Mosaic

It looks extremely similar to Every Day the Same Dream from 2009. It's almost like a 3D remake of it. If you haven't heard about it, it was quite an early indie hit. One of the first I remember hearing about. I think it won some competitions and it was mentioned on lots of various gaming websites, magazines etc. Maybe it wasn't the earliest days of indie gaming but it was still early enough for a thing like that to draw a lot of attention. It seems a bit dishonest to me that they don't even mention or give credits to the 2009 game, even though they seem to base their entire title on it. Not "basing" like other platformers have been influenced by Super Mario, but "basing" as in using the exact same story, same main character, same art style and same philosophy. It's too specific to just be a coincidence. To describe how this game would look like if the 2009 title instead was a super mario game. "This game is about a french plumber jumping on mushroom shaped Loombas to gather coins. If you eat a red mushroom you grow in size. Your fiance, the queen (not princess), of the mushrooms has been abducted by a crocodile with a spiky shell. Your tall but clumsy brother in blue clothes sometimes gives you a helping hand." If they had at least had an OK from and gave some credit to the 2009 classic it would be OK I guess but as for now it looks like theft. I really recommend Every Day the Same Dream though. It's free of charge and you can find it on websites all over the place.

This “game” was not easy for me to rate. First, it is not a game it is an art project in my opinion. For a game it lacks gameplay. Besides walking around, your workplace minigame and your phone (which you could ignore 100% of the time if you choose so and still can play the game) there is nothing to do. Ok that was a lie there is your way to work minigame kind of thing but that is just walking you around again and changing perspective. So, if I would rate it purely as a game this game gets 2 Stars from me. It is short (3h max and you are done) and imo overpriced for the gameplay you get. If I rate it as an art project however it gets 4 stars from me. Why? It conveys its message perfectly. The art style, the things you can do and can not do in the game, the atmosphere, it all ads up to this unique experience. Can I recommend this as a game? No. But what I can do is recommending it to people who like unique art-like pieces of indie software. What I can not recommend for anyone however, is the 1% version or the 1%DLC it doesn’t add anything really. If you like the Soundtrack and want to support the Devs further get the base game and the Soundtrack separate.

This game is short, 3 hours short. But those 3 hours really are nice to play. The game is beautiful, the light is really kicking. As for the story, i liked it, there was some really nice part, betwen dream and reality, and have powerful scene. I'm looking forward for the next game of this studio. It's not perfect, some of you might be bored by it, and that's understandable.

Mosaic 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. You start each day waking up with messages from work berating you and your progress; then you fix your hair and brush your teeth; then you make your way to work. Along the way to work you encounter various bits of colour in an otherwise grey looking world. 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. 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. 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. There was also one scene where if I go left instead of right the screen just went black. There was one graphics setting and v-sync. The game ran great aside from a few drops drop to the 60’s. Mosaic uses a checkpoint save system and a terrible one at that. At certain points it actually registers a checkpoint in the menu but any other time it says “saving” it won’t actually bring you back to that point if you exit the game but will bring you back to the last major checkpoint listed which will lose you progress.