I’ve picked up a game called “Maquette” during the current Steam Sale, on the theory that “find the Annapurna section and pour your wallet into it” won’t see you wrong. It’s a few short hours of play, and feels very much like a collaboration between the teams that made Superliminal and The Sojourn, and it’s gorgeous.
Magical realism and a bunch of puzzles built around reality-bending perspective mechanics is what caught my attention, a phrase precision manufactured to slide smoothly into my apparatus while money slides smoothly out of my wallet. And it meets that bar; it’s very pretty, the puzzles are interesting and use the mechanic very well. But.
The story. The writing, the flow of the game, the stated purpose, geez. Trite and totally disjoint, and it’s very weird to be looking at this beautiful game and feeling like the narrative is so awkward, so totally disconnected from the shape of the game. To have magical realism feel so clumsy and forced.
By the end it I felt like I was solving a Rubik’s cube while eavesdropping on a stranger’s art-therapy session. Like Superliminal, I left it thinking “I hope this is over soon and whoever made it gets the help they need.” It’s a beautiful game, there are some interesting puzzles in it, and I’ll never touch it again.