Mosaic is an imaginative and unusual narrative-driven adventure game.
Mosaic paints all its scenes with great care. It might be a slow burner as cerebral, but it tells an enthralling story and is very emotional. With predominantly dark colors and rectangular shapes, Mosaic’s world is a world of obedience and expressionless stares. Unbridled capitalism runs rampant. Its crusade machine declares street performers’ parasites to be expressed and treat humans as unmatched rogues.
The protagonist is not all that different from the lack of expression and behavior of other characters. He stands out because of his white shirt. There are straight lines of concrete buildings tower above you. Uniformity reigns in hallways as you move past mailboxes that stay outside. The men and women in the game have one model each, which ends us later dramatically driving the point of a Tinder-like dating app through the home.
Entirely through visual means, Mosaic focuses on doling out silent criticism, telling its story, and creating an intensive gameplay experience. Even when the job-related puzzles kick in at the end of each day, It’s not a gameplay-intensive experience. When you make your way over to your desk, described through a series of numbers, you will be given a task to reach a daily milestone. Until reaching the day’s threshold, You have to construct resource extractors and build slim structures from hexagonal shapes. You occasionally move your black dots to overwhelmingly invade blobs of color during its itself a sterile white and black affair.
Neatly tucking it inside one of the many hexagons that end up building up your structure. It can also move around inaccessible areas with regulations and symbolizing laws. When you reach the top, you are briefly celebrated and normally sent on your way home. You navigate Mosaic’s urban setting entirely using your mouse. Holding onto the mouse, the nameless protagonist can move in, clicking points of interest or any direction to see when they pop up.
The game’s scary atmosphere derives from the surgical nature of its own city. Mosaic lets transmit the feeling of monotony. Every day fast forwards through the already experienced parts of your journey towards the workplace. Each day reveals a new set in various areas of the city. You are not the only one who cog in these huge machines that send apps to find love for people without time. These people don’t have any sort of real connection. Mosaic paces reveal these excellently. In the distance drive point, you will find a sight. A sight of a massive bridge filled to the brim with lined-up cars driving towards a skyscraper. That skyscraper has covered a portion of the metropolis.
You can’t quite tell what you are working towards exactly. It’s all untruthful to mere workers. For the company, you are just a number. Your milestone is also a number. It’s like the countless other milestones the employees work towards; they will replace them tomorrow. Job stability depends on getting there on time. If you are late enough times, your contract opens for termination. You will always compete against a Dan who is 34% more productive than you are. Dan works as a motivator for the protagonist’s journey that’s powerful enough not to spoil here. Aside from the waking-up ritual, the one constant in Mosaic is the company’s eternal desire for resources.
Mosaic’s surreal portions often will take you by surprise, given how seamlessly they meld into the character’s routine. Its mesmerizing journey is soon cut short. Then you will be jolted back to control your character, which will feel like a carcass. A dead-paced walk toward work suddenly sees your character relegated to the background. While you control, a yellow butterfly will navigate a construction site through the same means. Its bright yellow wings contrast white and dark blue of dust and machinery.
Maybe you wonder if Mosaic just showcases a self-contained vision of rampant capitalism. It’s not like that. That’s where surrealism kicks in. Mosaic sprinkles small yet significant events on the side of the road toward work, like its natural sunlight piercing through an artificially illuminated hallway. And it’s a talking goldfish or the distant tune of a double bass player. The protagonist has issues with getting to work on time because of poor sleep and migraines. More realistically, because of the distractions that each day contains. The expressive floods of surreal imagery demanding attention and color are also neatly done from a visual standpoint.
Even under the pressure of having overdue invoices piling up on the table or a negative balance in the protagonist’s bank account, Players still have to go ahead and investigate every strange piece of scenery or light that seems to break away from the usual monotony of the city. Multiple detours present themselves on your way to work. In the expected fashion, the company promptly texts you; letting you know that being late is anything but encouraged. Pursuing each of them completes the story puzzle of Mosaic.
Mosaic’s point might become obvious before its final reveal. The depressing revelations of medication are meant to push workers to maximum productivity while disregarding their actual health. The surprising perspective is that its surreal bits throw you into more than making up for it. Isolation is the status quo despite its four-hour journey through a world wherein spite of the number of people physically close to one another. Mosaic paints all its scenes with great effort. It might be a slow burner, but it’s as cerebral as it is emotional and tells an enthralling story.
