A Little to the Left

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

A Little to the Left is a simple, family-friendly Puzzle game released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game has players “tidying up” various screens full of objects, which can mean anything from arranging to sorting, to placing items in their proper spot or disposing of trash. Players can play this game using an on-screen cursor guided by the analog stick, or they can use the touchscreen in portable mode.

The presentation here is minimalist, but pleasant, featuring mostly pastel 2D visuals that seem painted or stamped onto the screen and subtly bouncing to the game’s light, relaxed soundtrack. The result is a fairly relaxed mood that works well for the sort of gameplay this game presents.

This game’s premise strongly appealed to me – I find sorting and arranging things to be extremely soothing, to the point where I often find myself sidetracked in trips to thrift stores by my desire to alphabetize their DVDs. Weird, I know! But this game seems to cater to that sort of weirdness.

Only… I found to my frustration that it kinda’ didn’t. Instead, I found that this game’s puzzles ended up coming in one of two forms – either it was obvious to me how to arrange everything, and there weren’t enough different pieces to keep me entertained with the task for long… or I couldn’t figure out what the game wanted me to do. I would arrange objects in what I thought was an orderly and aesthetically pleasing manner, only for the game to be clearly looking for… something else.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say this game is too difficult – there are no scores or timers, no fail state, and if you’re really stuck, you can probably brute force your way to a solution in most of the game’s puzzles, or get there via trial and error. But it’s just not fun to have to guess what the game wants you to do.

I’m really disappointed in A Little to the Left. Everything about this game seemed to indicate this would be something I would absolutely love, something that would tap into my inherent desire for order, stability, and cleanliness. Instead, I found myself alternately bored with tedious tasks, and frustrated with tasks where I had no idea what the game wanted from me. I imagine some will be charmed by this game’s simple premise and pleasant presentation, but sadly I am not one of those people.

tl;dr – A Little to the Left is a family-friendly Puzzle game where players must “tidy up” screens of varied objects. What exactly “tidy up” means is somewhat open to interpretation, and it’s frustrating when it’s not clear what the game wants… and it’s boring and tedious when it’s too obvious. The result is a game that never really managed to be fun for me.

Grade: C

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: The “Why is this taking so much space on my memory card!?” Award (1.4GB), Most Disappointing

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