A lot of the games that I loved at Summer Game Fest are slowly making their way into the wider world. I can't tell you about A Little to the Left because I'm jazzed about it.
A Little to the Left is an independent game that hides complex design behind a simple premise. You are tasked with setting right your home after you have messed it up. To do that, you have to solve a series of puzzles.
You might have a bunch of broken pottery pieces that need to be repaired in one puzzle. You might have to arrange a table setting in one case.
Jelly, preserves, and puzzle games have been some of the things I've eaten recently. One thing that distinguishes A Little to the Left from other puzzle games is that it offers the same kind of brain engagement. Sometimes puzzle games can be too stimulating. Right now, with everything going on, I have had my fill of fire, but I still want the same type of mental massage puzzle games. A little to the left gives me the kind of mental brain scratch that I love about puzzle games.
It's easy to pick up and put down the game. It is difficult. Challenges that didn't amount to more than "step on this" or "circle this" were dinged. A lot of the puzzles are complex since many have more than one solution.
One puzzle will allow you to put a shelf of books back in order or make a picture with the decorations on the books' spine. It's great that the game rewards unconventional thinking because I like to see a more complicated solution before the simple one.
It is possible to skip a puzzle that is giving you grief if I can't see any solution. I am not sure if there is a reason for the developers to make this game, but the fact that they frame skipping a puzzle not as "skipping" or "passing" could potentially create a feeling of incompleteness, but as "let it be." I am one of those people who get annoyed with seeing 99/100, and even though there is no screen in the program that displays your statistics, I am reassured that I will get to those people.
There is a daily puzzle that you can do and earn rewards for completing it. It is like a streak feature without the threat of the green bird. The daily tidy puzzles are for people who want a challenge but don't want to waste time on the main game.
As the weather gets colder, I like to sit on my couch with my humans and animals. My husband is watching sports scores, my cat is begging for food, and my dog is sleeping while I play a game. A Little to the Left is a great puzzle game to play between dinner and sleep.
A Little to the Left is available on a number of platforms.
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