Two married heterosexuals considering a divorce are turned into little dolls who must navigate their way through a variety of puzzles while also healing their relationship the shift in scale from human to toy provides an abstraction that will no doubt be therapeutic. Here’s another game that’s not content to just offer puzzles it’s also a story of a relationship on the brink. Developers have hinted that end-game levels will involve “psychedelic episodes that break physics,” so I suspect there’s more to the story than just a calm stroll. Honored at the Independent Games Festival, Gamescom, and at the PAX East Showcase, I would not be surprised to see this modest-looking title become a quiet obsession among your cool friends. The player’s small engineer character, sometimes dwarfed by the massive giants and their machines reminds me a bit of Miyazaki’s Nausicaa, and the game seems like it’ll make for excellent streaming - because it’s so pretty, it’s a fine title to sit back and watch someone else play. Visually, it’s a treat, and I look forward to spending time wandering and exploring this environment it looks like it’ll fit nicely with the chill go-for-a-walk games I reviewed a few months ago. You are a young mechanic with a magic wand, exploring an island of technological ruins deposited by giants. But hey, at least the puzzles look fun.Īvailable on Steam and the PlayStation Storeīeautiful Tintin-inspired design blends nicely with platform puzzling here. This insight is delivered with a serious tone that is likely to be at odds with the micro-macro tomfoolery, and I suspect that most players will find the game’s sincerity undercut. (Saying something in a profound tone of voice doesn’t make it so.) In addition to being a creative puzzler, the game is also a metaphor for romantic relationships you see, couples can sometimes blow things out of proportion, turning small annoyances into gigantic conflicts.

Alas, trailers for the game are accompanied by some overambitious dialogue that melts the immersion. Maquette is a creative puzzle game that asks the player to think creatively about scale, and the mental gymnastics that it requires reminds me of the delight and surprise prompted by a first playthrough of Portal. Any change that you make to the scale model is reflected in the world: Nudge a building block in the model, and in your world it is as though a giant finger has descended to push the corresponding building aside. All around you are tall towers, and in front of you is a small scale model of your environment.

Maquette game release date