10 Awesome 2021 Video Games You Missed (So Far)

Though the launch-day release of puzzle-adventure game Maquette was harangued by potentially game-breaking bugs, a few patches later it's one of the year's most distinctive puzzlers.

Effectively a more nuanced riff on the classic VR game A Fisherman's Tale, Maquette plonks players into a colourful, fantastical world, where a smaller maquette model of said world is contained in the center.

Anything the player does to manipulate the maquette will be replicated in the larger version you're standing in, allowing you to tinker with scale in order to solve a series of increasingly tricky puzzles.

There are certainly moments where the puzzle solutions feel a little too vague or chance-based for their own good, but the gob-smacking cleverness of the overall excursion makes it an intoxicating, visually lush sit.

While the tangential relationship drama storyline feels fairly perfunctory all in all, it's at least voiced skillfully by Bryce Dallas Howard and her husband Seth Gabel.

Despite the sometimes enervating nature of its puzzles, Maquette's 3-4 hour play-time ensures it's over before it can ever begin to outstay its welcome.