Maquette was a very interesting puzzle game that incorporates perspective very well. You solve the puzzles through a recursive view, meaning you see the world you are in, just a smaller replica of the area you're at. Each puzzle illustrates the game's love story well through various difficulties. Some of the later puzzles got me a bit mentally frustrated, but what kept me pushing through was the engrossing story of the two characters, Kenzie and Michael. Both played by real-life married couple Bryce Dallas Howard and Seth Gable.

Overall, the game is interesting and enjoyable, but the puzzles can definitely be tough to mentally process a few times!

(Review from 2021)

I usually enjoy puzzle games and walking sims and love to support Annapurna produced content. But I don’t think I finished this game - I need space on my hard drive so this got the boot to my external storage (and since you can’t play ps5 games that are on external storage it’ll be stuck for a while).

The game starts off pretty cute. The entire premise is watching a couples narrative unfold while uses a maquette to manipulate the size of various key items to drive the narrative forward.

The game is a bit abstract with the buildings and what they mean. Sometimes it seems like a place the couple lived but sometimes it looks like a rundown castle? The key items are also abstract and the connection between why you are using said item to unlock a memory doesn’t have any explanation or seem relevant- example the one level you use these different crystals but I don’t think there is any connection why you have those items - their usage is completely irrelevant to the story other than unlocking the next dialogue. For me this just made it a bit flat. I’d rather collect plants that had the same purpose and the plants tie into the memory. It felt like a big miss to conceptualize the memories.

I also felt some of the puzzles were glitchy / non responsive and some were so confusing - theres a rule that’s there is no rules. I definitely got to a point I broke my save file as I managed to break a door thinking I was solving the puzzle and when I looked up the guide on what to do I was just quite angry at the solve. I can’t say why without spoilers but I felt there was no explanation/ hint or anything on what you had to do to even get to the conclusion of the answer.

Prior to this I had about 2 hours lost in that one section and had to redo it and with the guide it took me maybe 10 minutes. That’s how complicated some of the puzzles are because you can’t always tell where you go next and you spend 20 min on a dead end only to retrace your steps.

The problem with this is you really lose the narrative if you follow a wrong lead to dead end. I forgot what the story told me by the time I finished the area the unlocking the maquette once it gets locked. And then I just lost interest and found the game to be draining to play.

I liked how Bryce Dallas-Howard and her husband did the voice acting they really did well voicing their affection for each other.

I just think the game could be more refined to help the flow so the puzzles can be complex but not hinder the narrative.

Interesante pero a veces demasiado obtuso y con una narrativa demasiado fragmentada de su gameplay.

Me gusta mucho la idea de engrandecer, empequeñecer y colocar objetos para superar puzles, pero a veces las soluciones son demasiado obtusas y no se entienden fácilmente. Y la narrativa sobre el amor está guay... pero no tiene mucho que ver con la mecánica de puzles.

Visualmente es una maravilla, eso sí, el diseño visual es tremendo. ¡Y es cortito!