Maquette is a better story than it is a game. It's better as an art piece, a movie or a book, than it is as a gaming media.

The story is solid, writing is compelling enough while still vague enough that anyone who is going through or has experienced a tough breakup can insert themselves into the narrative. It's cute and touching. A story of two people who clearly loved each other but couldn't make it work. It's a tearjerker. It's emotional and the game makes you wear the weight of the tale.

But. The game has a lot of sore spots. I'll address what's good first. The recursive puzzle design is very cool and about as well done as I've seen in any game that utilizes similar mechanics. Drifting through from the maquette into the 'real world' and back is a lot of fun. And takes a little work to figure out very well. The process of changing the size of available objects by moving them in and out of the maquette is also super cool.

For the most part the controls are easy and simple enough and fit the game world fine. The game itself is gorgeous and the soundtrack is insanely good. High quality stuff. A prettier and better sounding game is hard to find. The game is ethereal and atmospheric, lilting and ominous depending on the level.

But the game has plenty of warts. The controls are not always so pleasant. Getting things to work right when placing object can be a pain and then some. Getting them to lay right or tilt the right way when being hemmed in by the limited camera angles is painful. The inability to make small adjustments to placed objects makes simple solutions to minor mistakes take wholesale reworking of a puzzle you've nearly completed. Aligning the pillars along the doorway in the game's second to last level is an arduously infuriating task if you don't get it right the first time.

Some of the puzzles are quite simple. Others are very difficult. Only sometimes does the game manage to strike a nice balance that challenges and rewards for the challenge. Since the game gives zero hints or assistance, or map markings or anything the harder puzzles can leave you completely stumped. But the easier ones are hardly puzzles at all. The most enjoyable levels would be The Gateways and The Wedge which come back to back in the middle of the game's story. But The Wedge is ruined by another major flaw of the game.

The game is kind of a buggy mess. You can easily get stuck in map geometry or jank your way into rooms you're not supposed to be in yet. Forcing restarts and reloads. Maquette is not equipped for you to attempt puzzles in any way other than the exact order and way it is designed to be played by devs. This is fine with an actual real life puzzle or sudoku, but less enjoyable in a video game. I found a way to hop into the chapel at one point during the game and very nearly got stuck there. Soft-locking myself out of being able to complete that level. Fortunately I hopped back out and was able to continue.

During The Wedge there are several instances where the game becomes easily breakable. Falling behind the woodstacks along the cabin and getting trapped. Falling behind the radiator and getting trapped. Soft-locking the stairs in the wrong size and jammed the wrong way in the maquette. The level is a very cool level but the way the solution to one of the puzzles is designed (jumping onto a somewhat obscure ledge of the final cabin) makes it very easy for you to unintentionally get stuck somewhere that requires a reload.

Some of the other puzzles in the game feel difficult by virtue of the game's design. Not by virtue of the puzzle's intrinsic difficulty. The second to last level has an absolute debacle with this key. The game never even provides remote hints as to what the hell you're meant to be doing and it introduces a brand new mechanic 85% of the way into the story. The puzzle's solution felt less like a clever 'a-ha!' moment and more like a "force the player to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to solve this until they find out the solution by sheer luck." Between that kind of design and the fact that the game itself has too much jank in the controls and inconsistencies in player navigation and map geometry, it was very easy to get frustrated. I also hated the design choice of the very final puzzle. Finding the sketchbook. It derailed momentum that the story was achieving up to that moment. The payoff for that was very minimal.

Maquette is a touching experience. A warm and soulful narrative about love and loss. It is a tearjerker and a heartwarmer. I really enjoyed the game's narrative, the graphic design and the soundtrack. Those three components are not only top notch but veritably great. All time kinda stuff for this touching puzzle genre of games. But the mechanics could be so god awful at times that I was really taken out of being able to immersively enjoy the story. Monument Valley puzzle design, solutions and gameplay combined with Maquette's story, graphical fidelity and music could be an all-timer. Unfortunately Maquette just gets the 'game' part of a video game too wrong to be as great as its potential.

Maquette is a game I want to love. This genre of artsy, story driven puzzles games are some of my favorites, and this certainty checks those genre defining boxes. However, this game simply walks through everything, never really running to greatness. The puzzles become too annoying and unclear, and while some can also be simplistic I did not see any issues in such; my complaints are based entirely on the annoyance and difficulty curve factors. The as well is story is not amazing, but quint and sweet for what it is, and the graphics are quite pretty. Leaving really, nothing but the puzzles to bring the game down in my opinion.
My apologies for half of month of delay from my last few... well lets just say, mediocre reviews. The Fallout show has simply taken all my time and redistributed it into Fallout 4.

Cool conceit for a puzzle game, and when it clicks it clicks really well… but only a few levels in, I already encountered what I’m pretty sure is a game-killing bug where a key I need to finish the level disappeared, and I don’t really feel like restarting the level, especially as the various manipulations of color-coded gems were already starting to overstay their welcome. Lots of potential, there’s a chance I’ll come back to it, but it just doesn’t feel as polished or tightly designed as it should.

Maquette brilha com uma mecânica única que o torna mais uma obra única da Annapurna, a trilha sonora carregada de emoção é a minha parte favorita do jogo.

Infelizmente, a movimentação travada, tanto para se movimentar pelo mapa quanto para mover os objetos, prejudica a experiencia. A história envolta também não me pegou, acho que, dentro de um jogo tão criativo, poderiam ter bolado uma história de separação de casal mais diferente também.

Valeu a experiência pelo seu diferencial, mas não é algo imperdível e nem marcante o suficiente para se recomendar tanto assim.

Ultimately, Maquette is a one trick pony of a puzzle game that often involves somewhat devious out of the box solving that leads to more frustration then making you feel clever. The story is rather one note, the visuals are really pretty, but overall everything about this game feels kinda hollow.

I don't really want to seem so harsh on this game, but it certainly feels like it's trying to say something with it's story, but neither side really connects. Puzzles led to scenes of areas that the characters have been too, but really they just feel more like dolls playing house rather than exploring someone's life. Honestly, it feels like this could have been an entirely different story involving different people with similar beats and no one would be the wiser. Nothing substantial happens with the gameplay, and nothing narrative wise effects it. It's a lot like giving Flower (From Thatgamecompany) a story when that clearly wasn't the point of it. Flower is meant to look pretty, be visually appealing, and be a mellowed out experience. If you give Flower a story outside of it, like a father and daughter bonding, then suddenly it starts to losing a lot of it's magic. That's what Maquette did, it had this really neat visual puzzle game and slapped a story where it shouldn't go. This, of course, isn't getting into the quality of the story either, but I think it's better said that it's plots been done better in lesser time by lesser budgeted games.

Majority of puzzles feel like they can be thought out with guess work, but a number of them feel far too out there for a player to just get. It's not even to a different mechanic either, nearly every single puzzle uses it's ability of size manipulation and movement to get anything done. It's just the way that the game will often require you to use that movement in a way that isn't even introduced to you. It really is an oddity of "was I just not paying attention" , and the way the game teaches you what to pay attention to. It's fairly consistent about using items to unlock a path to get between points A, B, and C so you can acquire mcguffin D. Later on however you are consistently asked to start thinking outside the box in order to solve puzzles or pay attention to certain features you usually wouldn't. This by all means doesn't mean all the puzzles are bad, but I did feel often ripped off compared to just saying that was a clever way of doing something. Still for doing exactly one thing for nearly 5 hours, I have to say that the games puzzles start strong and end strong. It may be a consistent trick, but this pony at least exhausted everything it could from it.

This puzzler is certainly a pain in terms of where it really sets in how much I like it, but I have always been a real big fan of small miniature things to began with. The story is serviceable, but the puzzles at least have some proper substance to them. So it's really hard to just say Maquette is a bad game. Fairly, I think what rubs people the wrong way with Maquette is it's story rather than it's mechanics. The story just feels detached, and when you are rewarded from solving a hard puzzle you rather enjoy something good over two hipsters whining about not getting a home.

I read somebody on a review about Maquette telling something like "a beautiful game with an awesome soundtrack. As a walking simulator is cool, as a puzzle game is pretty bad." And they also said the writing is pretty average. I agree, mostly. The story is an excuse for a beautiful game, but you don't really feel empathy for the characters, or feel involved into the story. Also, some of the puzzles are cool, others are too easy, others too obtuse and frustrating. Also, some of the gameplay mechanics and controls don't respond too well. But it is, indeed, a beautiful game. Sadly, I don't know why on the Xbox Series S the last level had so low res textures, and it looks pretty crappy.

Some of the most frustrating puzzle design in any game I’ve ever played- always drops you in the deep end before showing you how to swim. Story is a horribly, horribly bland break up plot- if you’ve seen romance fall apart in any story before, you’ve already seen what this one has to offer. It’s really too bad though, this game does have some unique visuals and intriguing ideas at play- not to mention a stellar soundtrack. All of that cannot help the game overcome the slog it is to play through, though.

Maquette struggles in places to work as a game and doesn't always mesh well in its story-driven content either. Although I enjoyed some of the recursive puzzles a lot, there were plenty that were so obtuse and out there that they made me feel dumb when I worked out the solution. I don't think that's a marker of good ludic design if the way to play the game alters this much.

Sure, it's a beautiful looking game (although on PS4 suffers from significant frame-rate issues and stuttering) and the love story between the two feels like a modern, realistic attempt at navigating relationships.

That said, why is it told through a maquette world? What is the maquette of the gameplay and title really for? I get that there were some metaphoric connections between symbolism in the maquette and the real world, but it felt very tacked on. I learnt after finishing the game that this whole story WAS tacked on. Originally, the story revolved around a more fantastical setting involving a wizard trapping someone in the maquette. Makes more sense than what we got.

The game left me feeling frustrated, miserable and honestly quite bored.

Outside the box puzzle game. Loved that about Maquette. Typically puzzle games all end up having the same feel, however, Maquette does not. The outside of the box aspect of these puzzles is what ultimately makes my rating higher than the last few puzzle games I've played.

I'm not much of a replay a game type guy, but I could see Maquette having slightly higher replay value than most other puzzle games.

To my achievement hunters, another quick and easy 100%! Especially if you use a guide.

In Maquette, a promising concept is stretched into eternal, multi-layered stupidity.

In defense of this game, I was not in my most patient shape while playing this game. But yet, it really tests you throughout the full playthrough. The main focus is to solve recursive puzzles, by experimenting with changing the size and the original use of objects, which sounds cool on paper, but was not well executed.

I felt stupid, while playing the game and that is a feeling you should strictly try avoiding to invoke your players. I found myself cursing over and over again about plot, mechanics and movement, because the console controls are laggy and tedious, the puzzle solutions are mostly counter-intuitive and the plot is the pinnacle of head-scratching, lazy storytelling.

The underlying story, told in text fragments and audio snippets, is a pain in the ass. It retells the dysfunctional love story of Kenzie and Michael, which are complete idiots, when it comes to communicating properly and at least try to live in a healthy, respectful and open minded relationship. Their interpersonal inability is just painful to watch and listen to and to be honest, I am tired, bored and annoyed to get served with these copy-and-paste, expired, so-called love stories, that still try to manifest that this is the circle of life and love is equal to pain and ignorance. Either grow out of your ego-mania or go to (couple) therapy!

On the one hand, I feel sorry, to be this rude, but on the other, this game made me feel gut wrenching miserable and repelled me from minute one till the very end.

Why do I still rate this game a 2.5 or even finished it, when it hurt so much? One thing that really stood out and frequently saved me from quitting, is the splendid selection of tunes, that really hit the right note every time. If you have a weakness for kitschy indie, soft-rock music, the tracks will produce a regular dose of goosebumps. They finally made my head nod in emotional response and not in endless desperation.

Ever since I got into trophy hunting, I tried some more Indie titles. Something which I never did as a kid/teen. In fact I was always disappointed when some indie title took the spotlight on an event like E3 (Why bother when you have all these amazing AAA games?). Good thing I know better now.
When I decide to play an indie game it has to be something that catches my interest by art design or an interesting looking story, and not an easy platinum after an hour. In this case it was the puzzle aspect that caught my attention. So I went into this game without knowing anything about it or seen anything about it. And I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed in the end... The game felt pretty janky and had a lot of stuttering but that is something that I was prepared for after seeing it was made in Unity. The art style was fine and overall graphics were ok. The puzzles however felt pretty janky due to the gameplay mechanics which made them sometimes a little annoying. Overall the puzzles were not super easy but also not super challenging. Something the speed runs changed and with those I did have some fun.
I didn't care a whole lot about the story in the beginning since it was something that is told a million times before but after some levels I kind of saw my own love story in all of this. It didn't relate 1 to 1 but some elements happened to me as well and it was something that made me appreciate the game a little more.
Overall the game is fine and a good game if you do not have a lot of time to spend on games but I'm sure there are way better alternatives out there.

Um bom jogo.

Eu, particularmente, acho muito foda jogos que mexem com perspectiva dos objetos e das coisas físicas em geral.

Passei mais tempo so brincando com as perspectivas do que prestando atenção na história sinceramente. Mas a história do jogo é bem padrão, nada de mais.

Os puzzels do jogo, alguns tem que quebrar a cabeça e outros são bem de boa, mas em geral achei balanceado.

É um jogo curtinho, então vale a pena a experiência.

Very interesting concept that really doesn't get explored much. I like the way it looks, I like the tunes, and I like the drawn aspects of the cutscenes. Other than that it's pretty rough. It controls very poorly, often plodding and sluggish, and frequently glitchy. I got softlocked multiple times in a 3 hour playthrough. The narrative is garbage - it's uneven, it's trite, it doesn't resonate. The voice acting is really bad despite the actors attached.

The puzzle sections are uneven too, but they're the most enjoyable part - unfortunately it feels like you spend a solid third of the game being dragged into poorly written cutscenes. I think this is a decent game with exactly as much meaning if you cut out every bit of floating text or voiceover.