I’ve never been able to solve a Rubik’s Cube. I mean, I can get one side, MAYBE two, but after that I’m completely lost. Arranger and Furniture & Mattress LLC., have done well to break down the core Rubik’s Cube mechanic into a fully fleshed out game. The tricky part with these kinds of puzzle games is trying to find the balance between approachability and difficulty. It attempts to find new and innovative ways to use the features of the game while still avoiding that frustration point, but does Arranger ultimately hit the mark or does it struggle with its puzzle-y nature?
Arranger begins simply with a girl named Jemma, a young girl who was orphaned by their parents at a nearby town while being chased by someone or something. Growing up in the walled city, Jemma rarely felt like she belonged. You see, Jemma is not like everyone else; she has… powers to manipulate her surroundings. This is where I have to stop and really break down what makes Arranger so unique.
The key conceit around its environmental interaction is that the world is a giant grid that Jemma is essentially the center of. Imagine a chess board, and Jemma is a chess piece, but instead of moving the piece itself you take the entire track and move it. So to move Jemma to the right, the entire row moves to the right, including people and objects in that row. The same goes if you want to move her in any cardinal direction, with no diagonals. If you are on the edge of a wall or end of the map, moving against the wall will make you come out the other side as if you were playing with a Rubik’s Cube. Once you see the mechanic in action, it just clicks.
The puzzles of Arranger are based around moving Jemma, while also remembering that her movement affects large swaths of the world. Sometimes you will be tasked with taking a sword and moving it up to an enemy to attack it, or other times you will have to move three objects across a map to combine them. The real puzzle is moving said items within limitations, such as gaps in the map, impassable blocks or moving them in the right order while also moving Jemma along. One specific puzzle had me moving pieces of a satellite dish across an island town full of bridges. The narrow passages made for tricky navigation but you were also given a small raft that could provide another space to move to when needed.
These moments are where Arranger shines. The puzzles present these challenge scenarios that have the goals pretty clearly laid out for you, and the solutions are rarely out of reach. The difficulty level is tuned in just such a way to avoid frustration. I would stare at a puzzle, working the rows and columns, inching towards the inevitable solution, then A-HA! Like a lightbulb, everything would click. It’s a balancing act, and Arranger achieves that balance of building in opportunities for those light-bulb moments. The game confuses you, teases you, pushes you, but doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle, and I love that. Being someone who easily gets frustrated at puzzle games, Arranger made me feel competent, but for those that it doesn’t necessarily mesh with, there’s an accessibility option to “skip puzzles” to continue the story.
Speaking of story, Jemma’s quest is one of adventure, excitement, and helping people within her world, but it’s done with a lot of levity and humor. Since Jemma has this power to shift the world around, everyone around her sees it and reacts accordingly. No one is safe from the Jemma sliding trick. Story characters will be shifted around in all manner of ways, and they will let you know exactly how they feel about it. Also, characters will often comment on the absurdity of the events unfolding. One key example is a scientist helping you disable their mechanical birds because “what was I thinking” and constantly heckling their past self. The only major complaint here is that Arranger is relatively short, to the point that I was pretty surprised when I noticed the ending approaching, when in all actuality I felt like I had just gotten my adventure started. I wasn’t ready for the game to be done, and I felt like the puzzle mechanics had more room to grow. There’s something to be said for not overstaying your welcome, but there was still meat on this bone.
Outside of that major complaint, everything else proves to be a master class in being an indie darling. The game features beautifully crafted cartoonish artwork from David Hellman (who previously did the art for Braid) and a wonderfully whimsical soundtrack by Tomas Batista of ETHEREAL and Per Aspera fame (who promised me we would be able to stream it upon game release.) I really enjoyed my time with Arranger*** It made me feel both dumb and smart within minutes of each other while also providing me with an enjoyable new cozy game to dig into. The game never reaches extreme highs, but it remains consistent without a lull. To its detriment, however, I really could’ve used another hour or two of content here. The story wrapping up felt jarring, rushing to an ending that I wasn’t ready for. It really says something when I’m upset that I had to leave a game world, but here we are. Arranger threads an excellent balance of difficulty and accessibility while showing a lot of heart. If only a Rubik’s Cube could do the same.
*** I experienced an impassable bugged puzzle in my playthrough near the end that halted my progress but it was made clear I was near the end. Still, as of this writing I cannot provide a final review score.
