I played for an hour or so, got to the second area with the sandy place and red ball.
The first thing that jumped out to me is that performance is really wonky on PS5 - is this running at 30fps? The controls just feel imprecise and slow. If it is, then I am baffled - no reason a game like this should be anything other than a rock solid 60 on PS5.
Second, the puzzles so far have been relatively satisfying to solve, although when you get stuck there are pretty much no clues to help you.
Third, the story is completely uninteresting so far. Maybe it goes somewhere more interesting later, but so far it's just...banal. So banal that it's actually turning me off the game - I actively do not want to hear about this boring relationship.
I love the game so far, even though I feel like I'm cheesing my way through a couple of the puzzles.
I'm stuck on the part with the floating house: I can reach it by using the box and golden ticket as a bridge (for like the third time in a row...) but I don't have a key for the front door.
I love the game so far, even though I feel like I'm cheesing my way through a couple of the puzzles.
I'm stuck on the part with the floating house: I can reach it by using the box and golden ticket as a bridge (for like the third time in a row...) but I don't have a key for the front door.
I am stuck 3 diorama's in. There is a house that i can put a staircase up to which lets me get into this middle part but not the door which is above that.
I love the game so far, even though I feel like I'm cheesing my way through a couple of the puzzles.
I'm stuck on the part with the floating house: I can reach it by using the box and golden ticket as a bridge (for like the third time in a row...) but I don't have a key for the front door.
Without replying with any spoilers, did i bug out the game? I'm maybe 1-2 hours into the game and:
I got into the church by making the staircase big, so i could get on the upper floor. Then i managed to jump on the railing, jumped down on the side and got inside the church through a hole. I see no apparent way to get out again. So just a quick question, is this the right way to do it?
EDIT: I reloaded an older savegame and tried again, and found out this isnt what you were suppose to be (then its not possible to get out from the room again). I found the right solution now :)
The technical performance on PS5 is dissapointing, feels super laggy and jittery. I would have expected a locked smooth 60fps considering the hardware and the visuals.
Well I put myself in a situation in which I can't make progress any more. I just consulted a walkthrough to make sure and I fucked up by reaching an area with a giant ramp and some serious jumping skills that I am not supposed to be in with the size everything is. I am not in the mood to start this level from the beginning.
I'm a bit disappointed, sadly. The music is really good, the narrative is interesting enough and the core idea is great, but the puzzle design is really not that great. The game does a terrible job in explaining its mechanics and punishes creativity.
The technical performance on PS5 is dissapointing, feels super laggy and jittery. I would have expected a locked smooth 60fps considering the hardware and the visuals.
The game has some really weird problems in this department. I'm playing on an RTX3080 and it's still super stuttery. The FPS doesn't actually drop, but the frame pacing is atrocious.
Are you talking about the one where you need to pass the small version of the green jewel through the openings on the side of the porch before moving through the house with the red jewel? Of all the puzzles that's the one that I just couldn't figure out. I kept thinking that I was missing something in the small version of the house.
I'm really disappointed in this. The writing is sickly-sweet, the link between gameplay and narrative is barely-there, signposting is non-existent, mechanics are badly explained and I've had to restart from an old save three times now because I've ended up getting myself into situations where I could no longer progress.
I'm going to go as far as to say this is a badly designed puzzle game and it gives me no great pleasure to say that. The things I did to get into these situations were really not all that remarkable (dropping a red crystal through a window that I was then unable to retrieve, using the moveable stairs to unwittingly climb outside the game world).
It's a great idea in search of much stronger writing (I've played sooo many indie games that chart the ups and downs of a relationship via gameplay at this point and this one of the most banal) and much stronger puzzle design. A shame.
Are you talking about the one where you need to pass the small version of the green jewel through the openings on the side of the porch before moving through the house with the red jewel? Of all the puzzles that's the one that I just couldn't figure out. I kept thinking that I was missing something in the small version of the house.
Yeah, that's the one. The visual language of the game led me to believe the wall was impenetrable, and I felt cheated that it was even a possibility. That's the only thing I've had to look up so far as well.
Just completed it and thought it was pretty good. The game does not run at a solid 60fps on the PS5 but I thought it played well enough for me where I didn't experience any motion sickness.
I would have liked them to get a little more ambitious with the size shifting as the game went on, but all of the puzzles and layout that were presented were nice in that some had my brain percolating but it was never to the point of absolute frustration. There was only one puzzle in the entire game I needed help on and that was
The keyhole in the Spiral. I never would have figured out needing to enlarge the key to create a walkway to the room above to get the actual key needed. I think the game just assumed you've used a lot of enlarged keys to create bridges earlier but that room was just so dark I didn't even notice the roof area until I read about it.
I think even though it was a pretty short game I didn't mind the length. I hate puzzle games that just overstay their welcome and gradually become so obtuse that I shelve them out of boredom or frustration but that never happened with this. I will say that I could pass on the pretty generic breakup story for the game's plot, though.
The only other mildly annoying thing I noticed is that they have trophies dedicated to speedrunning the game which is cool, but they lack the most basic QoL speedrunning features such as a chapter select or an in-game timer to see how you are doing. Because of this I'm probably going to pass on trying to get them.
The only other mildly annoying thing I noticed is that they have trophies dedicated to speedrunning the game which is cool, but they lack the most basic QoL speedrunning features such as a chapter select or an in-game timer to see how you are doing. Because of this I'm probably going to pass on trying to get them.
Because the levels are so short speedrunning is actually really simple and much faster than you'd think. Just watch a speedrun walkthrough (PS5Trophies has them) and memorize what you need to do and then just play through. The Getaways is really the only one that could give you some problems as it seems to have a really tight limit. To make things easier make sure you save immediately once you reach a new chapter, so that you can easily restart if you mess up.
You definitely glitched the game if you're no longer able to pick up and drop things. The way you get it out of the house is to pass is through the openings on the porch. You'll notice that when the green crystal is in its smallest form that there are shapes on the side of the porch that are slightly bigger than it that'll let you pass it through. Then you can pick it up once you're back out through the side door with the red crystal.
Just finished. Unfortunately it was a bit of a slog towards the middle and end - mostly because I hated the story (didn't really derive much pleasure from the puzzles past the first third or so, especially the finicky ones like the Z bridge in the temple).
The PS+ video hints were surprisingly useful though.
Bugged out on me twice too. Game really wants you to drop it out the window from inside when you're done with it rather than picking it up from outside.
You definitely glitched the game if you're no longer able to pick up and drop things. The way you get it out of the house is to pass is through the openings on the porch. You'll notice that when the green crystal is in its smallest form that there are shapes on the side of the porch that are slightly bigger than it that'll let you pass it through. Then you can pick it up once you're back out through the side door with the red crystal.
Just finished. Unfortunately it was a bit of a slog towards the middle and end - mostly because I hated the story (didn't really derive much pleasure from the puzzles past the first third or so, especially the finicky ones like the Z bridge in the temple).
The PS+ video hints were surprisingly useful though.
Bugged out on me twice too. Game really wants you to drop it out the window from inside when you're done with it rather than picking it up from outside.
The music is really good, the narrative is interesting enough and the core idea is great, but the puzzle design is really not that great. The game does a terrible job in explaining its mechanics and punishes creativity.
Finished. 5/10. Tech issues. Underdeveloped puzzles, under utilized mechanics, great music and poor signposting in some regards. One or two great puzzles though.
Having finished it now I must say I really liked it! The core puzzle concept is *really* cool, even if they don't always push each idea to a strong conclusion and some solutions are weirdly specific.
I think the story is really wonderful and sweet and honestly I'm always a sucker for emotionally honest romance story, even if it was pretty quick and by the books.
My biggest critique in the end is honestly that the story and the mechanics never congeal into something compelling. Besides the environment art giving San Francisco vibes the game world just never feels like it reflects the romance very well. An earlier developer statement talks about how in a relationship small things can become huge obstacles but that's a stretch because that idea is never reflected in how the mechanics are used. It's a very clever puzzle game with a resonant story but those two components could have helped to support each other so we'll and they simply don't.
Overall I really liked it. Worth the playtime for sure. But I think because I liked it a good bit is also why I wish it was as great as the first hour had me hopeful for.
Beat it and the story wasn't that bad. I liked the message even though the start was a bit heavy on the romantic side. I had to look up two puzzles but that is fair. I wish they had introduced the reset button faster and not just for the last puzzle. Most puzzles were fine but some the solutions were a bit out of the box and I didn't anticipate that solution. My favorite puzzles were those of the last level.
You definitely glitched the game if you're no longer able to pick up and drop things. The way you get it out of the house is to pass is through the openings on the porch. You'll notice that when the green crystal is in its smallest form that there are shapes on the side of the porch that are slightly bigger than it that'll let you pass it through. Then you can pick it up once you're back out through the side door with the red crystal.
I had the red and green crystals on the porch. I placed the green crystal as close to the barrier out of the porch to go outside as the game would let me. I held the red crystal as high above the green crystal as possible and dropped it then quickly picked the green crystal back up and the red crystal rolled down the porch steps due to the momentum of the fall and how it landed on the green crystal
The puzzle with the gear also really ticked me off. Your jump in this game is anemic. In most video games, you can jump the height of your character or some other exaggerated height. In this game, you hop like 2".
how was I supposed to know that despite this tiny hop my character is also an Olympic long jumper. If I had a more pronounced jump, I might have thought to try that.
I'm probably gonna power through the rest of this tonight. Between the music, art, and narrative, this may be the whitest game I have ever played.
I say that as a very white person.
Overall the game is easy, which I don't mind. You can hardlock your own progress in some puzzles, and the game doesn't obey its own logic at all time, both of which I mind very much.
I see that this has already been solved/answerd, but i just wanted to add that this is also what i did as a solution :) I couldnt drop the crystal, but just quitting and continuing the game worked for me. When i got back into the game, i was able to drop the crystal.
I'm probably gonna power through the rest of this tonight. Between the music, art, and narrative, this may be the whitest game I have ever played.
I say that as a very white person.
Overall the game is easy, which I don't mind. You can hardlock your own progress in some puzzles, and the game doesn't obey its own logic at all time, both of which I mind very much.
Just out of curiousity, how do you mean with that the art is "white"? The artstyle, or the enviorment etc.?
And regarding the game not obeying its own logic, in what cases are those? I found two places in the game where i could lock myself out though, so that i know about =)
I see that this has already been solved/answerd, but i just wanted to add that this is also what i did as a solution :) I couldnt drop the crystal, but just quitting and continuing the game worked for me. When i got back into the game, i was able to drop the crystal.
Just out of curiousity, how do you mean with that the art "white"? The artstyle, or the enviorment etc.?
A little of everything, but in particular the style of the music and the details of the relationship itself. It reminds me a lot of my friends from high school growing up, both in their music tastes and the kind of relationship drama they had.
Did anyone else just wish they were playing Manifold Garden instead while playing this game?
I'm at the spiral so I'll see it through to the end, but the mixed reviews were definitely warranted.
I don't like how you can get yourself into a fail state so easily and glitch the game so you have to restart. The other big issue is the walking speed when you are small is like molasses. It discouraged experimentation because if I didn't line up the ramp in the right way, I would just reload back to an earlier to save to reposition myself because it was faster than walking back.
I like the concept and the story is fine, but after how fast and snappy Manifold Garden is, solving the puzzles is such a slog.
Did anyone else just wish they were playing Manifold Garden instead while playing this game?
I'm at the spiral so I'll see it through to the end, but the mixed reviews were definitely warranted.
I don't like how you can get yourself into a fail state so easily and glitch the game so you have to restart. The other big issue is the walking speed when you are small is like molasses. It discouraged experimentation because if I didn't line up the ramp in the right way, I would just reload back to an earlier to save to reposition myself because it was faster than walking back.
I like the concept and the story is fine, but after how fast and snappy Manifold Garden is, solving the puzzles is such a slog.
TBF, Manifold Garden is in a whole different class to this game. One of the very best in the genre, and jaw dropping art design. Maquette has some interesting moments but nowhere near on the same level.
Finished it tonight. Unfortunately my earlier thoughts remain mostly unchanged. There are one or two really strong puzzle concepts on the back half of the game, but neither of them are utilized to great effect. The story gets worse by the end as it attempts to dig harder for meaning and metaphor where the pickings are so slim they might be nonexistent.
I hate to say it, but Maquette is a mess. A pretty, superficially interesting and technologically sophisticated game, but a mess all the same. It's puzzles are so awkward to complete that the game just features very little of the joy it should have. The story is so poorly delivered and orthogonal to the game you're playing that it would have been much better without it entirely.
I hope the team takes another stab at a puzzle game because it's clear they have some interesting concepts at play, but this is a disappointing game and mediocre at best.
A little of everything, but in particular the style of the music and the details of the relationship itself. It reminds me a lot of my friends from high school growing up, both in their music tastes and the kind of relationship drama they had.
Understood, thanks for the answer. I can see that some of the music tracks could fall into being more popular for a more stereotypical crowd indeed, maybe som parts of the relationship story as well (like painting in the park), at least when i'm thinking of some movies (in real life and in general though, i'm not sure if things like arguing/fighting over smaller things in a relationship is more tied to one group of ethnicity than others, but i dont know. Or do you mean other parts in the Maquette story regarding drama?). But you also mentioned art, and personally i havnt heard art/graphics in a game (if that is what you were referring to when you said art?) thats stereotypically more tied to one ethnicity group compared to others, so i was mostly wondering what you were referring to with that :) But i general, i see what you mean. And to be honest, it also felt like it was a bit unfair criticism toward the developer, maybe looking like it was meant that they're trying to primarily reach a white audience, and i dont think thats the case. But maybe i'm misunderstanding what you meant when you said that this might be the whitest game that you've ever played, and that it wasnt meant as criticism, so please correct me if i misunderstood :)
EDIT 2: I'm sorry for the very late edit, i just wanted to add some more text.
Finished it tonight. Unfortunately my earlier thoughts remain mostly unchanged. There are one or two really strong puzzle concepts on the back half of the game, but neither of them are utilized to great effect. The story gets worse by the end as it attempts to dig harder for meaning and metaphor where the pickings are so slim they might be nonexistent.
I hate to say it, but Maquette is a mess. A pretty, superficially interesting and technologically sophisticated game, but a mess all the same. It's puzzles are so awkward to complete that the game just features very little of the joy it should have. The story is so poorly delivered and orthogonal to the game you're playing that it would have been much better without it entirely.
I hope the team takes another stab at a puzzle game because it's clear they have some interesting concepts at play, but this is a disappointing game and mediocre at best.
Personally, the story was one of the things that made the game interesting for me. The story might be basic (or what i shall call it), but i was curious to see how things would end, and the ending actually surprised me a bit. Ending spoiler:
I was thinking of two senarios, either the guy died and the girl regretted that they fought over smaller things, and the other senario was that they got back together. I didnt really think that they would meet up and stay broken up (at least this was my intitial interpretation. Eventhough that they said "i miss you" to each other, considering that the girl was moving away and had gotten a new job, i took it as that they parted as friends.
I also wondered if this was a story that happened to one of the developer, making it a more personal connection to someone working on the game rather than being just a general story.
About the puzzles, i wonder if it would be better if they moving the object around in the dome in the middle, if the game would go into a locked overview instead. I sometimes found it a bit wonky to move the objects around. Nothing too problematic though, but maybe it could be improved upon indeed.
Personally, i liked the game, but i agree with that i hope the team takes another shot at a puzzle game as you mention :)
TBF, Manifold Garden is in a whole different class to this game. One of the very best in the genre, and jaw dropping art design. Maquette has some interesting moments but nowhere near on the same level.
100 percent, unfortunately now I'm at the last level and it keeps crashing so I can't even finish it. It pains me to say, but I have to agree that this game is a bit of a mess.
Personally, the story was one of the things that made the game interesting for me. The story might be basic (or what i shall call it), but i was curious to see how things would end, and the ending actually surprised me a bit. Ending spoiler:
I was thinking of two senarios, either the guy died and the girl regretted that they fought over smaller things, and the other senario was that they got back together. I didnt really think that they would meet up and stay broken up (at least this was my intitial interpretation. Eventhough that they said "i miss you" to each other, considering that the girl was moving away and had gotten a new job, i took it as that they parted as friends.
I also wondered if this was a story that happened to one of the developer, making it a more personal connection to someone working on the game rather than being just a general story.
My core issue with the story is this: I don't think the story is ever in the service of the game, and also, I don't think the game is ever in service of the story. The two halves of this game just seem to exist with only the skin-deep metaphorical language lacing few of the in-game locales, and even then they seem to want to trot over each other's space: the characters are as crowded by the game's need to have you rotating away at things, but also when the game is starting to rev it's engines with unique puzzles things too abruptly make way for a scene that takes control away from the player. I personally didn't have much appreciation for the content of the storyline, the storytelling methodology does it no favors. In the future they should probably avoid ever taking control away from the player and instead have more mise-en-scene in the world against the backdrop of characters either speaking about things, or have notes or something. They should also put more thought into how to bridge a connection between their story and their game world; there are a few times where the game manages to stick a landing with regards to its visual metaphors, but most of the time you just get the sense that a thing is the way it is because it'll make for a good puzzle. It just always felt like a tug of war to me. I even struggled to enjoy the ending because it felt like a silver lining against a lot of wasted potential, which sucks because it's all arguably set against the best recursive set-piece of the whole game that is hugely under-utilized.
I do think there's a strong possibility that this is somebody's real-life story because, frankly, it's probably a *lot* of peoples' real-life story. And that's going to make mileage vary on how much it works for people on an emotional wavelength, but I don't think it avoids being boring and predictable for most of it. It's hard to want to give out points for a story that even people who haven't lived it know so well in media.
I'm enjoying the puzzles despite some of them being janky and having a feeling of "I just found a weird exploit" instead of "ah ha!"
I got into one area making an 100 foot tall staircase to get over a 20 foot fence exploiting the fact there's no fall damage :lol
The story doesn't really fit with the gameplay either so far. Its like if someone tried to make a game that told the story of escaping a civil war by becoming a refugee and immigrating to another country through a bejeweled clone.
I'm maybe 2/3rds through the story and minus
Ohh, there's cracks on the wall of this house you have to walk through to solve this puzzle. Do they symbolize cracks in the foundation of the relationship?
My core issue with the story is this: I don't think the story is ever in the service of the game, and also, I don't think the game is ever in service of the story. The two halves of this game just seem to exist with only the skin-deep metaphorical language lacing few of the in-game locales, and even then they seem to want to trot over each other's space: the characters are as crowded by the game's need to have you rotating away at things, but also when the game is starting to rev it's engines with unique puzzles things too abruptly make way for a scene that takes control away from the player. I personally didn't have much appreciation for the content of the storyline, the storytelling methodology does it no favors. In the future they should probably avoid ever taking control away from the player and instead have more mise-en-scene in the world against the backdrop of characters either speaking about things, or have notes or something. They should also put more thought into how to bridge a connection between their story and their game world; there are a few times where the game manages to stick a landing with regards to its visual metaphors, but most of the time you just get the sense that a thing is the way it is because it'll make for a good puzzle. It just always felt like a tug of war to me. I even struggled to enjoy the ending because it felt like a silver lining against a lot of wasted potential, which sucks because it's all arguably set against the best recursive set-piece of the whole game that is hugely under-utilized.
Thats fair enough. I could see things being done differently as you mention, perhaps giving a even better and more interesting result overall, i agree to that. I just wanted to say that i personally felt that the story alone was interesting enough that made me want to continue playing the game to see how the story ended, but thats just a subjective thing of course :) More than fair enough if someone didnt find the story as interesting (or even if somone found it more interesting than me).
I do think there's a strong possibility that this is somebody's real-life story because, frankly, it's probably a *lot* of peoples' real-life story. And that's going to make mileage vary on how much it works for people on an emotional wavelength, but I don't think it avoids being boring and predictable for most of it. It's hard to want to give out points for a story that even people who haven't lived it know so well in media.
Yeah, the story in itself isnt exactly unique, thats true, indeed. Thats what i was thinking about in my previous post when i said that the story might be basic =) I didnt mean to say that the story was exactly unique or anything like that, and therefor giving credit for that alone, just to point that out. I was just thinking that maybe one of the reasons why i found the story interesting and felt it more is because this is a smaller indie game thats made by only a few people (i think?), making it feel more personal in that regards, that maybe one guy primarily used a game as a media to a story about him and his ex-girlfriend, or something in that vein. Maybe i wouldnt have felt exactly the same if this was a story in a big budget movie or game, but who knows (i guess it depends much on how well the acting is done and factors like that. A sidenote to this, i felt that the voice acting in Maquette was pretty good). And also that i didnt exect the ending like that as mention, giving me more of a surprise, which also could have affected how i felt about it. But like you mention, its going to vary from person to person how much it works for someone, thats true, indeed.
Hehe, thats also how i solve that puzzle (if i'm thinking of the same one, about halfway through the game) =) I'm still not sure how to solve that in any other way.
Are you talking about the one where you need to pass the small version of the green jewel through the openings on the side of the porch before moving through the house with the red jewel? Of all the puzzles that's the one that I just couldn't figure out. I kept thinking that I was missing something in the small version of the house.
Thank you so much! Just been sat on that for a while - couldn't figure it out at all. It also feels a bit like I cheated it in a way though -the game doesn't seem to allow you to push things through other things that much
I really liked the story, even if I knew where it was headed. Hearing some of the audio and reading some of the text reminded me of some painful memories, but I guess that's why I loved it.
As for the gameplay, I never felt it was too hard. I actually expected the puzzles to be harder than they were and to need to check youtube all the time lol There was only 1 puzzle I never saw coming and I need to check how to get pass it.
After you unlock the Gear at the end of 'The Getaways' level, you need to jump over a wall via a broken section of a bridge in order to use the pink rock on a pink crystal and use the gear. I would have never guessed that I needed to jump from the bridge, to a rock and outside the Maquette to advance
Also, I need the OST from the game. There are some very good tracks in there.
Edit. Got no bugs in my playthrough, but performance sure is spotty at times.
Finished it in one sitting earlier. Personally was fine with the music, although in a few cases, it absolutely felt entirely out of place. I did like the individual songs though. I was also mostly fine with the story stuff, and the voice acting was fine. I got invested in it a little bit at least, so it has that going for it.
Don't really have much else to say that's positive though. The controls are extremely clunky, and I was constantly fighting them, even up until the last puzzles in the game. The lock on felt HORRIBLE, and the pickup/interact/drop button layout just did not feel good at all. There was even one puzzle where the interact/pickup button did not work, and instead I needed to hit the drop button to interact, wtf. Anytime I was trying to move objects around within the smaller spaces, it felt like I was dragging it through molasses, and the items were constantly hanging on small parts of the environment. Sometimes, the objects you held out in front of you felt like they were on a grid, and sometimes they didn't. No idea why. And even when it felt like pieces "locked" into place, I would drop the item, and more times than not, it would fall, hit some small edge on another item, and fall over/get tweaked.
As far as the puzzles, there's hardly any signposting (or at least, any that is good), and I got myself stuck/softlocked a few times. Softlocking wouldn't be so bad if there were proper checkpoints, instead I got to find out the hard way that "Restart" literally means restarting the level over, including having to listed to the dialog sections without being able to skip them. Small puzzle ch 2(?) spoiler here, but one puzzle,
I put a ball back through a window I had used to get it into the room, expecting I'd be able to grab it from outside. Nope, there was a small dirt mound there that blocked me from grabbing it. No worries, I'll go grab it from the dome area, right? Wrong, because the next section of the level locks you from that area until you find a way around...which you need the ball to complete. Turns out, you have to make a jump to get over the wall....with NO PRIOR EXPECTATION YOU COULD/NEEDED TO DO THAT! I figured I'd be able to get out eventually, but some random jump from a bridge onto a rock over the wall
felt like I was breaking the game when I realized what I had to do.
Anyways, the rest of the puzzles were ok I guess, but I only ever got that "a-ha!" Feeling twice. The rest of the puzzles felt extremely simple and obvious, and as another poster said, they didn't really let you experiment with solutions at all. And even more than the one mentioned above felt like I was breaking the game (which, I guess is a bit interesting? But they just felt unfinished to me). Some of the puzzles also require you to backtrack quite a bit, and I remember once instance where I had figured out the puzzle, but because I didn't place an object exactly where it wanted me to, I had to backtrack a ton to fix the object then go all the way back. Ran into that potential scenario again later, but figured I'd double check before continuing, and saved myself a backtrack.
Also lots of little issues like when the game takes control of the camera. It feels super weird having the object you were holding be glued to the bottom middle of the screen, and it feels like that's a bug maybe? Like, it dolly's the camera across a part of the level as a bit of a hint, but the object you were holding to get to that area stays glued to your screen, and then it dolly's back. Wtf. Also had various other bugs, including not placing an object down perfectly, which caused an audio looping bug, RIGHT as a dialog section started. So I got to hear a banging noise every second through (and louder than) character dialog.
And then there's the performance on PS5. Simply put, it's bad. It feels jerky, never smooth, and is distracting, although I eventually just dealt with it. At least visually the game can look nice? I think the crystals clash pretty bad with the rest of the art style, but the rest looks pretty good, and I did stop a few times just to look around. Although the third(?) to last area doesn't feel up to snuff compared to the rest of the game.
If the story clicks with you, it might be worth a check out (especially if you have ps+), but it feels super unpolished. There are some neat ideas there, but I don't know if that carries the game enough. I'm sure the performance problems and maybe even some control issues can be ironed out, which, at least control wise, would help tremendously, but it seems like it's got more issues than a simple patch can fix.
Finished it this morning. The concept is great and some of the puzzles were original and fun to solve, but like others have said the performance, bugs and overall awkwardness regarding picking up and moving items really made this game a chore to play through rather than something fun.
One of the late game puzzles features a timer of sorts, except in my game the timer bugged out and thus made the puzzle impossible to solve. It took me over 20 minutes of trying to solve this puzzle before I gave up and checked the solution and realised that the game had bugged and I'd been wasting my time.
If there's one thing you need to do with a puzzle game, it's make sure that the puzzles don't have any bugs in them 🤦
