![]() This ends up being an ironic parallel for the story arc the characters experience, which hopefully isn’t intentional as the implication of putting player enjoyment in the backseat in service of illustrating conflict through mechanical friction would be less than savory. Some of this works, but often these other mechanics feel disjointed from the overall theme, or married in a way that is functional but not necessarily harmonious. To compensate, Maquette mixes in some other unrelated puzzle designs that rely on things like color-matching glowing stones to magical barriers that dissipate in their presence, or pushing objects through holes to make them accessible in new areas. The reality though is that there’s a limit to how far this idea can be stretched within the confines of the environment and story constraints, and the moving objects around takes a backseat to exploring the environments before the game’s halfway point. The result is, especially early on, some fairly novel ideas for puzzle design that are delightful to tinker with, and on its face it seems like there’s major potential for this mechanic to scale along with the game as you progress. So now, in addition to moving seemingly immovable things or to otherwise unreachable places, you can also grow or shrink objects to suit the needs of a given puzzle. Not long after you crack this, you’ll discover you can also use the connection between the different scales of the environment to “change” the size of any item by moving larger or smaller versions of them through the various stages of the maquette itself. The game’s primary puzzle mechanic centers on moving items around the larger environment, either directly or by manipulating their miniature equivalent. You may also quickly realize that even objects are replicated in the smaller versions, and when you first pick one up and move it is when the first major reveal happens, as you hear a gigantic thud echo behind you and you realize the massive cube that was in your way has just fallen exactly where you dropped it in the smaller replica. ![]() Underneath the smaller dome, you can just make out the edges of another, tinier replica. ![]() Each chapter is composed with a set of four vignette locations arranged in cardinal around a central dome, under which lies a miniature maquette of the whole area, complete with each location and all of its features, and yet another smaller dome. While the primary draw of the game from the outside is its art and its puzzle design, it it is clear from moment one that the game’s true emphasis is on it’s love story, and it bets everything on the successful marriage of these elements.Īfter the initial introduction that has you walking through a dreamy pastel garden at twilight set to a track that takes direct inspiration from the Summer of Love, you are given a brief tutorial of how to interact with your environment and then you’re transported to the main event. It’s a tale of love and loss interwoven with the game’s artwork and environments, in ways that are sometimes novel and others less so. This dreamlike sense of grounded surrealism sets the stage for your journey through Maquette’s story, in which you unravel the narrative by solving environmental puzzles entwined with the exaggerated locales and features of Maquette’s chapters. Stepping inside the dome for the first time, you enter a place that feels both real and imagined affixed in reality, and made of memories.
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