LIMINAL SHIFT

LIMINAL SHIFT the "game" where you pay money to hold the w key and Im not even mad Lets get this straight, this is not a game, theres no gameplay, zero, nada, non, negative. You walk, thats the whole package, if this came out in 2005 it wouldve been a free screensaver bundled with Limewire next to a Bonzi Buddy installer, this game is an experience, a vibe, an interactive wallpaper, whatever you want to call it to feel better about your purchase And It works, because this is everything the backrooms was supposed to be before the internets most annoying demographic got their grubby hands on it, you know exactly who I'm talking about, the level 37 has 47 entities and each one has a tragic backstory and a fandom wiki page, devianart/tumbr fan art crowd, those people took a beautifully unsettling concept (empty spaces that feel wrong) and stuffed it with f**** monsters, almond water lore, and more OCs than a deviantart convention. they took liminal horror and ran it through the SCP fanfiction grinder until it was normie food LIMINAL SHIFT says no, no entities, no lore, no monster chasing you down hallway #432, Just you, an impossibly huge map, and the creeping realization that architecture itself can feel like its staring at you Its repetitive, its labyrinthine, its slow as hell, and half the experience is just you being alone with your thoughts in a giant empty pool complex, which for some of you is genuinely the scariest scenario imaginable because youve never been alone with your thoughts before and there is a reason for that But lets be real, if you need objectives, enemies, dopamine hits, anything happening whatsoever, stay the f**k away, this will bore you senseless and youill refund it and write a negative review calling it a tech demo and that will be fair, it kind of is one, a tech demo with immaculate vibes This is either a meditative masterpiece or a $10 screensaver depending entirely on how fried your attention span is, mines apparently intact enough to enjoy walking in circles for hours like an alzheimers patient in a mall For me is a 8/10 I'd get lost in this beautiful liminal labyrinth again

Right of the bat, I wish there was a brightness setting, a way we could carry items (the elephant plush, giant rubber duck, plastic pot, trash bag, ect.) without having to hold down the clicker with your index finger the entire time (a simple one time pick up and put down click would have been preferable), and I wish more objects like the xylophone, microwave, wooden blocks, or oven were interactable. Would make it way more fun. Movement is slow even when sprinting. There are a number of times were I would make the wrong turn and wind up somewhere I had already been before and then have to make the long slow trek back, because 'sprinting' is so slow. It does not help that a few of the choices seem to loop you back to places you've been before! Would be nice if we could also jump. The levels are not randomly generated. Not the worst game but still could be better and more engaging. I wish I could give it a "maybe" review instead of yes or no

It’s a bummer when a game’s aesthetic cheques are ones its mechanics can’t cash. Liminal Shift is, by all accounts, a lovely-looking game. It captures that uncanny, something-is-fundamentally-wrong-here vibe of the Backrooms with a level of fidelity that is genuinely impressive. It starts out with a lot of promise as becoming the gold standard of the genre, but once you’re actually in the thick of it, the experience starts to fray. The magic of a great walking simulator (especially one leaning into liminal horror) is deceptively obscured forward momentum. You want that creeping sensation of being hopelessly lost, yet you need to feel like you’re actually making progress through the nightmare. Liminal Shift has a habit of tripping over its own feet in this department. I spent an inordinate amount of time bumping into tedious mazes and backtracking through the same corridors until the atmosphere didn't feel haunting anymore. It just felt annoying. That mechanical friction is a real mood-killer. It’s hard to marvel at the haunting beauty of a liminal space when you’re annoyed that you’ve seen the same waterslide twelve times in five minutes. Then, in a weird bit of tonal whiplash, the game swings to the opposite extreme. Some of the most promising set pieces are so aggressively linear and brief that they’re over before the dread has a chance to settle in your bones. It’s a "blink and you’ll miss it" approach to level design that does a disservice to the experience. There is clearly a massive amount of talent at NextPhase Studios. They have the vision and the technical chops to build a world that stays with you, but Liminal Shift feels like a collection of ideas that haven't been rendered engaging. It’s a stellar tech demo but, as a finished product, it’s a bit of a miss. I’m definitely keeping an eye on whatever they do next, but I’m ready to leave this particular space behind.

I really wanted to like this game, but it fell flat to me. The game is undeniably beautiful, at this point we're used to these UE5 games. Unfortunately, the levels, although maze-like, do not reward exploration at all. While it seems like some rooms have some items that seem to try and tell a vague story, a lot of it is spread about haphazardly. This felt especially prominent for example in the first office backrooms. Most of the other liminal games of the sort I've played reward exploration with interesting rooms, and a sort of maze pattern that does not frustrate. However the maze design in these levels did not feel as straight forward as they should have. A lot of the rooms were a bit too big, maybe not even claustrophobic enough. The lighting was at times beautiful, and other times way too dark. Which makes no sense to me, as in chapter 2 they give you a flashlight that could have existed the whole time. Chapter 2 was really the straw that broke the camel's back. This chapter alone (which I assume is some sort of extra chapter that is trying to tie-in this game with their upcoming Backrooms game) broke every promise this game made. To quote the game's own description, it's supposed to be "devoid of puzzles or monsters to flee from". While the last part is partly true, the last chapter has some sort of entity that spawns around the place, making unsettling sounds in an attempt to sort of stalk you. It does not attack or anything, but it feels disingenuous to say there is not monster in that aspect. And as for the puzzles part, there are about 2 puzzles in the game (playrooms and pinkrooms). I also suspect they have used generative AI to create at least the painting in the living room at the very beginning right above the couch, and might have used it for other things that escaped me.

집에서 출발해 여러 곳을 갔다가 집으로 돌아오는 것이 목표인 워킹 시뮬레이터. 백룸, 풀룸, 플레이룸... 다양한 리미널 스페이스 공간을 체험할 수 있습니다. 그래픽과 환경음이 뛰어나서 적은 안 나오지만 가끔 심적 부담이 왔어요. 하지만 다른 리뷰에서 볼 수 있듯이 화면이 어둡고 길찾기가 꽤 어려운 편이며, 중간 세이브 구간도 애매합니다. 덧) 본격적인 상호작용이 들어가는 에피소드 2는 개발중인 듯? [code] 스팀 큐레이터 : [url=store.steampowered.com/curator/44849820/]INSTALLING NOTHING[/url] [/code]

[h1]A solid liminal gloomy roomy affair.[/h1] Liminal Shift is another game in a small growing sea of walking sim / low psychological horror games inspired by The Backrooms where the developer basically takes a bunch of stock Unreal Engine 5 assets, slaps them into a selection of thematic rooms with obscure or outright random object placements and layers an almost labyrinthian structure on top where you must navigate your way through to the eventual exit. Its strengths much like other liminal-esque games of this type are the visuals and general atmosphere. There are no jumpscares or entities / NPCs that come after you, but in spite of that the it always manages to evoke a constant tension and sense of dread that keeps you on edge despite knowing there's no outright over the top spooking coming. In terms of actual mechanics there isn't much to say since it's a walking simulator with a very light touch of problem solving involved - mainly hitting switches or navigating more mazelike areas, but it does that job well enough for what it is and if you've played similar titles then that experience is very much the same here too. If I had to nitpick a couple of points it would be around the walking and running speeds, which end up being incredibly slow in tandem with some larger rooms or drawn out sections, which can start to drag its heels in places. There's also a lot of looping segways where you can quite easily waste a bunch of time taking the wrong one of two turns and ending up going around in a circle and even double backing on yourself if you aren't careful. It means a more keen eye for detail is needed since areas can easily blur into each other. Some rooms towards the end also feel quite short-lived and would have benefitted from having some more content to go through in exchange for earlier rooms having their sizes trimmed down a bit. Some areas also looked a bit [i]too[/i] similar to that of Pools, although that's likely a natural consequence of using the same asset packs as each other with the same worldbuilding templates. I imagine that's probably only going to be more prevalent as I run through the various "Liminal" games that now exist on Steam. Despite these points they're only relatively minor grievances and they don't detract too badly from the core gameplay loop but could certainly be tightened up to round out the experience a bit better. In summary it's a solid effort and another good example for games of this specific type. If you can keep your patience on the more drawn out sections or indeed it's general pacing sometimes then it's worth a run through.

After watching The Backrooms, all I wanted was to be in the backrooms. But without the fear and running and hiding. THIS IS EXACTLY THAT! I played the whole thing straight through in about 5 hours - LOOKING AT EVERYTHING and MAPPING IT ALL OUT. This was fun. The Playrooms was my favorite section!

it's an okay game overall. I definitely would suggest some other liminal games over this one because I got lost in this one and then got frustrated doing what felt like an hour of backtracking. Also, in the first level (right when you no clip into the backrooms) there's way too much stuff. Yes, there's stuff in the backrooms, but it's not as much as is in this game. it makes it not feel liminal or even backrooms esk. The Pinkrooms (episode 2) was pretty cool, although that one DOES have an entity (although idk if it can hurt you? but it's horrifying). Overall, okay game. maybe like 5/10, It does run just fine, 0 issues with that.