On the face of it, the conceit at the heart of Monkachi is not particularly novel. It’s a puzzle game about perspective, and changing your perspective or changing your position can make the scene in front of you into something very different. It’s about reframing – your perspective as much as your perspective – until, with a little imagination and a little trial and error, you realize you can turn those shadowy and rigid dead ends into something else. Something more hopeful.
It’s an amazing thing, really. Brilliant. That said, it sometimes feels like too much is happening. Sometimes the scene in front of you switches so unexpectedly – you’ll know when it’s happening by the gentle audio cues and the golden glow of the updated window – no matter how hard you try, it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on You have been on it. It’s an apt metaphor for real life, I guess.
Other times, however, things seem unbearably dark. desolate. You look for ways to improve it – maybe inject a little sunshine into your world – which is also a very apt analogy, especially when you find yourself too close to something to see the bigger picture, or too far away and When you can’t examine subtle details. Or do you see everything through a distorted alcohol lens, maybe seeing something that doesn’t exist?
While conceit may not be a unique one, execution certainly is. Moncage – Reportedly a combination of “montage” and “cage”, both terms equally applicable to the vehicle you play the game in – Simple and beautiful, simply beautiful, offering sleepy storytelling and delightfully baffling commands Pleasant fusion of people. For the entire experience, you’re in a dark room — with photos hanging around you at uneven intervals — and never leave it. But thanks to the wonder of the cube in the center of that room, you’ll be taken to all sorts of weird places; offices, construction sites, and military bases, but also carnivals, lighthouses, nurseries, and early childhood classrooms.
Each side of the cube – you can only see five, as the underside remains hidden from view – offers a different vignette, a deeply and curiously personal glimpse into someone’s life. At first, I found myself having a hard time spotting their connection, but then, as the story progresses, you realize that there really isn’t anything other than the faceless, silent protagonist your story follows. But while each side of the cage offers a superficially different view, the edges and corners that touch each other can penetrate and/or influence each other – and that’s where things get really exciting.
To progress through Moncage’s light-touch story, you must find common themes, shapes, or textures in the parallel dioramas to tie them together. For example, at one point you might notice that when you turn the cube like this, the striped fabric of the awning in the top scene matches the striped fabric of the hammock in the plaza above, or that the industrial pipes line up perfectly below a bubbling pot , as long as you zoom in on it.If this sounds a little tricky, that’s because it is; some solutions are very opaque, especially the super handy highlighting feature that can be incredible awkward Sometimes, it prevents you from arranging intricate patterns or even noticing the color change. But when you get it – you will! – It’s very smart and very satisfying.
Later, the puzzles became more onerous. One requires you to chain together several mini-puzzles sequentially to make progress, which requires a dexterity that I rarely possess. Another requires you to manipulate not only the cage, but time itself, by browsing the seasons on a wall calendar. The problem with this kind of game, for me anyway, is that mild confusion tends to solidify into not-so-gentle frustration, and I admit that sometimes the game’s hands-off telegram leaves me not only confused but totally lost, especially When it ushered in new puzzle mechanics without a polite introduction.
That’s why Moncage’s hint system is so popular. Not only does it provide three layers of clues, telling you more information step by step until your last breath, you can watch a full video tutorial that will show you what to do, but it’s very discreet and non-intrusive, and allows you to Have a little time to figure things out on your own before rescuing.
In fact, everything Very attentive and unintrusive about Moncage, although you might think just looking at a small cube might be boring and a bit limiting – especially for a game that offers everything through visuals – you see windows full of color and detail, sound effects While subtle, it varies depending on which portal you focus on.
However, the biggest illusion of Moncage is that its emotional story is basically told through collectibles that can be completely missed. Although I found their abilities improved at the end and mostly supplemented the conclusion of the storyline, I missed a good six times in the original game, which meant I didn’t fully understand our protagonists in their What happened in the formative years. Yes, you can finish the game in three or four hours, which makes collect hunting more palatable, but it’s a glaring miss, since there’s no other way to understand why the cube takes us to these seemingly disparate settings. Really, Monkage’s puzzles are satisfying enough even if you don’t fully understand the story.
That said, I can’t deny that my time at Moncage was very enjoyable. Our time together was brief, yes, but very satisfying, with each rotation of the cube offering a whole new landscape and a series of delightful challenges. If you’ve been looking for a mild brain teaser that can be done in just a few short sessions – or if you love it as much as I do, or a sit-down – look no further; Moncage is exactly what you’re looking for.
