we're saying NEVER AGAIN, but of course in a few months we'll find another idea that sparks our imagination, and pushes us to make that idea a reality.
We encourage people to sit in the chairs we have designed, and then appreciate the spaces we’ve built. Sit for something like 2 hours and then meditate, just appreciate all our hard work and the wonderful talent of our art team. Try sitting in different chairs. We know we can improve the chair experience because some people might feel like the view might not feel right. We might eventually add something to customise this experience. This really depends on people saying they want this. I really have to convince our programmers, they originally didn’t want to add sitting into the game, and now it’s one of the bestest things ever. The cat is also cute, and the watermelon. Don’t forget the watermelon, her name is Melanie.
That's just a summary of some of the things you can expect Viewfinder to be. Stay tuned for more!
To celebrate the upcoming launch of Viewfinder We’d love to find some friends for Cait! (the cat)
Share a picture of your cat and tag us on social media @viewfindergame and use #AFriendForCait to be in with a chance to win an Instax Mini 12 camera! We will announce the winners once the game has launched.
That’s about wraps up what we had planned today. Keep your eyes peeled for the next issue of Behind The Lens where we’ll be delving into the mind boggling puzzles that the game contains. to stay up to date with everything Viewfinder, make sure to join the Discord and Follow us on Twitter!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
Happy Friday, friends! ːsteamhappyː First of all: It's so awesome to see you all playing our Viewfinder Snapshot demo - thanks for sharing your time with us! We received so much good and valuable feedback, and also a lot of praise - so from the bottom of our hearts: Thank you all
Happy Friday, friends! ːsteamhappyː
First of all: It's so awesome to see you all playing our Viewfinder Snapshot demo - thanks for sharing your time with us! We received so much good and valuable feedback, and also a lot of praise - so from the bottom of our hearts: Thank you all so much! ❤️
And secondly: You can watch us (that's Sophie from dev SOS, as well as Julian and Tim again) play the Viewfinder Snapshot demo on the Steam page later today. Feel free to tune into our second stream at 4pm CET / 7am PST and join us!
We'll chat a bit about Viewfinder in general, what the game is, and much more.
Have a relaxing weekend all!
Sophie, Julian, Tim & the Viewfinder Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
Hey again, friends! First of all: It's so awesome to see you all playing our Viewfinder Snapshot demo - thanks for sharing your time with us! We received so much good and valuable feedback, and also a lot of praise - so from the bottom of our hearts: Thank you all so much! ❤️ And
Hey again, friends!
First of all: It's so awesome to see you all playing our Viewfinder Snapshot demo - thanks for sharing your time with us! We received so much good and valuable feedback, and also a lot of praise - so from the bottom of our hearts: Thank you all so much! ❤️
And secondly: You can watch us (that's Sophie from dev SOS, as well as Julian and Tim) play the Viewfinder Snapshot demo here in the broadcast player on the Steam page later today. Feel free to tune in at 4pm CET / 7am PST and join us! We'll talk a bit about Viewfinder in general, what the game is, and much more.
See you in the stream, friends!
Sophie, Julian, Tim & the Viewfinder Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
Hey there friends! Once again, it's about time for the fabulous Steam Next Fest ! Until June 26 hundreds of demos are live here on Steam, connected to hundreds of streams, developer specials, and much more. Exciting times for sure, and you definitely don't want to miss this! ːste
Hey there friends!
Once again, it's about time for the fabulous Steam Next Fest! Until June 26 hundreds of demos are live here on Steam, connected to hundreds of streams, developer specials, and much more. Exciting times for sure, and you definitely don't want to miss this! ːsteamhappyː
And you guessed it already: Viewfinder is aboard for Steam Next Fest as well! Just scroll down the product page and click the "Download" button to get your hands on the demo.
Viewfinder Snapshot includes 8 spots to show you how the reality and world can be reshaped with a camera and a handful of polaroids. Be sure to kickstart your creativity before playing the demo!
We really hope you enjoy playing our demo! If you're having a good time, do us a favor and click on "Follow" as well as on "Add To Your Wishlist" and leave your feedback in the Steam Community Hub. That would really help us a lot. ❤️
And as you are trying some demos already, check out the additional four Thunderful family titles that are also part of Steam Next Fest: SteamWorld Build, Dr. Fetus' Mean Meat Machine, Laika: Aged Through Blood and Astronimo!
Happy Steam Next Fest to all of you!
The Viewfinder Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
Happy Friday friends! Yesterday, Viewfinder was featured in the Summer Game Fest’s Day of the Devs segment... and that's why we have three pieces of good news for you today: First thing's first: Viewfinder finally has a release date - it's July 18 ! ːsteamhappyː Furthermore, we a
Happy Friday friends!
Yesterday, Viewfinder was featured in the Summer Game Fest’s Day of the Devs segment... and that's why we have three pieces of good news for you today:
[TRAILER]
Stay tuned for more exciting news on Viewfinder soon!
Till then, take care everyone!
The Viewfinder Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/
Heya all! As the headline has already told you: it's demo time! Viewfinder is part of the Puzzle Fest (April 24th till May 1st) here on Steam, and so this marks the very first time you get to try it for yourself! Viewfinder Snapshot includes 8 spots to show you how the reality an
Heya all!
As the headline has already told you: it's demo time! Viewfinder is part of the Puzzle Fest (April 24th till May 1st) here on Steam, and so this marks the very first time you get to try it for yourself!
Viewfinder Snapshot includes 8 spots to show you how the reality and world can be reshaped with an camera and a handful of polaroids. Be sure to kickstart your creativity before playing the demo! ːsteamhappyː
We really hope you have fun playing our demo. And we are eager to here your feedback; you can leave it in the comments, in the Viewfinder Steam Community Hub or on our Discord. Whatever you prefer.
Anyways, we are looking forward to hear from you.
Enjoy your very first stay in Viewfinder!
The Viewfinder Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/