We analyze this brief adventure, which works as a metaphor for today's world and moves us to a dystopian world.
The alarm sounds, at the same time as every morning. You get up early, you visit the bathroom, brush your teeth, bring water to your face, run the comb through your hair and use your tie to make it look proper. You don't have time for breakfast, so you go to the door and leave the building without looking back. In a world like Mosaic's, work is everything. As undead, people move massively through the streets. They walk with firm step, almost always umbrellas in hand, because the rain does not increase even for an instant. People merge with the black of their suits, just as dark as their miserable modus vivendi. Without thinking, they move towards their job, where routine and despair await them.
The Groundhog Day
The dystopia created by Krillbite Studio draws a bleak picture. The world, ruled by large corporations, has oriented life towards the production and obsessive control of its employees. It is a monotonous and gray day by day, a competitive existence that ignores any aspect that is not related to work.
Mosaic, as a narrative adventure, shakes hands with the player and transports him to a fictional universe that does not hide his dose of reality. This vision of the future, twisted to acquire satire shades, gives off a feeling of tedium that is transmitted to the game mechanics themselves. The narrative structure is articulated over several days, the same that separate the protagonist from his dismissal. And it is that in the video game, being late to work not only implies a penalty that affects the salary, but also the termination of the contract if the behavior is repeated for several days.
As in the contemporary world, the mobile phone is a tool for daily use, although in Mosaic the dependence is even greater. Through this device, all communications with the company are managed, without any kind of personal relationship. In fact, during the three or four approximate hours that the adventure lasts, contact between people is practically non-existent. Humans are ghosts that do not interact with each other. They go in the same elevator, but do not take their eyes off their mobile phones; they cross in the streets, although the throats emit no sound; They work in large offices, but they are all involved in carrying out their work as a surgeon.
It is not for less. Lowering performance has direct consequences on salary. Corporations do not hesitate to send text messages in which employees are informed that their percentage of effectiveness has decreased compared to previous days, so that they are encouraged to improve if they do not want to suffer the consequences. In addition, the bills are piled up on the desk, so the pressure continues to increase. In that devastating climate, the only existing leisure is a mobile phone video game that is based on clicking again and again on the screen. A further reflection, if possible, of the suffocating society that underlies the boots of the companies.
Live to work or work to live?
In the Pitis station of Metro Madrid, a graffiti appeared that reproduces without ambiguity one of the messages that Mosaic projects: “Casa-curro-casa”. The Walking Simulator of Krillbite Studio puts us in the shoes of a protagonist who makes that route over and over again. All the characters are locked in an endless routine that, however, is not immutable. In the repetitiveness of everyday life, of what we take for granted, there is the possibility of getting out of the line and finding an escape route that provides some color.
Amarilla is the butterfly that flutters through the smoky streets of the city. We control it for just over half a minute while we overcome obstacles, all under the watchful eye of the protagonist, who observes her absorbed from the other sidewalk. The contrast of its lively appearance with the darkness of the city is truncated shortly after, when a serrated machine, with the fury of its jaw, devours it and crushes without contemplations, as society does with humans.
Going out, walking, taking the subway and entering the office is a routine with which many of us feel identified. In this monochromatic city, few things leave the line, but in the end, even a single individual has the ability to say enough. This is how our protagonist discovers secret chinks of light. The mechanics, in these cases, offer unique moments, although perhaps they could have taken advantage of a little more. The contrast between light / dark that is reflected in the narrative plane hardly does in the playable.
What he does manage to convey is the character's boredom with his work. It is done through a simple minigame in which we must drive energy balls to the top of the screen. As the story progresses, some layers of complexity are added, rather obstacles that only exacerbate the desire for the minigame to end soon. In Mosaic, work is constriction, an invisible hand that clings to the neck and absorbs oxygen until you are left without air. Because yes, as the protagonist will discover, the work will not make you free.
Reviews of the PC version.
CONCLUSION
Mosaic is a narrative adventure that slows the genre of the Walking Simulator. We handle a character locked in a dystopian future in which the human being is completely subjugated to the designs of large companies. Nothing escapes their eyes or their control, nobody derails, and if they do, they are responsible for straightening it or making their life impossible. The tedious routine happens day after day, almost without modifying the apex of the script. However, that monotony can be broken, although the price is very high. The Krillbite Studio title is recreated in the dark and looks for light tones contrasting the most boring minigame – which symbolizes work – with the small escape routes that exist in the world. It can be repeated, but the message reproduces it without a clipper and it is worth giving it a try.
THE BEST
- A good metaphor for the contemporary world
- Transmit the monotony of a suffocating routine
- Spanish translation
WORST
- From a mechanical point of view, the game lacks any complexity
- Despite its short duration, something repetitive is done
Good
It meets the expectations of what a good game is, it has quality and does not present serious failures, although it lacks elements that could have taken it to higher levels.
