Mosaic 1% Edition

I think the only reason that Mosaic wasn’t named “The Depression Simulator” is that there is already a game with that title. The game is told without any dialogue so you have to figure out the story through context alone. I can only say that this seems to be the story of a depressed man with no joy in his life who is trying to change that. Maybe the game was just making me depressed playing it, I don’t know. You start each day waking up with messages from work berating you and your progress; then you fix your hair and brush your teeth (seriously no shower ?); then you make your way to work. Along the way to work you encounter various bits of colour in an otherwise grey looking world. These bits of colour seem to awaken something in the main character if just for a moment. You then go to work and have to complete this resource gathering mini game before going home and doing it all over again. I detested this mini game but a part of me feels like I was meant to. I also didn’t like the many frequent camera angle changes while moving around the world, it made me think of the old school tank controls of 90’s horror games and I didn’t like that then or now. You also can’t move freely, you have to hold down the left mouse button to move in the direction you placed the arrow. If the goal was to make a bleak world the game succeeded. It is filled with ads for ways to increase productivity; a colourless world; and people who look away if you look at them. The backdrops; objects and water were well done. The music was great as well and reminded me of Off-Peak. I in some ways enjoyed the story that unfolded but hated the game play required to advance it. The aforementioned mini game was annoying; there were also a conveyor belt puzzle that was frustrating due to the camera angles. I played Mosaic on Linux. It never crashed on me. I did notice some flickering textures a few times throughout the game such as windows or the characters tie.