He was known for the enchanting puzzle game Monument Valley, studio Ustwo released Assemble With Care exclusively for Apple Arcade in September last year, and now PC players will finally be able to play it on Steam. In this article, the players are accompanied by an anonymous Maria, a laid-back artisan who has left the beautiful city of Bellariva to complete her ambition to travel and, perhaps, find a job this way.
The actor was immediately introduced to the title mechanic in the introduction, where he would have to help Maria pack a suitcase while explaining what her assets and art were. The introduction sets the tone of the game, gives some background to the opponent and prepares the player for the future.
Once you arrive in Bellariva, Maria distributes tracts across the city in an effort to find some of the much needed equipment. While the protagonist tells us what is happening (coupled with a very relaxing background music), we see an action illustrated by handmade drawings that are reminiscent of many illustrations in older children's books. This tone is kept throughout the experience and conveys a feeling of complete peace. As we progress through the 13 levels of the game, we have almost entered a meditative state and have never skipped some of the issues; It was fun as if we were reading a story before bed.
Maria's pamphlets give good results: she quickly approaches a girl who seems to be very depressed and tells her she has a job. After searching his bag, the young woman pulls out a broken cassette player and doesn't know how to fix it. Fear not, little one, Maria will take care of everything.
At first it is easy enough (and negligent, why you fool us). We get into business with just a few batteries, a screwdriver, and a pencil. This girl is not used to replace batteries in her electronic devices, so we started with the basics. We take the player by clicking it and moving it with the mouse to turn it on. There we have it, a battery compartment, closed with lime and stone. If we click on the scarf, it will go straight to the screw that keeps the battery cover closed. Finally, by clicking on the screw while holding the screw and sliding the mouse to the other side of the cord, we will be able to remove the pills from the hiding place.
Next, we have to do a dynamic process and replace some batteries, cover the compass and again and close it with the help of a screw that left it to the cup. The game mechanics collectively don't find it much more complicated than that: just click and move the mouse. In fact, we use the whole game with one hand on the laptop touchpad and have tea with the other.
After fixing the cassette player, we have to take care of the inner tile; piece of cake. We take a pencil, insert it into one of the holes in the cassette and slide the tile into its insert. The girl, who was watching Maria's shoulders, is impressed. "How did you do it? I never had time to see you!" She screams.
Although the puzzles are simple, it is very satisfying to solve them, not because it is clear that the studio has devoted a lot of time to getting them to work properly, but to everything that comes with them. As the player plays with various artifacts and broken pieces of electronic devices, he can enjoy beautiful hand-drawn drawings, small pictures, great sound, very interesting pieces of conversation. In addition, the narration associated with these puzzles is as fun as resting after a lot of repair work. The story is incredibly powerful; It's about relationship problems and how to solve them.
During the game, we helped the mayor and his daughter prepare some fun things, which helped them remember the loved ones they had lost; We were also able to reconcile the two sisters who were not compatible. Exploring the relationships between these characters and their stories was very satisfying, as were the conflicts.
Meet and Care is very short, so don't expect to spend more than ten hours solving puzzles. We took it for granted and it took us about two straight hours, but we would definitely play it again. The puzzles may be the same and maybe we remember where all the gear and screws came in, but we found the experience relaxing and comforting by saying that, even after the fame was over, we wanted to keep playing. We achieved our goal and, although we wanted more, we packed up and left for Bellariva. I wish we could have stayed longer.
