I've been hyped for this since it first was announced last year, and I'm happy to say that it.. mostly delivers. I really wish it went a little further with its concept (like an hour more would have been perfect for me), and one of the puzzles is unbelievably unintuitive and reminded me of the worst parts of The Witness, but other than that, this is wonderful.
Annapurna strikes again babey.
Annapurna strikes again babey.
Neat
why we still thniking synthpop? videogames are vessels for greater things, not an complement for artsy intentions.
Annapurna is turning patronage into a joke.
Annapurna is turning patronage into a joke.
Maquette's bougie sentimentality needs to be toppled with mischief and bite, something to make sure that kind of game would never take the stage and lecture you with boring aphorisms at the BAFTAs.
A great premise, that sadly falls a bit short of its potential. I liked the recursive environment and the way it tied back to the game's themes, but I wish some elements were used more. There's hardly ever a reason to venture out into the large world, for example. Multiple times I was disappointed to find that a puzzle's solution was a lot less creative than what I was expecting it to be. Surprisingly glitchy as well, there were a couple of instances where I couldn't get what I needed to progress and had to reload a save that I had thankfully made only a few steps earlier.
I liked the story of Kenzie and Michael, and their performances are excellent. There are a few moments where this game really sings, and those moments are strong enough to mostly carry the not so great moments. Still though, I can't help but feel a little remorse at what could have been.
I liked the story of Kenzie and Michael, and their performances are excellent. There are a few moments where this game really sings, and those moments are strong enough to mostly carry the not so great moments. Still though, I can't help but feel a little remorse at what could have been.
This review contains spoilers
"I, too, became disappointed in the game. And so, just as the couple explores their relationship, I’m taken to explore some relationships here as well."
"This concept is so cool, in fact, that the game itself seems like it’s always playing catch-up with it, frantically trying figure out how to use it in ways that are interesting both mechanically and allegorically. Not always with great results."
Full review: https://fabiobracht.medium.com/maquette-a-game-and-a-review-about-exploring-relationships-e6ff0e8e621a
"This concept is so cool, in fact, that the game itself seems like it’s always playing catch-up with it, frantically trying figure out how to use it in ways that are interesting both mechanically and allegorically. Not always with great results."
Full review: https://fabiobracht.medium.com/maquette-a-game-and-a-review-about-exploring-relationships-e6ff0e8e621a
Was looking forward to this - was in the perfect mood for a fun puzzler but was disappointed by the structure. The pacing is just killed by the game constantly pausing so you can listen to boring narration about people you don't care about. Made it about half way through.
Neat concept tho.
Neat concept tho.
I didn't like anything about my time with Maquette, unfortunately.
The story is fairly generic, basically following the most rote version of a boy-meets-girl-but-it-doesn't-work-out type of narrative. It is told with very ponderous, voice-acted cutscenes that happen way too often, pull control away from the player, and when they were occurring were more annoying than interesting.
The idea behind the puzzles in Maquette is interesting, being able to manipulate the size of objects by placing it in different versions of the same space, but the puzzles themselves fail to deliver on this promise. The majority of the puzzles boil down to "do the only thing you can do right now" and the other 10% force you to make an arbitrary connection between untaught ideas or notice some small detail in the environment or objects around you.
One sequence of puzzles even introduces arbitrary changes to the rules of the world in order to make them work (picking up and putting down objects changes, gravity (!?) changes, etc...)
I cannot recommend this game to anyone.
The story is fairly generic, basically following the most rote version of a boy-meets-girl-but-it-doesn't-work-out type of narrative. It is told with very ponderous, voice-acted cutscenes that happen way too often, pull control away from the player, and when they were occurring were more annoying than interesting.
The idea behind the puzzles in Maquette is interesting, being able to manipulate the size of objects by placing it in different versions of the same space, but the puzzles themselves fail to deliver on this promise. The majority of the puzzles boil down to "do the only thing you can do right now" and the other 10% force you to make an arbitrary connection between untaught ideas or notice some small detail in the environment or objects around you.
One sequence of puzzles even introduces arbitrary changes to the rules of the world in order to make them work (picking up and putting down objects changes, gravity (!?) changes, etc...)
I cannot recommend this game to anyone.
Annapurna's first huge miss, imo. This would've worked so much better as a walking sim (ala Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch) OR a pure puzzle game (ala The Witness). Instead, we got a half-baked walking sim puzzle game. Unfortunate, since the concept is fantastic.
A nice concept but heavily underutilised.
supremely disappointing, a handful of best-in-show puzzle moments in amongst a painstaking portrayal of a decaying relationship between characters as unpleasant at their best as at their worst
I was actually really looking forward to this, but got more disappointed the further I played.
The main gameplay mechanic is quite a cool idea, but in practice, it's more tedious than anything else. Walking for at least a minute to test out a possible solution for a puzzle, because leaving the Maquette takes forever and if you combine that with the fact that you can't sprint, you will quickly get annoyed by the amount of running around you'll have to do.
Some of the puzzles were too abstract for my personal liking and I had to look them up online.
Also, I didn't like the story as much as I wanted to. It all boils down to a certain story-telling decision I personally don't like which, if removed, would elevate the game a bit for me personally.
I also ran into quite some technical issues on my PC, including a bad performance on a PC that should easily be able to handle this game.
It had some nice moments and a clever puzzle or two, but overall I can't say I particularly enjoyed it. I mostly kept playing because I knew it wasn't that long and just wanted to see where the devs take the experience.
The main gameplay mechanic is quite a cool idea, but in practice, it's more tedious than anything else. Walking for at least a minute to test out a possible solution for a puzzle, because leaving the Maquette takes forever and if you combine that with the fact that you can't sprint, you will quickly get annoyed by the amount of running around you'll have to do.
Some of the puzzles were too abstract for my personal liking and I had to look them up online.
Also, I didn't like the story as much as I wanted to. It all boils down to a certain story-telling decision I personally don't like which, if removed, would elevate the game a bit for me personally.
I also ran into quite some technical issues on my PC, including a bad performance on a PC that should easily be able to handle this game.
It had some nice moments and a clever puzzle or two, but overall I can't say I particularly enjoyed it. I mostly kept playing because I knew it wasn't that long and just wanted to see where the devs take the experience.
fun little puzzle game with a very creative concept and very beautiful environments. unfortunately the game is very short (it was free on PS+ so not a huge drawback), the puzzles are mostly pretty easy, and the ending was kinda underwhelming. even with all that, I'd still recommend to play this since the puzzle mechanic is pretty cool.
The central mechanics are no doubt unique and lead to some very impressive puzzles, but the controls are pretty annoying to deal with at times, and some of the solutions feel needlessly obtuse.
Would’ve at least been decent if it weren’t for the overwhelmingly shallow Hollywood love story that has virtually nothing to do with the gameplay tacked on.
Would’ve at least been decent if it weren’t for the overwhelmingly shallow Hollywood love story that has virtually nothing to do with the gameplay tacked on.
Maquette has a very unique concept for a puzzle game that I wish would have been capitalized on more. The narrative that it tells is great and I love the visual metaphors that the game uses to accent the story of two characters falling in love and the aftermath that plays out. It's a very bittersweet game but one I enjoyed nonetheless from a narrative and visual perspective. However, in terms of gameplay I feel that the puzzles could have been fleshed out a bit more. This is a very short game even on a first playthrough, which left me feeling ultimately disappointed once I realized it was over because I was hoping to get more out of the puzzle-solving aspect.
Basically, if you're playing this game for the story you'll probably enjoy it, but if you're looking for an invigorating puzzle game that challenges you, then you might not get into it as much.
Basically, if you're playing this game for the story you'll probably enjoy it, but if you're looking for an invigorating puzzle game that challenges you, then you might not get into it as much.
This review contains spoilers
annapurna be like "uwu i like producing very pretty games about breakups"
gonna be real, expected a bit more out of this game. the whole recursive world idea is neat but ends up ultimately being a bit too obtuse to connect with in a meaningful and entertaining way.
this, combined with the fact that the game is all tied together with a narrative focused around two characters who really never get the time they need to be developed into... likeable people... is kinda eh.
legitimately, the little scribblings and narrative bits of info scattered around the world are so disconnected from the character they're supposedly from that i thought they were gonna pull some kind of twist and be like "actually you were playing as the woman the whole time!"
the art style's real pretty, the music's real pretty, the writing at it's best is sentimental and romantic in one of the better kinds of ways, and the meat of the game is a bit of a buggy mess.
i'd say it's probably worth it to give this a play. it's barely four hours long and free on PS Plus if you have a PS5. would love to see more from this developer though, i think this game as a debut shows nothing but promise!
5/10
gonna be real, expected a bit more out of this game. the whole recursive world idea is neat but ends up ultimately being a bit too obtuse to connect with in a meaningful and entertaining way.
this, combined with the fact that the game is all tied together with a narrative focused around two characters who really never get the time they need to be developed into... likeable people... is kinda eh.
legitimately, the little scribblings and narrative bits of info scattered around the world are so disconnected from the character they're supposedly from that i thought they were gonna pull some kind of twist and be like "actually you were playing as the woman the whole time!"
the art style's real pretty, the music's real pretty, the writing at it's best is sentimental and romantic in one of the better kinds of ways, and the meat of the game is a bit of a buggy mess.
i'd say it's probably worth it to give this a play. it's barely four hours long and free on PS Plus if you have a PS5. would love to see more from this developer though, i think this game as a debut shows nothing but promise!
5/10
This review contains spoilers
I don't want to be too hard on a short inventive puzzle game that seems more focused on exploring a radio play of two San Fransisco doughballs' relationships than allowing the player to mess around with its central 'recursive world' mechanic - but I was certainly more excited for the latter. The way the gameplay blends into the narrative isn't lost on me; shrinking and growing different elements of yourself until you contort into fitting into a relationship is quite relateable... but If you prod at this game too hard, you'll poke a hole in it.
Maquette is a game about seeing the big picture; it encourages you to go outside the recursive boundaries and interact with the many worlds until you end up trapped or blocked because they didn’t think about their own concept enough. Surprisingly glitchy for an Annapurna title, I found myself in several fail states requiring me to restart the given chapter to wriggle out of. By the time the game finally unchains its Matryoshka doll premise for the player to make full use of, it's already over.
Maquette is a game about seeing the big picture; it encourages you to go outside the recursive boundaries and interact with the many worlds until you end up trapped or blocked because they didn’t think about their own concept enough. Surprisingly glitchy for an Annapurna title, I found myself in several fail states requiring me to restart the given chapter to wriggle out of. By the time the game finally unchains its Matryoshka doll premise for the player to make full use of, it's already over.
What sucks is how second-fiddle the puzzle gameplay is to the romance, which is really bottom-tier stuff; game devs really need to move past 500 Days of Summer, twee, kind of quirky but actually really boring characterization of romance. I don't think I played more than three minutes of puzzle solving before being interrupted by the awful characters.
I admittedly grumbled when I first saw that all too familiar notebook-writing conjuring itself over the scenery of the opening walk through the garden. In the vein of previous titles, such as Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch, Annapurna Interactive return to telling sad stories, about annoyingly twee young people, through mind-bending environments that abstract their changing mental states.
The relationship narrative here is simple but painfully typical of this sort of game. It was only last month PS Plus gave us Concrete Genie, another smug game about sketching hipsters, ugh.
That said, it works just fine, syncing emotionally the enjoyable (and sometimes hard?) puzzle-solving gameplay.
The relationship narrative here is simple but painfully typical of this sort of game. It was only last month PS Plus gave us Concrete Genie, another smug game about sketching hipsters, ugh.
That said, it works just fine, syncing emotionally the enjoyable (and sometimes hard?) puzzle-solving gameplay.
Game has 7 chapters. 1st chapter is intro/tutprial. Chapters 2-4 are great chapters with really clever and charming puzzle design, the best part of the game. Then the last three focus on the story and the puzzles take sort of a backseat which is a bummer. If all 7 chapters were like 2-4 this would be a fantastic puzzle game. Great soundtrack
the puzzle elements are cool but the narration and story feels entirely unnecessary
This was a very interesting puzzle game that plays with perspective and a mind-bending environment while telling a story of a man and woman's relationship. I found the story to be more intriguing than the puzzles, but this was an enjoyable game especially since it came free with PS+ for March.
Malette
An imaginative game mechanic is kinda meaningless if everything surronding it lacks imagination.
The game’s too easy to break, and some of the solutions seem impossible to figure out on your own. But the game’s mechanics are creative, the soundtrack is nice, and I found the overarching narrative to be sufficiently engaging. There’s something nostalgic about this game that I can’t put my finger on
Quaint and inoffensive with some very good voice acting.
There are a handful of moments in Maquette that feel truly magical, but they are overshadowed by game-breakingly bad puzzle design and cumbersome controls. I wanted to like this game but the difficulty is incredibly inconsistent. Certain puzzles are borderline unsolvable without a guide, while others are so easy they left me second guessing myself. The "story" follows a couple through the various stages of their relationship, although the game itself takes place within an abstract representation of the main character's emotions and memories during key moments of this relationship. The story is undoubtedly cliche but the voice acting and visuals did a good job of placing me in the same headspace as the protagonist. The soundtrack is also stellar. If you are a fan of The Witness, it's worth a shot but don't feel guilty about looking up solutions when you're stuck.
Maquette is a puzzle game in which you find yourself in an area within a similar, larger version of said area and also overlooking a similar, smaller version of said area in the middle of the area you start in as if the areas were matryoshka dolls. You solve puzzle by, for example, dropping items into the smaller area after which they appear in your current area as larger versions of themselves. It's fun to goof around with the mechanics and enlarge and shrink various items, which sometimes even get you to places where you're not supposed to go to.
The game also tells a story of a relationship. Sometimes the story and the gameplay form parallels with each other, which is satisfying. The ending is left open to interpretation, and certain things in the game allow the player to draw their own conclusions as to what it all means. Personally, I like to think that a happy ending is implied even if the game throws some gut-punches your way.
The game also tells a story of a relationship. Sometimes the story and the gameplay form parallels with each other, which is satisfying. The ending is left open to interpretation, and certain things in the game allow the player to draw their own conclusions as to what it all means. Personally, I like to think that a happy ending is implied even if the game throws some gut-punches your way.
Cool concept, but the puzzles are poorly created, I softlocked 3 times, the music is absolutely terrible, and the story was kinda dumb.
The best part of playing this game was that I had Rina Sawayama stuck in my head the whole time. Love Me 4 Me is dang catchy.