Maquette (2021)

A first-person puzzling game with the mechanical feel and narrative style of a walking sim. I wasn't expecting much from it, honestly - I was just playing it while I was waiting for another game to download/install. But it hooked me to the point that I played it to completion long after the game I was waiting for had finished installing.

It has a killer soundtrack, which is well-integrated into the presentation of the narrative.

The puzzles may not be exciting for the most avid of puzzle fanatics, but I found their challenge level to be just right - interesting enough that it took me a minute or a couple of tries to figure it out, and got a sense of triumph from figuring it out, but not so tough that I got bored or felt like I was wasting a lot of time (or, as in the case of some other puzzle games, spent so much time thinking about the puzzle that I lost the thread of the narrative). The puzzles largely had to do with altered perspective; manipulating a model of a world to make changes in that world. It was fun to wrap one's head around the relationship between the two, and thematically it helped tell the story in emotionally effective ways.

The narrative, essentially one long letter about love, heartbreak, and healing, is well-written and very well performed by the voice actors.

It was an unexpected pleasure to play from start to finish.

Maquette has a story we’ve all heard before, from a perspective that has been employed to excess. It’s straightforward and well acted, but it’s been done umpteenth times in various media, and it has frequently been done better. Think all the intent of a film like Contempt without any of the visceral emotional depth. Maquette doesn’t bring anything new to the discussion because it’s content to rehash a well trodden story. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that story, but you might be a bit tired of it by now.

Maquette is also a puzzle game with good ideas. Most of the time the puzzles are simple but elegant. Never reaching too far into truly puzzling depths, the game is seldom, if ever, a head scratcher. The most difficult of puzzles are ones that require you to merely think outside the box (or the maquette) rather than truly stretch your problem solving muscles.

The disappointing thing about the puzzles is that they never completely tie into the story. While it’s true there is symbolism related to relationships and breakups in the landscapes and models of Maquette, the reality is almost any story could have been told in parallel with the game’s mechanics. The mechanics of the game never truly inform the puzzles, nor do the puzzles ever truly inform the story. A more enthralling Maquette would have linked player actions and game mechanics to a symbolic representations of the themes of the game. While I think there is an attempt to do so it is never fully successful. Almost any story could have been told through the game’s deployment of voiceover and animated cutscene to the point that nothing would need change in the area of puzzle design and mechanics.

Yet what remains is still a visually beautiful game with pleasantly diverting puzzles, one that I recommend experiencing if you have a copy as part of PlayStation Plus. I’m less inclined to recommend it to anyone who needs to purchase a copy.

A very pretty game with so-so puzzles that are at best a novel idea but at worst overly simple. The story is passable but I find it hard to feel very much for the protagonists. Perhaps the story will develop more depth via its interrogation of the nature of a relationship, but up to the point that I currently find myself in the game it’s all very cliché and flat.

Perhaps that Annapurna magic is finally wearing off.

A first-person puzzle game that is both short (2-3 hours) and free (with a PS Plus subscription at the time of this review), which were the main incentives I had to play it.

There is a story. It's about a romantic relationship, and it's as well-acted as it is unoriginal (think Florence with good voice acting but without a heart). It drags on a little bit. Visually, the game is quite pretty in it's diverse architecture and the level design is functional. You walk kinda slowly. The soundtrack is killer and made me search the name of the songs.

The puzzle mechanics are interesting as you'll be manipulating the size and position of objects inside a world (inside a world). The puzzles are usually easy and straightfoward, but there are a couple of really good ones.

If you get this for free, I'd say it's worth your while.