Maquette Reviews
Overall, Maquette is a solid and unique puzzle game with a sentimental, well-performed story that may hit a little too close to home for some, while maybe providing some closure for others. If only the developer found a way to intertwine the puzzles and the story together to feel more complete.
However, this story ends up being undercut by uneven gameplay, glitches, and subpar performance. If you can approach it with patience, you might appreciate the mesmerizing set pieces and a story that will surely tug at your heartstrings. But after my experience with Maquette, and encountering one too many shoddy 3D puzzles, I'm inclined to just swipe left.
While it misses the chance to transcend the sum of its parts, Maquette tells a beautifully relatable story with a gorgeous presentation, accompanied by a clever and unique size-bending puzzler.
The Unfinished Swan meets Marriage Story in this debut game for Graceful Decay, as the developer explores the highs and lows of being in love in this brilliant puzzle game based around resizing objects in a scale model of a couple's relationship.
Even with the annoyance of the narrator being so utterly clueless, there's no question that Maquette is effective at illustrating the pain of a good relationship gone bad.
A unique, thoughtful narrative puzzler with a mind-bending recursive twist that succeeds by focusing more on evoking its themes than unpacking them. Some minor lapses in polish aside it's a short, sharp hit of emotion and wonder that should be on every indie puzzler fan's list.
The story that should compel us to keep playing instead becomes an annoying digression from what the game does well. These environments, those puzzles, and the size-changing gimmick that lets you solve them comprise a unique and fascinating vision that depends on the kind of esoteric thinking familiar from classic point-and-click adventure games. Instead of pulling us in deeper, though, Michael and Kenzie's romance pushes us away. That's the real tragedy of Maquette.
Maquette is a beautiful puzzle game with a catchy soundtrack that really sets the chill yet heart-breaking vibe of the game. The way it messes around with space and depth keeps things fresh throughout and the game looks damn fine, making it an overall positive experience. However, it had an opportunity to make much stronger links between its puzzle world and its narrative world and it saddens me that this didn’t occur.
Maquette's core concept of puzzle solving in recursive environments is undeniably neat. But despite the handful of wow moments it enables, developer Graceful Decay ends up squandering much of the idea's potential due to pacing issues and rough edges.
Maquette has something special. It delicately tells a very credible story with some clever puzzles mechanics and brillant emotional moments - thanks to the performance of Bryce Dallas Howard ans Seth Gabel. But it's flawed by some painful pacing issues and some other problems that prevent it from being truly memorable.
Review in French | Read full review
Maquette has its issues, but is still a solid experience. The grievances I have can be fixed if the studio has the manpower and time to do so. If you're looking specifically for puzzle games there are others I would recommend before this. But it's free for PS Plus members for March 2021, and it's hard to say no to free.
Romantic relationships have their ups and downs, and players will likely go through the same experience with Maquette, which seesaws between satisfying and frustrating. Charming world design and bittersweet relationship observations are offset by a couple of opaque puzzles and patches of gameplay clunkiness (bad enough to force level restarts), which mar the overall sense of enjoyment.
If you can pick up Maquette from free as March 2021’s PlayStation Plus title, it’s difficult to argue against. But if you’re looking to pay full price for this 3-hour puzzler, you’re money’s better spent elsewhere.
Maquette's strength mostly lies in its beautifully told narrative and wonderfully voice-acted characters, and if this were a review of the story alone, we might give it a higher rating. The gameplay is interesting, however, there's often only one right answer. Plus it's hard to ignore performance issues like stuttering and the dreaded restarts. For us, playing Maquette was a lot like Michael and Kenzie's relationship. It was sometimes wonderful, sometimes frustrating, and, though it's probably not something we'll return to, it was worth our time – even if it didn't last long.
The verdict in this Maquette review is that the game isn’t worth playing. It’s a shame that it isn’t better, because the initial concept of resizing objects with the maquette is truly unique. However, it’s not explored nearly enough, the game’s puzzles aren’t enjoyable to solve, and the game’s story is an enormous load of nothing. The biggest puzzle in Maquette is figuring out why anyone would want to play it.
Maquette is a fascinating puzzle game with a unique central mechanic. This leads to some super clever puzzles that will really test your grey matter. However, we can't help but feel that the concept's potential isn't quite fulfilled. Similarly, the story is pretty unique among games, but the execution just isn't quite there. Overall, it's an enjoyable experience that puzzle lovers should sample - just don't expect it to change the world.
Maquette is just fascinating. It is a game that has one central mechanic and ties it into a narrative not often told by games and media. That unique blend of challenging, but mind-boggling recursive gameplay, jaw-dropping set-pieces, and heartfelt narrative moments really crafts an experience that mesmerises and stuns at every turn and is another great title from Annapurna.
Maquette has a great puzzle mechanic as its central hook, though it sometimes struggles with obtuse implementation and fussy controls. Nonetheless, the narrative arc of the young relationship at the center of the game is well worth a bit of frustration to experience. Some lovely visuals and music make playing Maquette that much more rewarding.
Maquette has a strong narrative bolstered by top-tier voice performances and honest, relatable writing. The puzzle mechanics are unique and exciting, but the game is let down by signposting issues and obtuse design choices.
Maybe there’s no healthy way to insulate yourself from heartbreak, but there’s still beauty in the retrospective. Maquette casts a rosy lens on a love story softened by time’s eventual passage. It’s an important lesson, that the sorrow of love lost can be soothed and sanded down by the steady movement of the clock. The story’s frequent puzzle breaks mean that you’re eased into the worst of it. You’re given a long runway before the inevitable climax, which might be a blessing in itself. Even if a reflective journey through a complex relationship doesn’t appeal to you, the intricate world and it’s fascinating puzzles will surely have you hooked.