#Maquette puzzle game series

An hour or so later, when you’ve finally cheesed your way to a solution, you’ll have likely forgotten there was even a narrative in the first place. You truly begin to connect with the characters, yet just as you’re wanting to learn more about their lives together, you’ll find yourself stumped by a puzzle. You’ll find yourself learning about the couple’s relationship in a brisk fashion to begin with, moving from one pleasant flashback to the next, illustrated with beautiful hand-drawn artwork and expertly narrated by Bryce Dallas Howard and Seth Gabel. The main problem, though, is that Maquette‘s narrative is at the mercy of you solving the game’s puzzles. Still, solving puzzles in this manner is perhaps not as pleasing as finding the “true” solution. Did I glitch the game? It’s hard to say surely if the outcome I ended up with was the correct one, then my actions can be deemed a success. Seeing a walkthrough after I’d completed most of the game, it transpired that I hadn’t actually solved many of the puzzles in the “right” way I’d forced them in some other, slightly unnatural way. The trouble with Maquette is that some of its puzzles are just too difficult for its own good. It’s difficult to wrap your head around, but extremely satisfying to see in action – at least at first. Moving an object from one to another will manipulate its size, allowing you to turn tiny keys into giant ones or vice-versa, for instance. Move something within the small dome, and it’ll affect something in the respective area outside of it.

A small dome stands in the centre of your playing area, a replica of everything around you. It’s hard to describe without seeing it in action described by the developers as a “recursive world”, Maquette is essentially a never-ending loop that you can move through, getting bigger or smaller as you do. Maquette is a beautiful game, and its unusual design is a key part of the puzzles.

#Maquette puzzle game series

To experience the whole story, though, you’re going to have to solve your way through a series of tricky puzzles, many of which are likely to leave you scratching your head a little too hard. Telling the story of a couple’s relationship through a series of flashbacks, it’s an emotional tale that will resonate with anyone who’s ever experienced love or loss. Published by Annapurna Interactive, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that a touching, grounded narrative is at the heart of Maquette. Part puzzle game, part linear narrative, Maquette feels like it suffers from something of an identity crisis.