We all know the feeling of being stuck in a dead-end job – every day feels the same, wake up, go to work, get home, eat dinner, sleep. And repeat that for the next 50 years or so. And this is what Mosaic is all about – living in a boring routine – while trying to break out of the habit.
Name: Mosaic
Developer: Krillbite Studios
Publisher: Raw Fury
Released: 05.12.2019
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Reviewed on: PC
Acquired: A copy of this game was provided from a publisher for review purpose
Story
You play as an unnamed worker. He has no personality traits, no real life outside of work, and he is very much an empty canvas (I’d like to say that he’s a plain slate to be painted, but all you have is grey colors…). All of his life outside of work consists of receiving texts from his boss about not working hard enough and former friends who no longer keeps in touch.
And this is pretty much what the story is – going to work and coming back home. There are some happenings if you decide not to go straight home, such as following a butterfly around the block. Talking to a fish. And watching street musicians. It might sound boring, but for a short game (around three hours) it’s just enough, and besides, if you don’t like these kinds of interactive movies, you probably won’t be interested in playing Mosaic anyways.
For obvious reasons I can’t write how it all ends, but I can say I was, unfortunately, a little bit disappointed. It’s not necessarily something wrong with the ending, it just feels a bit too safe and defensive. Personally, I would have liked a different ending, but I won’t complain too much about the ending that is.
7/10
Graphics
First and foremost Mosaic has a very interesting and fitting style. It’s definitely not the most graphically advanced game, but that is far from necessary. It simply fits the feeling that Krillbite wants the in-game world to give the player.
The world in Mosaic consists mostly of colors on the grey spectrum. The city is grey, your colleagues are grey, and your apartment is grey. Everything is grey. Except for special happenings in your character’s life. For example, watching a beautiful butterfly or listening to a musician. In addition to adding colors to an otherwise grey existence, these scenes can only be described as surreal.
8/10
Gameplay
There’s very little gameplay in Mosaic when it comes to summing it all up. You walk around, doing the same task over and over, getting to and from work and reading new text messages.
Apart from walking around, you have a mini-game at the end of each day of work. The game has you allocating resources to build “a powerplant” (in lack of a better word) and getting enough energy to get all the way to the top of the level.
Oh, and you have the in-game game BlipBlop. The definition of an idle-builder game. Think a minimalist type of Adventure Capitalist. A funny twist on this is BlipBlop existing in real life as well and can be found on the AppStore and Google Play Store.
6/10
Controls
The controls in Mosaic is pretty much the definition of point-and-click. You point, and (this is gonna be a surprise) click on whatever object you want to interact with, or wherever you want to walk to. It’s not a complex control system to learn, but it works just fine.
8/10
Replay Value
Regrettably, the replay value is nowhere to be found. There’s no side-quests, no choices to be made, and no real reason to play through the game more than once. Although I can’t complain too much about a single-ending game, I feel like a game like this could use some The Stanley Parable treatment, with different endings depending on your choices.
3/10
You can check out our review policy right here, if you wonder how we set our scores.
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Story 7
7/10
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Graphics 8
8/10
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Gameplay 6
6/10
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Controls 8
8/10
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Replay Value 3
3/10
Verdict
I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I got a code for Mosaic. After a quick Google search, I thought it would be kind of like Limbo and Inside, and sure, it kinda is, but at the same time, it’s something very different. It’s hard to be disappointed with Mosaic, but I do wish there would be a more daring ending, or perhaps more than one ending and some choices along the way. Still, though, the story was interesting enough and as a three hour-long game, it was easy to play through in one sitting.
Overall
6.4/10
User Review
( votes)Pros
- Great controls
- Interesting idea of a story
Cons
- Lack of any proper gameplay
- Too safe of an ending
- No replay value
