I played the first 30 min or so of Annapurna’s new prestige-em-up Maquette because it’s free on PSplus. Boy, I did not get along with that game!
I enjoy the Alice-in-Wonderland gameplay conceit – walk into a tiny model of the game world and move objects in it, and their corresponding “real” objects in the actual game world move too. The real problem is in the game’s theming. It’s all WAY too respectable white upper-middle-class whedonesque normie hipster vibes, it makes me gag.
The game begins with you walking a path through a blandly pretty garden while generic 2010’s indiepop about San Francisco plays. Then you start seeing text appear on the walls that tells the story of a couple meeting for the first time at a cafe, where they bonded over the dude’s quirky sketchbook. It turns out, you get to explore the drawings he did! They’re all nice, safe, boring fantasy architecture sketches for you to enjoy while you listen to adorkable dialogue that is written and acted in such a way that you’re always bracing to hear one of them say “uhhhh, THAT just happened!” My girlfriend was pissed too. Her take was that this is THAT completely self-absorbed couple that only ever talks about their relationship and nothing else.
If you want to be middlebrowbeaten half to death, play this game.