Developed by: Optillusion
Published by: XD Inc.
Available on: Android, iOS, PC
I’d like to think that it’s not particularly contestable these days to say that a game can be remarkable even if you don't lose yourself in it. Case in point: I only rarely and intermittently entered a flow state as I shuffled through the new puzzle game, “Moncage.” But even when I was gripped with frustration because I was stuck on a puzzle, a sense of fascination never left me on account of the game’s dazzling design.
“Moncage” is an artful, perspective-shifting puzzle game that reminded me of “Gorogoa.” But where the latter involves sliding around panels to merge scenes from different times and places to advance its narrative, in “Moncage” a similar feat is accomplished by manipulating a cube composed of one overhead and four side faces. Using a gamepad controller, players can rotate the cube with the right thumbstick and move a cursor with the left. With the press of a button, players can click on interactive elements, zooming in on an environmental detail like a desk or a control panel, or pulling on a lever.
Each of the five panes of the cube looks onto different scenes that run the gamut from industrial and domestic settings to war-torn landscapes. Players are invited to gaze upon these dioramas and search for patterned correspondences that link the disparate environments. By turning the cube just so, scenes can be fused together allowing for, say, a rose on a notebook lying on a desk to merge with the top of a tombstone, creating a new scene where the rose on the tombstone falls to the ground which transforms into a street where the rose is run over by a car.
That example constitutes one of the more straightforward solutions in a game that abounds with much stranger puzzles. For example, at one point players are required to light a lamp in one panel by training their attention on an adjacent panel that shows a ruined church, with an exposed roof, flooded by the light of the moon. Solving the puzzle requires zooming in on the altar in the church so that the moon isn’t visible, then rotating the cube to the other panel to align the lamp with a now-visible moon. Solutions like this one struck me as a tad odd … but interesting.
Share this articleShareFortunately, “Moncage” features a built-in hint system that can be brought up in the pause menu. It offers three incrementally more specific clues followed by a video walk-through for each puzzle. Although I wish more games would incorporate such a feature, I wonder if “Moncage’s” developers sensed that some of the solutions were obscure enough that players might otherwise abandon the game if such a system wasn’t easily accessible. In any case, nothing bad can come from making “Moncage” as accessible as possible.
Often during my playthrough, I had a sensation not unlike that of standing before a statue or some other form of visual art. Gazing over the cube, trying to tease out connections that tell the disjointed story of a father, his son, and a war, felt to me like an occasionally exhausting exercise that simultaneously made for an aesthetically interesting experience. In effect “Moncage” is asking: How long can you stay with an object and rigorously observe it?
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If you’re not moved to play it, consider watching an online playthrough of “Moncage.” It deserves to be seen.
Christopher Byrd is a Brooklyn-based writer. His work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @Chris_Byrd.
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