Review: Mosaic

• Platforms: PC (Reviewed), Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Apple Arcade
• Developer:  Krillbite Studio
• Publisher: Raw Fury
• Release Date: December 5th, 2019

At some point in time we’ve all had jobs that wear us down or destroy our social life. Jobs where you’re treated like you’re just a number on an ID badge, and your sole purpose is to become a hamster on a wheel. This sort of feeling is exactly what Krillbite Studio’s Mosaic explores, as you’ll tread through a grim and dreary story of trying to escape the grasps of just being another cog in the corporate machine.

Mosaic is a walking simulator that follows the day-to-day life of a young man stuck in the rut of working a monotonous desk job for a mega corporation. As the young man, you’ll wake up, tidy yourself up, commute to your job, and clock out. For the first few days this is pretty much rinse and repeat, but after a while fantastical things start happening along this morning commute. Is it his imagination? Is it the lack of sleep? Or is it the world giving him a sign that he needs to break free from the ball and chain of an office job that’s holding him back? The game’s overall theme and message is about as subtle as a frying pan to the head, and for the most part it can be a bit of a downer to play, with the bright spots being few and far between.

While most of the game is played as a Walking Simulator, the young man’s day job is played out in small puzzle sections where you must guide blocks to the top of the screen by creating hexagonal pathways for them to travel on. These puzzle challenges progressively get tougher, with obstacles being thrown in the way and new mechanics introduced to streamline the transportation of the blocks.

Mosaic also has a simple yet addicting little phone app that you can play as you’re commuting about. The game is called BlipBlop, and it’s essentially an endless clicker game where you collect blips for every click or button press. You can use these blips to increase your multiplier and other perks to make it easier to collect. It’s a mindless game but it’s a nice distraction that helps make the commute to work a little more bearable, which is something many of us do when commuting to work ourselves.

Mosaic does have some odd control issues during certain points of the game, mostly due to many sections using fixed camera angles with Resident Evil style tank controls. It takes some getting used to, and you’ll likely get the hang of it after the opening hour or so. The character movement in the game is set at a snail’s pace, which is likely done on purpose given the overall theme of the game. It does make Mosaic feel like a bit of a slog, with certain moments, specifically a certain section involving a butterfly, feel like they last a forever and a day.

The highlight of Mosaic is by far the visuals, which are done in an eerie minimalistic style. The choice to use the minimalistic character design really helps drive home the overarching themes of the game, with every character having the same plain stare, walking in indistinguishable clusters and blending together like a mindless school of fish. Mosaic also has excellent use of shadows and lighting effects, with the imaginative daydream sequences really popping in contrast to the dull grayish city landscapes.

Like many narrative-driven Walking Sims it won’t take you long to complete Mosaic, with our playthrough topping out at just over three hours. If you’re someone who works a tedious cubicle job or somewhere you don’t particularly enjoy and you use video games as a way to escape that everyday grind, the last thing you’ll likely want to do is come home and play through an experience that is going to leave you mostly with that same feeling you’re trying to escape from. If you’re a fan of abstract visuals, Walking Simulators, or incredibly addicting clicker games however, Mosaic may just be right up your alley.

A Steam review code for Mosaic was provided by Raw Fury