Break-ups suck. There are no two ways about it. You spend so much time feeling confused, desperate to make things work, and even a little trapped. That’s kind of what it’s like to play Maquette. Annapurna’s latest release (developed by newbie Graceful Decay) uses puzzles to tell the story of a relationship breakdown. Initially released on PlayStation and PC in 2021, it now brings its pretty puzzles to the Switch.
The game takes place in a sequence of fantasy worlds that meld Disneyland-esque castles with Tuscan gardens, carnivals, and beaches. Each world comes with mind-bending challenges and the layers of a relationship story at its heart. The title ‘Maquette’ describes a scale model on which a sculptor bases their final art piece. It refers to the game’s landscape-within-a-landscape, and it’s also a nod to the two main characters’ love of art.
You start Maquette in an enclosed garden, surrounded by the blues and purples of night. Keep walking ahead and you end up inside a dome, but there’s a smaller dome in front of you: the eponymous maquette. You move a blocky red cube in the small dome and hear a thump as something lands outside. That’s the main form of gameplay here: picking up and placing a single item in the maquette, only for it to be recreated in the 'real' world.
The puzzles get you to experiment with the scale of objects, and run between the different-sized spaces. Played from a first-person perspective, the single dot in the centre of the screen is your cursor, which snaps onto interactable items or levers. It’s minimal, but don’t let the stripped-down mechanics fool you; this game is not as simple as it seems.
Maquette wants you to think way, way ‘outside the dome’, and some of its puzzles had us pretty stumped throughout. Even though the game dispenses help but we wouldn’t have minded at least a few more nudges in the right direction. We spent a good amount of time running around looking for some magic formula, only to find that we just had to move an object slightly or rotate it in the place we had it to begin with. Whenever we finally hit the solution, it felt a little less ‘ahh!’ And a little more ‘THAT’S the answer?!’ It’s great for those who love a challenge and getting that answer perfectly right, but for more casual puzzle players it can be a bit frustrating. The first-person POV also felt a bit jarring and trippy when we were already confused about a puzzle. We went from being the size of a skyscraper to the size of an ant in the same world, and it messed with our heads a little bit.
Maquette’s head-scratching puzzles are wrapped around a heartbreaking story. As you play through the game, you unravel the relationship between Kenzie and Michael. Voiced wonderfully by real-life couple Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World) and Seth Gabel (Fringe), their chemistry comes through in their characters’ interactions throughout Maquette.
A post-break-up letter is written in the world of the game, serving as a ‘getting warmer’ hint while you hunt for your next clue. When you complete a section, you’re rewarded with cutscenes where colourful pencil drawings form over the puzzle's space, and you hear Michael and Kenzie in a small snippet of their time together – from meeting to deciding they’re more than friends, to saying ‘I think I love you’, and more. Each scene swept us up in their emotions. But even the early ones are laden with the question: what went wrong? It’s the kind of narrative we’ve seen before, but the format is unique and had us engrossed from the meet-cute, when Kenzie accidentally spills coffee on Michael’s sketchbook, prompting a conversation that reveals their shared love of drawing.
While Maquette’s story shines, its performance on Switch could have used a little extra polish. It runs smoothly for the most part but we experienced a drop in frame rate when we put something where it didn’t fit. Two incidents were so stuttery that we had to restart. Turns out this was common on PlayStation too, so we’ll see if the developers patch it now.
Still, there’s a lot to love in this game. Maquette’s beautiful art style befits its title and the enthusiasm for art the protagonists share. The game is filled with pretty landscapes that made us ‘wow’ out loud, although the pictures are clearer, the shapes are smoother on other consoles/platforms. The colours start out bright but dull as the play progresses, mirroring the mood of the relationship.
When Maquette has music, it’s excellent. The soundtrack is filled with easy-going pieces, lovely melodies and heartfelt lyrics. There’s some quaint, looping background music in the early stages which is nice, along with some suitable sound effects: the golden ticket lands with a tinkly sound, the block with a heavy thud, etcetera. But apart from these occasional sounds, you’re left to fidget with a staircase or key in silence. It can feel eerie, especially in the abandoned house scenes. We weren’t sure if this was deliberate, but it would’ve been nice to have something playing in the background throughout the whole game.
Conclusion
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.
Comments 19
I know it might sound like negative feedback, but... why is being too difficult for some a minus? We shouldn't punish games for not being a one click win. I've seen it so many times with games like Scorn. People were grumbling because the game didn't play itself. And Maquette isn't even hard, it's something you'll always figure out after a couple of minutes.
It breaks my heart to see games becoming toddler toys just because putting any difficulty into puzzles is shunned and treated like a disadvantage, like an error
Also that love story wasn't captivating for me, but that could just be my preference.
I've been interested in this since the original announcements. I've listened to some of the amazing sound track on Spotify so it's a little disappointing there is less music than I would have thought overall, but the music which exists is really good.
Most first person games make me a bit ill, but I'm really hoping this isn't one of them. I don't mind hard puzzles if that is literally the point of the game; sometimes I savor puzzle games over a long period of time rather than trying to rush them. Beating a hard puzzle is pretty satisfying. And it's fine if puzzles only have one solution; I think everyone has been playing a bit too much TotK 😛
This sounds perfect for me. I don't mind a little challenge in puzzles. Sometimes I just need to take a break and come back with more ideas next time. Will absolutely try it
Played it on PS5 (was a free game with PS+), and even there the framerate was quite poor. Puzzles were often quite confusing and the controls were bad, stopped playing it pretty in the middle of the game and don’t regret it.
@FishyS That was my first thought about this review. Most puzzles are supposed to only have one solution. Yes, TotK is a great game, but if it's going to make every game from now on get a lower score, we're in trouble.
@FishyS As a person with medium motion-sickness, a slight disposition towards masochism and whose biggest enjoyment in games is the narrative and the music, I am really loving your whole comment .
Every once in a while the soundtrack pops up in my Spotify-lists, really lovely music . Let's hope there is still enough music in-game and not too much motion sickness stuff going on.
Loved this game on PS5. Highly recommend it if you don't have access to the PS5 version. It's a great game.
I played it on PS5 and unfortunately it's just not a good game. The concept is much better than the execution. Pretty much everything about it is subpar. Puzzles are more tedious than difficult, and the story is awful to say the least. I would not recommend it even for fans of the genre.
@FishyS ever played Fez? It would suit your puzzle tastes.
May wait on a sale and more reviews on this game. It sounds interesting
@ComfyAko “why is being too difficult for some a minus?”
For me, there should be a balance between difficulty and gameplay. I enjoy playing games that the difficulty is challenging enough for me to get better while not affecting the gameplay. If I consider a game so difficult that gameplay is affected, I would steer away from it. The more difficult the game, the more time I have to spend to beat it. And as busy adults that most of us are, we no longer have that luxury of time for games.
@ComfyAko
i used bring this up so often that i eventually stopped. 😐
the "for some" part means that it shouldnt be a con, because it only means that its just fine, or even a joy, for "most."
it's a cop out. they should simply mention the difficulty in the "conclusion" section, not the joy/cons, unless it's just flat "too hard" (i e cheap or impossible) for anybody. 👍
@-wc- I see the Joys and Cons sections as a quick summary of the review, for people that skip the review and just look at the score. So I think that particular Con is valid, if the reviewer thought it was enough of an issue to bring it up.
The “for some” part is a warning for people that don’t like difficult games to read the whole review to see what makes it difficult, and for people that do like difficult games to ignore that Con altogether.
Why being "too difficult" is a negative ? I don´t get it.
Puzzle games, at least for my tastes, must be challenging. Otherwise, they may just feel dull or boring.
If the difficulty of a game is the result of bad game design, then it could be a negative. That was a common occurance during the 8-bit and 16-bit era. It´s not the case with this game, thought.
If it makes you cry and cry again, just repeat, “serenity now”
@Impossibilium
i respect your difference of opinion, but id again point out that there is already a literal summary (labelled "conclusion") just after the review, and just before the joys/cons.
so, the joys/cons are not also a summary, they are a list of good things and bad things about the game. they are called that because thats what they purport to be, and are. 👍 they difficulty is subjective, and subjective things dont belong in a pros and cons section, imo. thats what the body of the review is for. ✌️
and, the point still stands that "difficulty" aka challenge can be and is a "pro" for as many players as a "con," maybe more, and could just as easily be put in the joys category.
@TioRogerio
i completely agree with you 👍 any puzzle game that isn't difficult "for some" would also be too easy "for most."
@Impossibilium A question is whether the 'con' of being too hard for some changes the overall score or not. If the reviewer truly thinks it's an aspect which makes the game worse, it makes sense as a con. But some reviews use the cons as comments/warnings rather than true cons. Sometimes I would prefer there to be joys, cons and... neutrals? other comments? The short bulleted summary at the end is very useful but not all useful summary comments are joys or cons.
@everynowandben That’s the word I was looking for! Not difficult, but tedious.
Although I already bought it, I’ll finish it… eventually…
This game sounds quite interesting despite the mentioned cons, to the wishlist it goes!
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