This isn’t entirely surprising Annapurna Interactive proudly explores personal and intimate issues such as gender, sexuality and identity through incredible games such as Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch, and last year’s superb If Found…. At first, it’s easy to assume you’re Kenzie, but as it rolls on, you find yourself flitting between each one’s perspective, based on how you emotionally bond with the story and its evolving personalities no pronouns are ever used to force you into a role. Its writing is intriguing and incredibly clever in how it never names which character you are in the relationship. As you progress, Maquette seals off past sections to keep you on the straight and narrow, subtly turning the page on your behalf. The story is meticulously paced with ever-appearing overlay text, which subtly encourages you to explore certain paths, or rewards you for finding your way. Storytelling in video games has evolved as the medium and the world around it grew.As you progress, buildings are replaced, making each chapter fresh and exciting. There’s now more to video games than finding where your princess is being held captive. Now more than ever, games are being used to express what it’s like to be human.Īmassing the highest amount of points in the shortest amount of time isn’t the only thing that matters anymore. Maquette from Annapurna Interactive, developed by Graceful Decay, does just that walking us through a story focused on a relationship and its growing pains. Those familiar with Annapurna’s Florence (a must play, by the way) will know that they’re not strangers to telling beautiful stories about two people falling in love.Īnnapurna Interactive has always had a knack for establishing the tone of their games as soon as you boot them up. They all seem to have a common aesthetic as well as well as excellent music choices that only help build the atmosphere. During the opening moments of Maquette we are greeted with “Hello Sunflower,” showing us the game’s main form of storytelling, handwritten words from a letter. Side note: I’m hoping Maquette’s soundtrack becomes available for us to listen to soon! In the background plays one of Maquette’s marquee moment songs as you walk through a painterly environment and find a sketchbook as described in the main character’s letter. The game’s controls are simple we have the traditional first person game movement, a jump, an interact/pick up item and a place/drop button, as well as shoulder buttons to rotate and adjust the distance of where you’d like to place an object. It’s in the game’s first chapter where we get our first glimpse of Maquette’s version of a cutscene. Our screen begins to fill with imaginative, colourful drawings and we hear the voices of our two main characters. The chemistry between them is palpable and it may have to do with the fact they’re married in real life. Kenzie, voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard, is opposite our letter writer Michael, voiced by her real life partner Seth Gabel. Their dialogue in this first sequence is adorable and I immediately started to care about them and their relationship. It was at this moment I began to prepare myself for an emotional ride that was Maquette’s six hour playthrough. Continuing from this wonderfully performed cutscene, we turn around to reveal the object of the game title’s reference, the maquette. You walk up to the maquette and see a smaller scaled model of the world we’re playing in, including the four quadrants that need to be solved to progress in each chapter. Move an object around in the maquette and that same object will move to the same spot in the real world. Is one of the objects you need to use in the real world too big? Why not try and pick up the smaller scaled version of it in the maquette and use that in the real world. This is one of the many ways Maquette will test you as not all puzzles are solved with the model alone. #Maquette game soundtrack fullįull transparency, I was stumped and had to reach out to the Publisher for a walkthrough thinking the game was bugged. Turns out I just wasn’t looking around in my environment enough. Although, to be fair to myself, the mechanic to solve the problem I was stumped by wasn’t introduced to me prior.
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