Annapurna’s latest mind-blowing romantic drama is this puzzle game, Maquette

The word that comes to mind when I play Model, the indie-pop puzzle game from developer Graceful Decay, is recursive. It means repetition, a pattern that is repeated in the infinite, like the flowers of romanesco broccoli or the branches of a snowflake. Grammar can be recursive, with a single structure used repeatedly in a sentence. Thought can also be recursive – think about the thought itself. At the Model, the world itself is recursive, transforming simple environments into confusing puzzles that are repeated throughout eternity.

The history of Model it’s about the beginning and the end of a relationship between the narrator, Michael and Kenzie. The memories are abstract, so instead of a literal retelling of the couple’s story, we have Michael (years later) looking at a notebook that the couple once shared. Its whimsical designs of castles, cafes and dream houses provide a panoramic view of your time together.

The model in question is literally a model version of the world, and is the building on which the game is centered. The player will go back there again and again, albeit in three different sized versions of the space. It is full of puzzles to be solved while Michael reflects on the lifetime of the relationship that started with a meeting in a cafe, on that sketchbook.

Puzzles in Model involve moving items between recursive worlds with different scales. For example, if you take a small item like a ticket stub in the normal-sized world and throw it in the miniature model, that item will appear huge in the full-sized world. Help watching the trailer:

Puzzles at the beginning of Model they are relatively simple, defining the rules of the world. A gap in a bridge appears, with no apparent way to cross. But a key found on the ground earlier is actually the solution – once the small key is placed in the smaller model, in the right slot, it can act as the big piece that was missing from the bridge in the largest version of the world you inhabit. The puzzles range from very easy to shockingly difficult, but they never seem broken or unfair. There are no evil tricks that artificially increase the difficulty or increase a level; you just need the right perspective, looking at small things that can have great meaning in another context.

The perspective makes all the difference not only in solving the puzzles, but also in making sense of the story. The couple has a family, if not boring, romance. But although relationships live and die every day, for the couple in love (and then, no in love), the bond can be felt like everything. At the Model, we are at the head of this guy, his big world and vision, alternately romanticized and idealized, constantly centered on himself.

Model, at best, captures the growth of this man by twisting the story and the puzzles, allowing the latter to duplicate itself as metaphors that amplify the former. It brings themes of simultaneity, between a common romance and the magic of being in love, a small key that is a massive bridge and small cracks that create huge divots.

It reminds me of a relationship that I had, one that I thought would never see me out. It is these memories of mine that give ModelThe narrative has that emotional weight, even when writing is clumsy or affected. When I look back on this relationship, it is just a speck in my 32 years of life, something that hardly occurs to me. It is hard to imagine that there was a time when it was much bigger, where I lived in a fantasy world of my own creation – but I did. AND Model it has the right beats and recursions to bring out that feeling in me, that conflicting sense of scale.

Sometimes, I rolled my eyes at Michael’s pitiful moments or some of the little things the couple fought over. Perhaps these mundane parts of the relationship, how people fall in love and dispassion unevenly, provide contrast to the fantastic world of the game – the space that Michael and Kenzie have built together and in which they stand. Their relationship breaks down for seemingly small reasons, but in their intimate world, the details seem much bigger.

It is refreshing to see romance as the heart of a video game. Titles like another game published by Annapurna Florence or Nina Freeman We met in May built on the importance of small moments to create emotional weight. Model interrogates the relationship as a whole, showing something opposite – that there are times when these minor moments end up as the fulfillment of a relationship that simply ends. And that’s fine.

The magical world of Model it never goes away, but the relationship weakens. And so the world changes with that, the colorful fantasy turning gray, the model ragged and broken. (At least, for Michael.) This is not necessarily a spoiler; it is something clear from the beginning, a tone that shadows the whole story, even in the happiest moments. The player knows from the beginning that the relationship – no matter how good and perfect it looks – eventually ends.

Model is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC via Steam. The game was analyzed using a PS5 code provided by Annapurna Interactive. Vox Media has partnerships with affiliates. This does not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.