Maquette Reviews
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.
Definitely give Maquette a try if you like puzzle games, but be aware that you’re likely to come up against numerous brick walls as you vie to reach its conclusion. The earlier puzzles are truly satisfying to crack but they quickly lose their charm, while later conundrums might leave you scratching your head in frustration. What doesn’t lose its charm, though, is the small yet beautiful narrative that you’ll want to savour every moment of. It’s just a shame there isn’t more of it.
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.
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. Sadly, my interactions with the puzzles were also full of heartbreak. While Maquette has some missteps, I look back fondly on my time with it. Much like a real-life romance, my affection for this game is complicated.
Maquette is an incredibly clever and absolutely gorgeous first-person puzzle game, even if it doesn’t really push the boundaries of its own recursive concept in any particularly surprising ways. That left me feeling like its straightforward story and puzzles were a missed opportunity to do something more, but playing through Maquette’s brief adventure was at least a lovely, mind-tickling evening well spent.
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 is a great puzzle game that uses perspective and out of the box thinking very well. The story of Michael and Kenzie is neatly entwined within these puzzle, adding heart and soul to the game as you make your way through the world, big and small.
Maquette it's an interesting proposal, both in terms of gameplay (recursive worlds), and the way it tells the tale of a relationship. It's not perfect (frame rate issues, some puzzle design maybe are too complex and abstract...), but the precious message and the mark it will leave are, simply, magnificent.
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It’s touching, and the puzzle side keeps you engaged while your heartstrings are being tugged.
For a game that's all about finding closure in our lives, Maquette makes it exceptionally difficult to get to its end credits.
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 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.
While its romantic sob story feels a bit boilerplate and it doesn’t fully commit to some of its most intriguing gameplay ideas, Maquette is a short, sincere game that captures the puzzling road to closure in the wake of a messy break-up.
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.
The stunning world Graceful Decay has built in Maquette is perpetually gorgeous and dream-like throughout its short time, never failing to blind you with its beauty. The puzzles utilise size manipulation to provide you with a satisfying mix of challenges, too.
A love story told through a first person puzzle game that delights in playing with scale and recursive environments, even if its conundrums eventually feel a little undercooked.
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.
Superliminal meets The Unfinished Swan in an admirable debut effort from Grateful Decay, that's best when it sticks to the ingenous premise.
Maquette - and the development team - deserve better. There's some real talent evident in the unique, interesting, contemplative and rewarding puzzle design here, and that kind of quality occurs less and less frequently in this vapid and action-obsessed industry. The development team also know how to write interesting and emotionally engaging narratives - we don't see stories about love told with this kind of sincerity anywhere near often enough. Unfortunately, the one and only problem that the game has is also the thing that almost breaks it; the two elements that the entire experience relies on are at near-complete odds with one another.