FINIS PC Review

Have you ever heard of K148 Game Studio? Well, they’re not your most well-known studio, but it looks like they have a knack for thinking outside the box. K148 Game Studio is, unfortunately, one of those studios that somehow just appeared overnight; on a rough estimate based on their previous releases, they were founded in 2019 – 2020 in Barcelona. With a ton of creativity and a deep interest in puzzle games, they set out with their first release, After You, released in 2020. For a first release, it’s a clear sign of hitting the ground running at full speed, which is impressive for a studio manned and run by a single developer to create a good-looking puzzle game.

 

K148 Game Studio went on to release Tempus Level Escape and The Creature: Escape Room in 2022, both of which are well-made puzzlers with unique stories and perspectives with elements of mystery and time travel. This brings us to the present with their latest release, FINIS, on 26 October, a psychological puzzle game based on the Luscher test with a few twists and turns to keep things interesting. Now, to give you a little background – The Luscher test was created by Max Luscher; it is essentially a colour test that is said to reveal more about the person taking the test because colour preferences are an unconscious decision. Luscher believed that certain personality traits could be uncovered through the use of his colour test and reveal the person as they really are and not how they would personally perceive themselves.

Now, it should also be taken into account that the Luscher test was discredited due to a severe lack of evidence or proof that the test was accurate, though it’s still an interesting test to take that may or may not teach you something new. The same also applies to FINIS and how it applies the Luscher test in a game environment. You see, FINIS doesn’t have a story to follow or a bad guy to stop; the adventure is built around the Luscher test and the path you create as you navigate the various puzzles thrown at you.

FINIS initially starts off in what looks to be a small apartment in a futuristic cyberpunk city, though there isn’t really much to explore aside from movement and basic controls. FINIS has no overcomplicated controls or mechanics; you’ll only have your movement controls and then controls to use, pick up and drop objects. That’s pretty much it, nothing crazy or mind-boggling, just that… Now, don’t judge the game just yet; it has a lot more up its sleeve that might surprise you.

 

Back to the apartment, you start in; things kick off quite quickly before you even realize what’s going on after you turn your back. FINIS is one of those puzzle games that will sometimes change things when you turn your back on it, such as the massive pod landing at your front door and then opening up. The only voice you’ll hear is an automated response from the pod saying – “Start the evaluation; please enter the machine and choose a colour”. With nothing else to do, you’ll have to walk into the machine and choose a colour.

This is where things can be a little weird at first; you’ll see six buttons with various colours to choose from on the door and ‘the path’ on the inner wall. From there, you’ll have to choose a colour to get started, and a new part of the path will light up as you complete the puzzles linked to each colour. However, from the second puzzle onwards, you won’t quite know which puzzle you will get, and they can seem random at times, though this is a nice touch and gives a nice unpredictable feeling. Things take a turn after completing the second puzzle as you’ll no longer have the ability to choose a colour, and instead the next puzzles will be chosen based on how you play from the looks of it.

Something to keep in mind with FINIS is that the puzzle you’ll be presented with isn’t necessarily easy, nor will you get hints of any kind, it’s just you and the matter at hand, and you’ll have to figure out what to do. Getting stuck at a puzzle because you really can’t solve it or due to a bug makes no difference, leaving you with the obvious option of having to start over, which is not exactly a fun option if it does happen to you. On the other hand, the puzzles aren’t difficult either and just take some out of the box thinking to figure out; sometimes a bit of brute-force guessing works just as well if you can’t figure it out.

 

What sets FINIS apart from other puzzle games is that the puzzles you’ll be presented with aren’t your generic varieties; you’ll be taken to vastly different places, like a stranded ship on a beach that needs a symbol sequence to progress or what looks to be an abandoned apartment with a haunted teddy bear. Most of the time, everything you need to solve the puzzle at hand is all around you; you just need to connect the dots and sometimes see everything as a clue to the solution. Sadly, there are a few puzzles that give you absolutely zero indication of what needs to happen. This is a bit of a pain, but it’s not the end of the world yet.

So, between figuring out the solution and simply guessing, FINIS doesn’t go out of its way to be impossible. You might just need a change of perspective to see the answer or enough patience to guess your way through it because even a string of wrong answers can occasionally give you the right answer. However, for those who can’t quite look at the different perspectives, a simple hint option would be nice to have, even if it is just for the sake of knowing if you’re going in the right direction. Starting over from scratch is a massive pain, and this can hurt the overall reception of FINIS.

Now that you’ve braved all the puzzles and completed the last one on your current path, you’ll be taken to the last room, where you’ll be given your results. The results consist of the path shown to you in the pod and which puzzles you’ve cleared, your mental agility rating, and lastly, your evaluation. Once again, the evaluation shouldn’t be taken seriously, but it might speak some truth for you, it’s just a matter of perspective in the end. The evaluation will have a short written piece on the one wall, giving you some basic details about who you are and how you would see yourself. After that, you can jump back to the main menu and choose which puzzles you’d like to do without changing your evaluation. This is a nice touch if you just want to experiment and see what else FINIS has to offer or if you want to stretch your brain muscle a bit.

 

FINIS might be built with Unreal Engine, but you can’t expect anything jaw-dropping or overly detailed. The game focuses more on simplicity with texturing and design. However, FINIS is still a visually appealing release when you take a closer look at how each puzzle is a completely different room and environment, and they’re unique from each other. There isn’t a singular theme, but instead, each room and puzzle has a unique theme built to form part of the puzzle. It’s a really nice attention to detail that we don’t see too often because sticking to a singular theme is just easier, but K148 Game Studio seems to have wanted the experience to be as unique as possible.

On the sound engineering front, aside from basic background noises for each puzzle, they all also have their own unique background music. This is most likely the biggest part of what you’ll hear in FINIS because the background music, in general, is aimed to be peaceful and calm, but somehow, each song also blends in perfectly with the different environments, especially considering that a good majority of the music is classic instrumental and once again, meant to keep you calm but focused.

 

Overall, FINIS is one of those games that will give your brain a good workout but also give you a relaxed time as well. While there might not be much on visual detail, the unique puzzles you’ll see more than make up for it, and the simplicity itself makes this release so beautiful. It might not appeal to everybody because of its simplicity, but it has a lot of charm where you’d never expect it to be alongside, even if the world sometimes changes when you look away for long enough.

Jay Claassen (@R3GR3T_3NVY)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed