MAQUETTE LENGTH FULL

Sadly, my interactions with the puzzles were also full of heartbreak.

MAQUETTE LENGTH SERIES

When Maquette is firing on all cylinders, it is a beautiful journey through a series of ever-larger environments, and Maquette’s love story is poignant and a little heartbreaking. At that point, I was forced to reset the chapter, losing about 30 minutes of progress. One time I even worked myself into a corner by the time I had calculated the puzzle's solution, it was clear that I could no longer achieve it. I actually solved a couple of puzzles in ways that I don’t think the designers intended, and reaching these solutions didn't make me feel clever it just felt like I had jury-rigged my way forward. In addition to Maquette’s tedious navigation, a handful of puzzle solutions are so obscure that I had to scour the environment many times before accidentally stumbling into an interactive element. This quickly grows tedious, and I hated reaching my destination only to realize that I needed to adjust the model in the center of the world, which required a long march back.

MAQUETTE LENGTH TRIAL

I loved the chilling vastness of these spaces, but solving some of these puzzles requires trial and error, which means you have to do a lot of walking. Late in the game, you begin to explore those large spaces, which means you much walk across a variety of big, open areas. Just as the model in front of you is a facsimile of your environment, your environment is also a model of the larger biomes that extend onto the horizon. As much as I liked Maquette’s recursive world design, it offers a few uncomfortable player moments. Unfortunately, the road to Maquette’s conclusion is bumpy. Given the heady nature of the gameplay, Maquette’s narrative is surprisingly down to earth, but the characters and their struggles were so relatable that I sympathized with their plight. This story is told primarily through voiceover (you never actually see the characters), but they are well-performed, and listening to this couple’s cutesy banter regularly brought a smile to my face. Throughout this journey, you’re treated to a somber love story about a young couple’s struggles to understand and live with each other. I loved how Maquette challenged me to carefully explore my environment and think about how objects can be used in multiple ways. Using this mechanic, you can create ramps or bridges using everyday objects, or shrink larger items so they can slide through the cracks in a fence. If you place a normal-sized key into the model, a giant-sized version will drop into view at the corresponding location in your environment. Whenever you manipulate objects inside the model, your actions also affect your surroundings. Many of the early puzzles revolve around a maquette model, which resembles your environment. Maquette is a thoughtful meditation on worlds within worlds. This gorgeous indie game explores the heady concept of recursive worlds while it tells a touching love story, but its puzzle design wavers too far between excitement and tedium. The perfect brainteaser should leave players confused just long enough to feel clever once they reach a “eureka” moment, but the solution shouldn’t be so obtuse that players want to throw up their hands in frustration. A good puzzle involves a delicate balance.

Maquette length