In fact, I wish Mosaic brought me deeper down its gameplay and in-world rabbit holes (it’s not a long title) such as my job’s minigame and the dating apps of its dead-end world. Similarly, I like playing Blip Blop, the simple clicker game on my character’s mobile phone, even though it is itself a commentary on our inherent attraction to playing games just because leveling up feels good, no matter how nakedly it’s achieved. I look forward to it in Mosaic because it taps that basic task completion/goal achievement area of my gamer lizard brain. This minigame minimally evolves through transporting resources faster and by introducing enemies of inefficiency that you have to quarantine. Your job is to apply resources on a hex grid in order to progress via the most efficient route possible to meet goals. Instead, it feels like a person confronting the realization that they don’t know or understand how their life became this depressing.Įven supposedly mundane tasks like the work you perform at your job are fun in and of themselves, despite being cast in the world as boring and unfulfilling. These sequences surprised me as I went about my day, and they are also appropriately disorienting without throwing players into frustrating gameplay confusion.

You may become a miniature version of yourself or be forced to move the camera to navigate out of a short maze. Mosaic also succeeds because it uses different gameplay perspectives to represent the character’s isolated, hollow existence. While these aren’t necessarily profound moments, I could still feel them. Of course, this is only possible because the game does a good job first encasing you in drab passivity before you letting you break free. Color warms the screen, and your senses immediately liven. During these moments the game transforms.

While traveling through your daily routine, you might come across a reverie in the form of looking out of a window and stealing some sunshine, listening to a street musician, or even controlling a butterfly. Mosaic isn’t a game only of dead ends, however. This cannot be prevented, only accepted in its delicious emptiness. One of my favorite examples of this is when a prospective date with a co-worker falls through. Your actions and options within this cycle are limited to simple things like brushing your teeth and checking the messages on your phone, reinforcing the rigidity and absurd futility of the situation. You do this by simply walking along corridors and interacting with objects when prompted onscreen. You play through a loop of waking up, going to work, performing your duties, and then going home. Mosaic is nihilistic not simply because the protagonist’s life is a listless mill of work and sleep, but because it has no inherent meaning other than the one you give it by direct action and the creation of interludes that punctuate the grind. The fact that you actively play through the silent protagonist’s life of crushing drudgery and not just passively experience it is important. Mosaic gives meaning to the meaningless it’s existential nihilism in digital form.

Mosaic chronicles game