Simple gameplay, but what a story
Thu Feb 20 2020 MurcielagoZhouThis is one of the unique games that I have ever played. The way of telling story for this game is very charming, same life pattern with tiny difference every day. It creates big curiosity for me to follow the story and see what’s going on next. On another hand, the real gameplay mechanics is quite simple. Maybe I am still in the early stage of the game, therefore I can’t really tell the connection between the gameplay and the story yet.
The game is also full of symbols. From the yellow butterfly to the musician to the giant shoes. They’re very drama and attractive. Even the main gameplay I guess also contains symbols. Maybe it is telling a fact that humans are cutting down forests to build houses.
One of the drawback of the game is the walking. I am playing this game on my iPad Pro. Since the screen is big, the direction control by tapping different area on the screen is hard. It gives me a bit of frustration, but since the game is not very action packed, therefore I guess I can get used to it.
I’m speechless
Sat Feb 05 2022 Cat_lin111All of these comments saying that the game was bad are soooooooooooooo wrong. Sure on mobile the movement of the guy is a little weird, but only a little. The story element to this game is amazing beyond words. Like seriously, I don’t know how to describe it, because no word seems 🤯enough. You can never really tell what is really and what isn’t, which I really love. The mini game that he does for work is challenging sometimes, but surprisingly fun and the phone was also fun too. I really liked the goldfish, but at the final work day the goldfish told me “I’m sick of you throwing me in the toilet”, but I had put it in my pocket every time. But that’s super minor. I love the ending and every part of the storyline so much! I love how it’s one of those stories that you get to interpret however you want. I also really love that band at the end. Did not see it coming. I love the music aspect to this game as well, when you first look at it you don’t think there’s going to be anything about music in it, but actually, it all kinda revolves around music. I really love this game, the developers did an amazing job, and I super highly recommend it!
Powerful surrealist visuals hampered by bugs and poor controls
Mon Nov 11 2019 KupocakeLoved many aspects of Mosaic and I loved some of the great compositions and art design thoughtfully crafted through the game, but playing it was a different story. There were many visual bugs encountered through my beginning-to-end playtime: character animation pops, camera blend issues, etc. which made the overall experience feel not very polished and often detracted from my experience.
But the worst offender was the controls by far, I’ve had issues where I’d get “stuck” at some invisible spot in the level which was unclear from the camera layout (for example, trying to climb up a set of escalators but getting stuck in the middle between two escalators). The “change your perspective” mini-puzzles often had unclear direction on what to do, and the controls were either too sluggish or too quick on my iPad (the camera rotated like crazy!). I would’ve liked to recommend this game, but as-is it needs a couple rounds of patches before I can tell others to play this game.
Overall, I liked the plot and the uplifting ending was lovely, even though I was initially skeptical of how sad it came off at first. I genuinely played through the whole game because I loved that cheerful, optimistic goldfish! 🐟
Strong message but very poor controls
Mon Jul 15 2024 N8 JonesThere are lot of aspects of this game to like (visuals, sound design, story elements), but its horribly broken controls, UI, and overall UX far outweigh any thought-provoking message/experience that the creators were aiming for. There’s no tutorial whatsoever, it’s frustratingly difficult to move the character around the spaces, and half the time the touchscreen hotspots don’t seem to respond to interactions, taps, swipes, etc.. I think I get what the developers were going for: be wary of becoming a “cog in the system” or “another brick in the wall”, but given the clear lack of focus on making the game actually playable, it would have been better off as an interactive comic/graphic novel/manga where far fewer player interactions/inputs were required to advance the story and conclusions. In its current state, it just feels incomplete, untested with users, and leaving much more to be desired if it’s trying to facilitate compelling gameplay and discovery. I appreciate the introspection and reflection it evokes, but its cons far surpass its pros and lost me after too many frustrating attempts to just get the game to respond or work properly. For now and until significant control improvements and bug fixes are made, this one’s a miss/skip it.
Cinematic experience
Thu Jan 02 2020 ZhongzacharyGames has many forms. Some are called action games; some are sport games. This game belongs to a different genre — interactive storytelling. It’s like watching a movie and playing a game at the same time.
Mosaic is certainly not the first of its kind, but it is the most cinematic yet. Colors in the game are carefully tuned, so is sound effect. All these elements are design to maximize the storytelling. The hero of the story is an unmanned man living a cycle-like life. He has no purpose but going to work. He barely talks to anyone. The work he does is literally mosaic (SPOILER: “literally mosaic” is pun intended). The game, of course, is to save our protagonist from his existential crisis.
Although not boring per se, the storyline is somewhat cliche. But thanks to the impressionist visual, the game becomes truly enjoyable. I’d have shared all my gameplay screenshots if I could. Anyway, Mosaic is a game worth playing and every second playing it is well spent.
Ps. To developer, I earned more than 5k by investing in BlipCoin but I still cannot part my bills in the Bank app due to insufficient funds. How much is this guy owing?!
Bad Controls, Bad Performance, Good Game
Sat Nov 30 2019 AwesomeNick94It’s such a shame that there isn’t controller support or at least a virtual joystick for this game (yet). As a result, especially if you’re on a smaller device, you’ll be spending most of the time trying to position your finger in a way that gets you where you need to go without obscuring too much of the screen.
Unfortunately for me I only have access to an iPhone 7 and AppleTV (both on the same chip), so the game runs horribly, often dropping to as low as what feels like 5-10fps. This also seemed to affect the audio as well, as it flickers a lot during bad performing sections and I had it cut out entirely once until I closed and reopened the game.
The game itself seems like it could be a great time, as I enjoyed it just enough despite the major issues to finish it, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone playing it on a small and (I guess) weak device. It has some really neat visuals, though I feel like the experience would be served just as well if not better by an animated short (though there are already plenty that pretty much explore the same themes).
5 star game hampered by poor touch/text implementation
Sat Nov 02 2019 Brad3000I feel like this game wasn’t originally intended for phones and was hastily ported after a deal with Apple. I really like everything about it - the graphics, minimalist/surreal storytelling and sound are all top notch - but much of the text is so tiny on my iPhone X that it is virtually unreadable and the touch implementation is sloppy and frustrating.
I’m on Day 4 and I still can’t quite tell if I’m moving the character with an invisible touch joystick or some kind of drag/swipe to move scheme - it almost seems to switch between the two, though I’m sure it doesn’t. Also, because there is no UI, the times when it takes control away from the player just feel broken, like it’s not registering my touches. And in one scene I was still controlling the character at the same time I was playing the clicker game on the in-game phone.
Honestly, I think I might love this game if it weren’t for the controls and the microscopic text. I hope the devs can get them sorted!
This is more than just a game
Mon Feb 08 2021 <o-o> y e swhy Everyone complaining about the controls? Just enjoy it while you can. I downloaded this before now; I'm playing it again like today; there are huge companies that control everything, and I know what they're saying while nature is dying being washed up on the phone a lot of real life problems that we have today it brings A message of hope that maybe someday we can have a better world, but that would be really hard to do in human nature imagine a better world without hate, war, violence, crime, corruption, other bad things we do, this won't probably never happen but 1% maybe? All we can do is do simple good stuff that'll help some bit of the world today donating, giving, help stop racism. I'm not a hippie saying this nor a fake reviewer but go support your bros and the best you could do
Story based and makes you think
Thu Sep 24 2020 klhw21This is a great game!! I love this type of dark narrative based game where a world slowly unfolds in front of your eyes. There are subtly creepy vibes from it, and it explores the monotony of everyday life, waking, commuting, working, and for what? It was beautifully made and easy to grasp the story line even with minimal dialogue. The controls could use some working on, it doesn’t have the ease of use that games like Playdeads inside have, but I am sure that it will get there eventually with a little work. It is somewhat easy to figure out what to do, the game subtly guides you in the right direction. Overall it was a great game, and I enjoyed the whole thing! I played while sick, sitting on the couch and it is rainy and dark outside. It almost felt like the game was becoming my life and it hit me on a deep level. 10/10 worth your time.
cool i guess but boring
Fri May 05 2023 Sparkle proi played this a few months ago and was bored to death so i deleted it before i finished. then i saw a review less than 24 hours ago saying “the story was breathtaking” so i redownloaded and btw there’s only like 5 levels, there’s like 4 interactive parts and i completed the game in a total of like 2 hours which idk but that’s boring to me. also the story was sooo predictable. spoiler: but of COURSE the colors you literally discovered that day on the way to work are the threat bubbles and all the people are the dots coming from the extractors. it’s all grey black and white game people! of course the 3 colors you see and 2 words said to you are related. it was just so boring and the guy moves so slow and you don’t truly get to explore when you can’t move past a scene without being pushed toward whatever the devs want you to discover. it’s a cool game and idea but just so so boring. don’t waste your 2-4 hours on this game that feels like a gloomy day. :/
