Great concept. Lackluster excecution.
okay puzzle game that does some neat stuff with perspective but none of the puzzles felt all that satisfying to solve.
The unfortunate thing about this game is that almost none of its interactions feel good. The core mechanic is neat enough to sustain it's short runtime, but at no point did it every feel really satisfying to solve or intuitive to perform the puzzle-solving required.
The entirely unnecessary story is a generic breakup tale that never feels connected to the gameplay or meangingful.
The entirely unnecessary story is a generic breakup tale that never feels connected to the gameplay or meangingful.
A very strange game that I played 2 years ago, probably not as amazing as I nostalgically remember it, but for me still a very beautifull artistic game, with really strange and complicated love story. The game often dragged on for too long and was and too complicated in terms of puzzles.
Kind of awkward mechanics, puzzles mainly reliant on observation, short, mostly downtime walking. Ehhhh. Coming off the back of playing Viewfinder (and hating it), I feel softer on this game despite not really being that invested in the narrative. That said, I appreciate the artistic vision the director had for this game and I actually do think the Maquette as a set piece is really interesting, and overall was this neat sort of unfolding thing with each element symbolizing evolving parts of the main character's relationship.
While a sort of basic tale about the nature of relationships and self growth (read, shallow but not offensively, just blandly relatable), parts were well delivered, and some of the visual art on display was really fantastic. I'm not sure if all the music was original for this game, but it was pretty good too. I think if you have gamepass and would play something that looks like this have a go; though, I think in retrospect I'd say its kind of middling.
Biggest issues are that objects are clunky and its not much of a puzzle game, more like a "Whoa you gotta like, look at things a different way bro." But the gimmick is you are literally doing this in the game as the main character has to look at things differently in his life. Its a short narrative driven walking sim masquerading as a puzzle game. I think its cute, but unfortunately cute only gets you so far. 50% cute 50% boring af.
While a sort of basic tale about the nature of relationships and self growth (read, shallow but not offensively, just blandly relatable), parts were well delivered, and some of the visual art on display was really fantastic. I'm not sure if all the music was original for this game, but it was pretty good too. I think if you have gamepass and would play something that looks like this have a go; though, I think in retrospect I'd say its kind of middling.
Biggest issues are that objects are clunky and its not much of a puzzle game, more like a "Whoa you gotta like, look at things a different way bro." But the gimmick is you are literally doing this in the game as the main character has to look at things differently in his life. Its a short narrative driven walking sim masquerading as a puzzle game. I think its cute, but unfortunately cute only gets you so far. 50% cute 50% boring af.
As a narrative first game, I really appreciate stories of falling out and noticing little things through its albeit hard yet thematic puzzles. I love how the puzzles are non-trivial and made me feel clever solving them which is rare in this genre.
What hurts this game the most is the lacking story considering its genre. I do sympathize with the characters, but I did not get a sense of their character or conflict with the fragmented approach to narrative. It feels like hitting the general points but not the details in between which makes stories special. Given its indie scale, I do understand the style and approach, but it left me wanting.
For some minor issues, moving an object is very rigid and feels unresponsive or clunky. This also lacks some accessibility options such as subtitles for the cutscenes (the audio mixing can be rough), a sprint option for the tedious traversal and probably a hint/skip puzzle system as they are not the focus (as much as I like them.)
This is still a good game with a heart and would not mind another iteration as a harder yet more focused puzzle game.
What hurts this game the most is the lacking story considering its genre. I do sympathize with the characters, but I did not get a sense of their character or conflict with the fragmented approach to narrative. It feels like hitting the general points but not the details in between which makes stories special. Given its indie scale, I do understand the style and approach, but it left me wanting.
For some minor issues, moving an object is very rigid and feels unresponsive or clunky. This also lacks some accessibility options such as subtitles for the cutscenes (the audio mixing can be rough), a sprint option for the tedious traversal and probably a hint/skip puzzle system as they are not the focus (as much as I like them.)
This is still a good game with a heart and would not mind another iteration as a harder yet more focused puzzle game.
When I solved the first puzzle and it played a super catchy and mellow Meredith Edgar song I was 100% on board: solve a puzzle, get a song! What a great concept! I could hear some rad new licensed indie jams while stroking my brain like it was Donald Pleasance's cat. This excitement lasted for exactly two songs. Unfortunately the puzzles turned frustrating pretty fast, and then they stopped delivering the music altogether, focusing instead on an interpersonal story that didn't grab me.
The main thing I took away from this is what a huge impact licensed music makes on me in a game. Life is Strange is the other big example I can think of where I was immediately drawn in by it. Honestly I wasn't even all that super into the songs; mostly they sounded like something you'd hear at your local coffee shop, but almost as soon as they started I could feel myself becoming more emotionally invested. I guess I'm an easy mark for that stuff; maybe I should seek out more games like this.
The main thing I took away from this is what a huge impact licensed music makes on me in a game. Life is Strange is the other big example I can think of where I was immediately drawn in by it. Honestly I wasn't even all that super into the songs; mostly they sounded like something you'd hear at your local coffee shop, but almost as soon as they started I could feel myself becoming more emotionally invested. I guess I'm an easy mark for that stuff; maybe I should seek out more games like this.
Has nothing interesting to say, but tries its best to act like it does.
This review contains spoilers
I think the best revenge an ex-girlfriend could possibly hope for would be their former significant other developing a video game about their relationship, and it ending up like this.
A frankly embarrassing, often busted gauntlet of twee millennialism, Maquette is a somewhat brief narrative puzzle game starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Seth Gabel. Sprinkled throughout are infrequent but shockingly uninteresting puzzles that make Superliminal look like Portal. The controls are unfinished, the puzzles are glitchy, and as a package it just doesn't work. I got soft-locked thrice in three hours, and not because I'm an idiot.
As for the story, despite my rough-and-tumble, chiseled, rugged, roguish, strong, dashing, primally masculine, tough-as-nails, strapping, exceptionally hunky exterior, I have been known to experience emotions from time to time. I'm fairly certain the emotion this game is going for is 'bittersweet reminiscence', but judging by the fact that halfway through I asked my wife to chop me in half with a sword to make it stop, I think they missed the mark. I cringe, Mr. Mayor.
I could have abandoned Maquette, sure.
A frankly embarrassing, often busted gauntlet of twee millennialism, Maquette is a somewhat brief narrative puzzle game starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Seth Gabel. Sprinkled throughout are infrequent but shockingly uninteresting puzzles that make Superliminal look like Portal. The controls are unfinished, the puzzles are glitchy, and as a package it just doesn't work. I got soft-locked thrice in three hours, and not because I'm an idiot.
As for the story, despite my rough-and-tumble, chiseled, rugged, roguish, strong, dashing, primally masculine, tough-as-nails, strapping, exceptionally hunky exterior, I have been known to experience emotions from time to time. I'm fairly certain the emotion this game is going for is 'bittersweet reminiscence', but judging by the fact that halfway through I asked my wife to chop me in half with a sword to make it stop, I think they missed the mark. I cringe, Mr. Mayor.
I could have abandoned Maquette, sure.
bons puzzle, o romance, a historia entre os dois personagens é boa e explora os sentimentos do ser humano
It's nice to look at and the concept is cool to play around with, but it doesn't do as much as it could with the idea. Instead, it focuses more on the story—a couple falling in and out of love—which isn't very interesting and whose characters don't feel like real people. Using the game world to emulate the stages of a relationship was nicely done at least. The puzzles themselves are alright; though some are frustrating, I like the all-around practical approach to solving them.
Cool puzzle concepts, controls are a little wonky but manageable. Pretty decent game that I would have forgotten about instantly EXCEPT it has this story that inexplicably struck me directly in my soul. This game notched an arrow and shot me in the heart and then took that arrow out and stabbed me with it 100 times and then took away all my happiness. Why it struck a chord with me I don't really understand but I can't afford therapy to find out and the rocketship song still gets the tear ducts flowing. 7/10
A fun puzzle game that messes with scale in an interesting way. I remember feeling like it was neat when I played it but it's only been about 2 years and I've completely forgotten it even existed.
Interesting mechanics with a good story.
man what is it with indie developers and thinking 'story about a relationship that went sour narrated by the man' is in any way unique or subversive
Like, okay, I'll give the game some things. The art direction is gorgeous — a core and actually distinct theme in this otherwise trite story is that both parties involved are artists and view the world through the lens of art and while the conversations themselves don't have a lot of worth (i want a fridge that's sideways instead of vertical because i'm quirky xd! this is the part in the story where we're deliriously happy with one another so that when juxtaposed with the very next chapter when we hate each other and break up this'll ring as bittersweet in hindsight) the visual of the drawing slowly coming together was mesmerizing and really did sell me on the game's art direction. I also was interested in the central conceit of the gameplay — messing with the maquette to make objects bigger or smaller, breaking through the boundary of the world to make yourself smaller is conceptually interesting, but in practice the game doesn't teach you any of its mechanics which made me have to check the walkthrough frequently to know where the puzzle even was and to see what obscure mechanic from two chapters ago was being brought back and many of the solutions themselves were fraught with slowness, tedium, and brute-forcing against the game's physics engine until things arbitrarily worked. Always frustrating, never really fun.
I would've maybe given this game a borderline pass if one of its aspects really worked beyond the conceptual level, overall, but between a story that's not as distinct as it thinks it is and puzzle gameplay that should work more than it actually does, art design and presentation are only barely enough to stop this game from being bad. 4/10.
Like, okay, I'll give the game some things. The art direction is gorgeous — a core and actually distinct theme in this otherwise trite story is that both parties involved are artists and view the world through the lens of art and while the conversations themselves don't have a lot of worth (i want a fridge that's sideways instead of vertical because i'm quirky xd! this is the part in the story where we're deliriously happy with one another so that when juxtaposed with the very next chapter when we hate each other and break up this'll ring as bittersweet in hindsight) the visual of the drawing slowly coming together was mesmerizing and really did sell me on the game's art direction. I also was interested in the central conceit of the gameplay — messing with the maquette to make objects bigger or smaller, breaking through the boundary of the world to make yourself smaller is conceptually interesting, but in practice the game doesn't teach you any of its mechanics which made me have to check the walkthrough frequently to know where the puzzle even was and to see what obscure mechanic from two chapters ago was being brought back and many of the solutions themselves were fraught with slowness, tedium, and brute-forcing against the game's physics engine until things arbitrarily worked. Always frustrating, never really fun.
I would've maybe given this game a borderline pass if one of its aspects really worked beyond the conceptual level, overall, but between a story that's not as distinct as it thinks it is and puzzle gameplay that should work more than it actually does, art design and presentation are only barely enough to stop this game from being bad. 4/10.
Simple storyline turned into a visually pleasing and relaxing puzzle game. This game felt like an interactive short film and that's what makes it beautiful. You are not here to stress out on solving puzzles but you are here to exercise your mind while you experience a love letter on relationships.
Cool though sometimes kind of sluggish puzzles. Cool story too, but I didn't see the correlation between both gameplay and story which made the narrative kind of weak.
Maquette has a lovely core idea, the whole puzzle of playing with item perspectives but its something that gets old incredibly fast and devolves quickly into hunting tediously for the next bit of whatever you're doing. Add in an incredibly boring love story and I felt like I was falling asleep while playing it. I got about two thirds through and I just couldnt care less anymore.
From wikipedia:
"During development, the game's story was originally about a character trapped in a dungeon by a wizard. After a few years of production, the project lead felt uninspired by it, and rewrote it into a love story."
From me:
Tech bros cannot write love stories to save their fucking lives. Their lives are already basically about being a wizard trapping people into dungeons of conversation. That'd be a more honest impulse to explore.
"During development, the game's story was originally about a character trapped in a dungeon by a wizard. After a few years of production, the project lead felt uninspired by it, and rewrote it into a love story."
From me:
Tech bros cannot write love stories to save their fucking lives. Their lives are already basically about being a wizard trapping people into dungeons of conversation. That'd be a more honest impulse to explore.
the concept wi feel was kind of weird to be telling in the form of a first person perspective based puzzle game but i cant say it DIDNT work. music was great visuals were great but the puzzles were lacking in quantity and quality and the controls were pretty inconsistent. not bad but certainly not amazing
Surprisingly cool concept and some decent puzzles but the game is lacking polish and the performance is too poor. There was also a seemingly irrelevant story that I got bored of after a while.
The game is pretty short and I would have finished it but my game crashed and didn't save so that was a disappointing bug for a game that's already been out for 2 years.
Overall it would probably be a decent 5/10 game with some kinks ironed out but even then it would still have a long way to go before I'd come close to going out of my way to recommend it.
The game is pretty short and I would have finished it but my game crashed and didn't save so that was a disappointing bug for a game that's already been out for 2 years.
Overall it would probably be a decent 5/10 game with some kinks ironed out but even then it would still have a long way to go before I'd come close to going out of my way to recommend it.
(Game Pass) Gorgeous puzzle game with a story about a relationship ending. Good challenges and achievements to speedrun the levels. Enjoyed the art style and the VA of Bryce Dallas Howard and her husband Seth Gabel as the story couple.
I must admit, I stuck with this longer than I stick with most first-person puzzle games. There's a cool concept to the story and the item manipulation element was neat as well. But even after giving it a somewhat decent leash, I found myself losing interest. Sometimes, games like this can feel like playing someone's art project to me. Cool ideas, but not something that grabbed me a ton.
O jogo no início parece interessante, mas vai te estressando e frustrando no decorrer da gameplay, enquanto conta a história de um casal. Ele começa fácil e colorido e depois vai ficando mais dark e desafiador. Acredito que a proposta seja simular os pontos altos e baixos de um namoro, com o começo mais simples e depois mexendo com as suas emoções, até você sentir o alívio em terminar o jogo. Como nem tudo são flores, o jogo apresenta alguns glitches e tem problemas em alguns puzzles.
Maquette - e se estenderemos a gameplay de Superliminal e mostrarmos como não ter um bom storytelling?
Maquette é um dos piores jogos que já joguei, eu me esforcei até onde deu mas é ruim demais para a Annapurna, é um jogo com mecânica de manipular o tamanho de um objeto através da perspectiva (novidade) enquanto é interrompido constantemente com "cutscenes" abstratas dos protagonistas da obra, é um desserviço terrível a ludonarrativa que insiste em não usar a gameplay como extensão do texto, a maior sutileza da obra está em caixas de textos flutuantes contextualizando
Toda a plot também é bem sem sal, dois malucos aleatórios que se encontram em um café e gostam de desenhar, começam a se gostar e o máximo que a gameplay faz para contextualizar é as fases se passarem nos mesmos que eles se encontraram (até certo ponto,)
Eu dropei fácil
Maquette é um dos piores jogos que já joguei, eu me esforcei até onde deu mas é ruim demais para a Annapurna, é um jogo com mecânica de manipular o tamanho de um objeto através da perspectiva (novidade) enquanto é interrompido constantemente com "cutscenes" abstratas dos protagonistas da obra, é um desserviço terrível a ludonarrativa que insiste em não usar a gameplay como extensão do texto, a maior sutileza da obra está em caixas de textos flutuantes contextualizando
Toda a plot também é bem sem sal, dois malucos aleatórios que se encontram em um café e gostam de desenhar, começam a se gostar e o máximo que a gameplay faz para contextualizar é as fases se passarem nos mesmos que eles se encontraram (até certo ponto,)
Eu dropei fácil
No idea why they bothered getting actors and licensed music in this, when the story is just the most barebones divorce story.
Anyways, the meat of this game revolves around the concept of manipulating items and spaces through a maquette. Anything you move in the maquette moves that item outside of it. It's a bit more complicated than that but I really don't feel like explaining it. So yeah, it's neat and pretty unique.
There's a few puzzles that use the mechanics/concept really well but there's also quite a few duds that felt cheap. I'd still recommend it to fellow first person puzzler fans.
Anyways, the meat of this game revolves around the concept of manipulating items and spaces through a maquette. Anything you move in the maquette moves that item outside of it. It's a bit more complicated than that but I really don't feel like explaining it. So yeah, it's neat and pretty unique.
There's a few puzzles that use the mechanics/concept really well but there's also quite a few duds that felt cheap. I'd still recommend it to fellow first person puzzler fans.
i was having fun but ps plus ran out and i wasn't having enough fun to buy the game
Dormi jogando isso.
Started off really strong with an interesting narrative and a fun gameplay idea. Just executed terribly. I found the puzzles were either totally obvious or practically impossible to figure out. Many of the puzzles were an exercise in "what in this scene can I interact with" trial and error rather than actually intuiting anything. Things that looked gameplay significant were often decorations and vice versa.
It's a great idea that would have needed a bit more polish or one more step away from the core to be really great. But it was a nice brain exercise.