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From time to time, in the recently released game Superliminal (portal-esque game based on perspective) you can find red switches that can be interacted with like this one:

enter image description here

They can be only flipped once, so once flipped you cannot interact with them anymore. Is there any purpose to them, or are they just decoration like fire extinguishers probably are?

Please note: the example is brownish in color because of the lighting of the room, they are rather red in normal lighting conditions :)

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  • Is there any sound that plays when one is flicked and have you tried not flipping any switches as well as flipping all of them? Weird that this question is the only thing that even mentions this in a google search.
    – Robbie
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 1:21
  • Actually, I tried to to the opposite - flip every switch I can find. However, I can't be sure I flipped 100% of them throughout the whole game.
    – Asunez
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 8:37
  • You do know what those are in the real world, right?...
    – T.J.L.
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 13:50

3 Answers 3

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They are fire alarm pull stations. They never actually activate an alarm or do anything else relevant to gameplay, but they relate to a number of achievements. Here are their descriptions as given in Steam:

  • Fire Alarmist: Pull one fire alarm
  • Expert Fire Alarmist: Pull enough fire alarms
  • Fire Safety Achieved: Pull all the fire alarms

If you pull all the alarms (completing the Fire Safety Achieved achievement), then there is another bonus effect:

The main menu screen will have an option with a fire alarm icon, and if you choose it, a sprinkler animation will play in the background. Other achievements and secret-finding can also add features to the main menu scene.

I believe the alarm stations in the “Clone” chapter which do not function normally do not count for the achievement, but I don't have proof.

If you're trying for the achievements, make sure to always turn around when you pass through a doorway to see if there's one on the wall behind you.

Related: the fire extinguishers, often found next to the fire alarm stations, have a set of achievements for emptying them (clicking them until they wheeze) and if you empty all of them,

Clicking any fire extinguisher in-game will cause it to shoot fire instead of white clouds.

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  • It seems that this should be the accepted answer, so I'm changing the owner of the green tick to this answer. Especially since you have proven that the dialog mentioned by Jay in his answer is played no matter what the status of the achievement is. Thanks for clarification!
    – Asunez
    Commented Apr 6, 2021 at 15:39
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enter image description hereIt does in fact have a small effect on the game play. The doctor narrating the story congratulates you for activating all 823 emergency protocols (the switches and fire extinguishes) through one scene with a cassette player/ jukebox.

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  • Nice! I knew there had to be something about them :)
    – Asunez
    Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 8:05
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    I don't think this is correct. Playing without getting all of them will still play the same message (for example, in this Let's Play which did not attempt to get all achievements.
    – Kevin Reid
    Commented Apr 4, 2021 at 19:28
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    Confirmed, this is incorrect. this is just a normal speech at a certain point of the game, your prior activities have no affect on when this message appears.
    – Rapitor
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 14:37
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+50

EDIT: This is no longer true. Apparently they now do something. See accepted answer.

I can't be certain that they do nothing, but as far as I can tell they serve the same purpose as all of the other misc objects with no story purpose (fire extinguisher, etc).

Using this walkthrough, in which the author interacts with every switch, there is no visible effect on the story.

Interestingly, the switch will duplicate itself an infinite number of times during some sections:

Though later the switches will revert to the same original behavior.

This strange effect isn't limited to switches, either:

In later sections, you must duplicate a door in this manner to progress. You >! also must use the same trick to duplicate various misc items.

source

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  • You're right that later on there are sections where switches duplicate, but they might as well be totally excluded from the "achievement" or whatever there might be for flipping all of them. Maybe the existence of the red switch is just to annoy, as you do not know what it does. You noted (and so did I, actually, in the question) that there are other decorative items in the game, but you do not expect from a fire extinguisher to activate something, but you can expect a switch to do that - hence my question :)
    – Asunez
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 8:42
  • @Asunez playing through the whole game and flipping all the switches did nothing for me. There is no evidence that flipping the switches is anything other than decoration.
    – Nick S
    Commented Dec 14, 2019 at 22:49
  • Okay, seems like you're the one to get the bounty here. Howerver, if there is new evidence to this, the green tick will change it's owner ;)
    – Asunez
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 9:34

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