Too many times in the past we’ve seen a great game premise end up watered down, underdeveloped, or replaced as the title built around it progressed. That was my main fear about Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, a little game I got to know last month in LA at the Summer Game Fest. I immediately fell in love with that core mechanic and the way it’s presented to the player: you can move the main character Jemma left and right in a grid-based environment, but the entire row or column she’s on will move along with her, including whatever is placed in the aligned cells, and it can remove edges in a retro-looking way.
The game tells the player about this and other possibilities from the title screen itself. There’s no tutorial, no literal hand-holding, as everything is suggested through the level design, and that goes all the way.
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In my case, my first time with Arranger: ARPA was on an iPad (as it’s coming to Netflix), where the game felt right at home as I dragged Jemma left and right by swiping my finger. However, for this review I requested a Nintendo Switch code, to enjoy the best of both worlds: touchscreen and controller (it’s also released on PC and PS5). And, you know what? Although it feels relaxing and quite natural to swipe through the game, I ended up relying solely on the D-pad, both on the TV and handheld. You can pretty much play one-handed (you’ll end up pressing a few buttons for interactions and missions), but since the whole experience relies on “we go up, down, left, right,” you can play casually, but accurately with just the thumb.
There’s another reason you might play this way: the game won’t test your reflexes with complicated button mashing, as its increasing difficulty remains all about what you do and what you plan to do strategically, with the grid and moves, in an almost turn-based way. You start out doing very simple things as you try to figure out how the whole world works, and in that initial process you may find mundane actions like talking to a nearby character a little too complicated for what they are, but once you GOING it sticks webs, you’ll move quickly, especially when you master the bending mechanics.
From then on, the developers at Furniture & Mattress continue to add new elements like twists and adjustments to the core mechanic. Swords, rafts, bridges, minecarts, grappling hooks, laser beams, enemies and hazards that sync with your movements, portals, pipes, cats, fishing rods (!)… Everything works differently as it follows Jemma’s special rules in this world, and none of them feel redundant or redundant, as they’re usually reserved for specific areas of the map where you find tightly designed, self-contained progression with a great sense of reward.
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In other words, the design of this game as a puzzle adventure game is simply masterful. And for me its difficulty curve is too, as although I always found it a significant challenge and took a good amount of time to solve some of the more complicated games (including side missions), I never got completely stuck: it was always a matter of keep thinking and trying, to finally find a way to make it all click. And that’s exactly what I look for in a good puzzle, and there are still aids for those who just want to move on.
But then Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure isn’t just a very good little puzzle: it’s also an adorable, touching, sometimes hilarious story. And it manages to elevate the whole experience into something you’ll remember. Its good writing (mainly dialogue) and localization (at least in Spanish) will keep you looking forward to the next character interaction. A very appropriate and ironic sense of humor is there to make parents and children laugh, but then there is a more mature underlying message reserved for teenagers and adults. The game marketed itself as a journey of self-discovery, and on that journey it manages to speak very cleverly about being sedentary, screen and social media addiction, adaptation, attitude, independent thinking, exclusion and more. .
To complete a beautiful whole, the more artistic side of things makes the game design and the story work together in the most sensitive way. From the quirky character design to the way the environments and cutscenes are portrayed on screen, from the first guitar notes that welcome you to a new area to the way you feel like you’re stepping on leaves despite the grainy presentation – with it really looks like the developers have worked in harmony.
I wish I had a dialogue log to re-read some of the more interesting or funniest lines, and maybe the game gets a little too edgy or purposefully confusing with backtracking and map navigation in its second half so you fill in the optional option. side missions, but the first can be adjusted and the second is more about how completionists want to approach this game and its secrets.
Jemma “moves a little differently” in this world, and that’s not just good—it’s what gives Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure a dual purpose in terms of unique gameplay and narrative. It makes you think, and not just about the puzzles themselves, while you try to make everything fit, or maybe while you’re actually messing up what was a little too neat. For this beautiful adventure we are grateful, this is the game you all need to play this summer.
