Mosaic

Mosaic gives meaning to the meaningless; it’s existential nihilism in digital form. It's lovely.

It’s not a game you play, but more an interactive experience, somewhat an art piece that is a meditation on modern life or the difference between the commercial world and the artistic/creative world. It’s not a long experience but it’s worth a go, though for the length of it I would still wait for a special before shelling out money on it. But if a good special comes along I would recommend grabbing it and letting yourself float along with the story.

Although Mosaic’s gameplay is simple and the play length short, it boasts a powerful story with many unique elements you won’t find anywhere else.

This is the beauty of Mosaic; it’s not just another tale made up for storytelling impact. These are feelings and situations I felt empathy with and that are a current problem within our world today. It’s great to see more developers wanting to go down this route when creating games and wanting to make a difference. I’d be surprised that when the end credits roll on Mosaic, you wouldn’t want to change even the smallest details of your own life for the better.

Mosaic is a remarkable narrative game, suggestive in its small length, telling of a silent revolution in an oppressive dystopian society.

Are games meant to be fun, or simply something to distract us from the injustice around us: homelessness, deforestation? Mosaic's gameplay is purposefully opaque, the meaning behind your actions blurred to a point where continuing on may seem pointless. It may not always be engaging, but those with patience will unravel an uplifting message about human connection. The irony is hopefully not lost on the player; that a game about freeing oneself from your phone... is played on one.

Mosaic might only last a few hours, but within that time it has moments that can stick with you, bring you joy amidst the monotony of everyday life. There's a message here to say that there is always a glimmer of hope even if it isn't always obvious, which is a good message to send. Plus, there's a talking goldfish.

A surreal and nightmarish adventure with great art design and intense atmosphere, but not very challenging.

The game induces sleepiness here and there because of its low tempo and repetitiveness but it does so for a reason. It helps that the art style is both flexible with color tones and insanely modest. [02/2020, p.45]

Mosaic will be a worthwhile experience for that certain type of gamer who can appreciate style over substance in the service of an artistic statement. Without much in the way of gameplay, it’s more of an experimental atmospheric experience than a traditional piece of interactive entertainment.

Although I wasn’t overly entranced by Mosaic — its approach is too straightforward for my taste — I tip my hat to the developers for making a game that punctures a hole in the noxious ideology that work, necessarily, gives meaning to our lives.

Mosaic is a not so far dystopian future.

Mosaic is the plight of the office worker reimagined for the not-to-distant dystopian future. The tedium, the soullessness, the loneliness — it's all here, presented with sleek, stylish art and simple, effective mechanics. But, the burden of virtual corporate slavery is perhaps too much to bear; the game is prone to frequent bouts of monotony that pull players out of the experience.

Mosaic is a game that tries to ease the player into a melancholy atmosphere, only broken up by small glimpses of light. There are no typical challenging gameplay systems or problems to solve, but that is kind of the point of the game.

There are some brilliant glimpses in Mosaic, moments that really can bring you to some deep thoughts on your life, but these few moments are diluted in a quite tedious experience, overall.

A game about breaking free from monotony that gets, perhaps inevitably, a little monotonous.

Mosaic tries to send some positive signals towards one of the most important issues that modern human is facing right now, and it deserves credit for that; but in the meantime, the developers forgot that it is a video game and should be fun and entertaining, rather than being boring and dull.

Mosaic could have been a very good short animation movie, with it's great artistic touch and a nice story. As a videogame it's pretty lame as we're still looking for a gameplay. Proceed with caution, even if you love walking sims.

Criticism without nuance of the consumer society and the deadly routine of the employee, Mosaic develops a style, a subject but remains an extremely harsh experience. Difficult to recommend it as a video game, its final form seems more suited to that of a short film, the interaction is already extremely limited.

It's not especially original, and at this point seeing any piece of media where someone quits their job, magically overcomes all their debt, and runs off to write poetry in the woods is something worthy of eye rolls and tongue clicks. It doesn't help that the game controls like a hapless man in his late twenties who can barely muster the energy to move his spinely legs.

Whether it’s the indulgence of its presentation or simply the lack of reason from its players to really care about such a dire portrayal of modern-day life (implying harsher truths or not), Mosaic seldom lands any sort of balance between involvement through gameplay and artistic direction for the journey to feel worth trudging through. For a game all about trying to break out of a cycle and changing one’s perspective, Mosaic seems oddly content in the same drab pretense that in the end, through needless repetition, still arrives at nowhere meaningful or memorable.

Mosaic was originally released as an Apple Arcade game, and it feels strange outside that context, where it would otherwise be a functional, fleeting experience among so many others, a small diversion.