Mosaic, developed by Krillbite Studio, and published by Raw Fury, is
a 3rd person "...narrative driven modern adventure game." It's
not really an adventure game at all - it's a walking simulator, with
some simple puzzle elements, and some built in mini-games.
The game's story is pretty simple: you get up, you brush your teeth,
you travel to work, you do your job, you come home, and then you rinse
and repeat until the end of time, or, I guess, until you die presumably.
This is a game about the dull monotony of life. How we're all just cogs
in one huge machine. How, if we let it, life will just pass us by
unnoticed. It's not terribly interesting, or engaging, and yet... I was
strangely pulled into its world, and was never bored, despite that
central theme.
The game handles its ideas pretty well, although I do question
whether or not the game is ultimately saying much of anything. We all
can relate to the idea of trudging through life, each new day feeling
exactly the same as the last, so you won't come away from this
experience with any great revelations. But, having said that, again, I
was strangely inspired by it. I felt like it captured these feelings so
well, that it made me stop and think a moment about things, and consider
what I could do to my own life to mitigate those feelings. I think the
game wants you to do that. Its dull, gray, cold graphics are permeated
with sporadic spots of colour - places you can walk to that feel a
little warmer, to stand in the sun and dream; places where cool looking
people play cool music to break up the soul crushing industrial
background hiss. And all for just a fleeting moment, as the
inevitability of your dull and pointless reality simply waits patiently
behind you with open arms, ready to welcome you back to the assembly
line of life. That is what the game is really about. Finding those
moments throughout your day. Maybe you won't ever break out and reach
dizzying new heights of super wonderful excitement, but there's always
something to see, to hear, to find, to experience, that can keep your
heart from becoming a stone cold slab of flesh, each beat an echo of a
forgotten dream… or something.
In terms of gameplay, mostly what you'll be doing is walking. Each
day is about just getting to work. But each day brings something a
little different along the way. Guide a butterfly through some
obstacles, avoid the big boot of "the man" trying to step on
you, face yourself in a weird maze of mirrors. It all gets pretty
surreal, mimicking the mix of emotions that swirl around our minds day
in and day out. And then, when you finally do get to work, what do you
have to do? Well, just reach your milestone for the day of course. How?
Through a simple, and yet quite confusing little game. Things come out
of things, and you have to make them go up to reach a certain place.
Other things will attack your progress, so you'll have to use a range of
skills, which you acquire over the days, to make sure you get to your
milestone. I'm not explaining it very well at all, but that's because I
don't really know how to. I still don't fully understand what I was
doing, or how I was doing it, but I definitely did find it compelling
and quite satisfying when I achieved my goals. And that's another idea
that the game subtly examines: there's a certain comfort to conformity,
simplicity, and overall mediocrity. Life rewards you for it. Maybe not
with anything grand, but with safety. And feeling safe is a powerful
thing.
One final thing about the game, which is something I actually really
liked a lot, were the things you could do on your cell phone. Included
on your phone right away is a little game called Blip Blop. Blip Blop
simply involves you clicking a button over and over again to get more
points, which then unlock a few other things, which you use to get more
points, and then even more points, and basically just more and more and
more. It was not strategic at all, but it was very addictive. Couple
that with the Steam achievements that you can get by playing, and you
might just find yourself forgetting the core game, and sitting on your
bed (in the game and in real life), clicking the blip button over and
over again. Forget work! You gotta have more blips and blops, right?
More and more. And more. But why? No reason. It's just what we do these
days. We click around on the net, on social media, essentially not doing
or achieving much of anything. But its passes the time, and it makes us
feel good. And the corporations benefit. We're doing it for them really.
Awww, we are so nice. Blip....blop....blip....blop.
Other phone privileges? A dating app, where you swipe people who all
look exactly the same, left or right, all day long, never getting any
interest yourself. Yay! But you keep doing it anyway. Might work out in
the end, right? And thirdly, there is a BitCoin type trading app, where
no matter what price you buy your coins at, you can never ever sell them
for more ever again. At least, that's how it seemed to me. And I was
genuinely quite upset about this. The game was getting to me by this
point. I felt put upon. I felt swindled. I felt like I just needed to
catch a break. Finally, the game ended, and I was happy. Happy to be
free. Happy to have some peace. Hmm, it's quite deep actually.
So, in conclusion, Mosaic boasts some really nice graphics, zero
interaction with other characters (except for a fish - I don't know -
you'll have to play), mildly irritating mouse controls, some not so
puzzly puzzles, some cool mini-games and phones interactions, and a
story and set of ideas which are certainly interesting, if not
ultimately ground breaking. I recommend playing it, however it's very
expensive for its 2-3 hour playtime, and so I wouldn't recommend it
unless it's quite heavily discounted.
