Yeah, it's a rip-off. Here are some other things:
- Extremely similar font choice for the title with the same position and color.
- They chose they exact same voice actor - Max Howarth - for the exact same role (a Stanley Parable-esque narrator).
- In the heading "the fear that watches you" in the store page description, there is a stick figure that is in a style reminiscent of the multiple exit signs found in Superliminal. This icon is also used whenever you sprint in the game.
- The store page description also says; "Puzzles revolve around manipulating perspective and lighting" - the exact USP of Superliminal.
- The game also rips ideas one-to-one directly from Superliminal, such as the intro sequence where you zoom out from a TV screen, along with some voice lines that are plagiarized and slightly changed.

Here are some examples of plagiarized or extremely similar voice lines (Game titles shortened for better recognition):
Super: "Not to worry, we're working on it"
Sub (Trailer): "Don't worry, we can fix that"
Sub: "Not to worry, this is perfectly normal"

Super: "-to prevent them from finding their way back to the proper therapeutic path"
Super: "Please return to the orientation pathway"
Sub: "While I find a way to properly reorient onto our designated path"

Super: "Please ... discontinue whatever you were doing immediately prior to that"
Super: "Please also disregard any unsettling experiences that may have recently had"
Sub: "Please immediately disregard whatever feelings caused you to seek this out."

Super: "You may still be experiencing feelings of worthlessness and self-doubt"
Sub: "Unfortunately, it appears this memory is still exhibiting signs of unpleasentness, discomfort and existential dread."
Sub: "Our memories here and their corresponding feelings of loneliness, anxiety and soul-crushing guilt are rather inconvienient"


It's like those fake mobile games that desperately want you to mistake them for the real version.

Also, do we know if it's actually Max Howarth, and not an AI-generated copy of his voice?

I watched some gameplay, although it looks kinda similar, it does seem to have a lot of work put into it, and is also much more of a horror game than superliminal. I don't think it's an AI voice of Max Howarth.

How is a backrooms exploration game a ripoff to this game?

Originally posted by voyd:

How is a backrooms exploration game a ripoff to this game?

It's obviously trying to pretend to be a sequel to another game in order to trick people into buying it.
How is that not a rip-off or scam?

Originally posted by AveryHyena:

Originally posted by voyd:

How is a backrooms exploration game a ripoff to this game?

It's obviously trying to pretend to be a sequel to another game in order to trick people into buying it.
How is that not a rip-off or scam?

Idk about tricking, but it's definitely using the voice and some aesthetics. It doesn't feel malicious to me, though...

Idk about tricking, but it's definitely using the voice and some aesthetics. It doesn't feel malicious to me, though...

I don't think it was malicious, yet it may even be an homage of sorts. It just appeared to represent its predecessor. I thought the developer just had new ideas that they were trying out.

Right I’m here for Subliminal! Only to find out it’s not the same devs… like wtf is going on here? This can’t be legal? Totally confused over it all as I did enjoy my play through of superliminal and thought it was related after watching someone play the demo. It has similarities painted all over it..

Originally posted by Giotin Gertruda:

Right I’m here for Subliminal! Only to find out it’s not the same devs… like wtf is going on here? This can’t be legal? Totally confused over it all as I did enjoy my play through of superliminal and thought it was related after watching someone play the demo. It has similarities painted all over it..

It's skirting the bounds of legality. Pillow Castle already has a case with all the similarities and the many people who have mistaken it for a sequel to Superliminal.
If people go into a fast food place thinking that it's McDonalds because it purposefully looks extremely similar but it actually isn't McDonalds, McDonalds would instantly sue them into the ground.
It is at worst a scam, and at best, massively plagiarized from Superliminal.
They've even stolen parts of the script and slightly changed them, which I have listed in my original reply here.

At best the developer is just creatively bankrupt instead of morally, making an entire game out of references and borrowed themes. The Ready Player One of liminal space games.

It feels like people associate the word "liminal" with this very game. But it's not a name but an usual, english word.

I follow subliminal (as well as other backrooms-style games) for quite some while now and it never occured to me that somebody may be thinking that they're related.

The description of Subliminal clearly describes it as a backrooms-inspired horror game and visually resembles fellow liminal horror game "Liminalcore" way more than it resembles Superliminal (apart from a slightly similar name), while Superliminal is not a horror game, even if it used false scary moments (the stalking playing piece and its shadows, the splashed red color resembling spilled blood, etc.) nor is it meant to resemble the liminal horror trend of the backrooms. It's a puzzle game about shifting perspectives. So totally different genres.

Subliminal seems to pay homage to Superliminal at best, but it's far from being a blatant scam people try to make it out to be. If anybody is being honest here, after reading the descriptions of both games, who can really believe these two were meant to be related in any way, shape or form?

Originally posted by AveryHyena:

If people go into a fast food place thinking that it's McDonalds because it purposefully looks extremely similar but it actually isn't McDonalds, McDonalds would instantly sue them into the ground.

But it doesn't look similar. It look way more similar to Liminalcore than it does to Superliminal. The example would be more fitting if you said "If people go into McFit (european fitness studio chain mainly found in Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain) and expect fast food, because it has "Mc" in it's name, McDonalds would instantly sue them into the ground." which of course is ridiculous and doesn't happen. Similarly, apart from the "liminal" in their name, those two games have very different aesthetics and don't look anything alike (unless one has never played a first person game before and thinks all first person games look alike) and the decription makes it more than clear that those games are vastly different experiences.

Originally posted by AveryHyena:

- In the heading "the fear that watches you" in the store page description, there is a stick figure that is in a style reminiscent of the multiple exit signs found in Superliminal. This icon is also used whenever you sprint in the game.

This is a strange thing to latch onto since I think the exit signs are just regular European ones.

Originally posted by CannonFodder:

Originally posted by AveryHyena:

- In the heading "the fear that watches you" in the store page description, there is a stick figure that is in a style reminiscent of the multiple exit signs found in Superliminal. This icon is also used whenever you sprint in the game.

This is a strange thing to latch onto since I think the exit signs are just regular European ones.

This is a strange thing to latch onto since I think I mentioned four other much larger things that proves plagiarism.
I never said Pillow Castle invented the exit sign design. I only said that Accidental Studios decided to also use the same design for something that isn't even an exit sign. A hell of a coincidence, considering the similarities already present. The only possible reason is plagiarism.
It's like if someone makes a game heavily featuring tweezers. Then someone else makes a game that already has a lot of similarities with the first game, and also uses tweezers for the interact icon. "But the first game didn't invent tweezers" is not a valid argument.

Originally posted by AveryHyena:

I never said Pillow Castle invented the exit sign design. I only said that Accidental Studios decided to also use the same design for something that isn't even an exit sign. A hell of a coincidence, considering the similarities already present. The only possible reason is plagiarism.

These exit signs are pretty common in backrooms/liminal games.