Arranger review: making moves on puzzle design
I love a challenging puzzle game, but sometimes a game comes along that is so clever it breaks my brain. For me, that game was Baba is You. I can see how excellent the puzzles are, I perceive how well-designed each level is, and yet every time I play it, I feel my brain break and my intelligence leak out of my ears. No matter how well a concept is tutorialized, there comes a point where I no longer compute and can’t proceed.
Booting up Arranger I had a similar feeling. The core concept is one that I have never encountered before. You play as Jemma, a girl who moves the world around her as she moves. If she moves left or right everything horizontal with her does the same, moving up and down moves all the tiles on the same vertical plane. Not only this, but tiles wrap around the screen, meaning if you leave from one side, you’ll end up on the other. Despite how alien this concept initially seemed, unlike Baba is You, my brain – or what’s left of it – remained inside my skull, and eventually reached a place of understanding.
Once you grasp the concept, movement is fast and fluid, using the screen wraps to cross areas quickly. Puzzles increase in difficulty gently and concepts are added gradually, always with an easy tutorial puzzle to make sure you understand. There are rafts, pull switches, teleporters, and much more, which build on the well-defined core concept. Yet, I was sad to see them not explored further. It takes a strong one-at-a-time approach, and never mixes mechanics together. You learn how something works, complete increasingly difficult puzzles using it, and then never see it again. Building to levels that combine these concepts would have given a better sense of progression. Individually, the concepts are great; together, they could have been spectacular.
While the puzzles are very tightly designed, something that was clearly overlooked was the UI. Your log is always visible in the top corner, and the text often spills over the screen. Text can also overlap, which is made worse by the fact that dialogue doesn’t close unless you move away from the NPC (which is easier said than done when they move with you). A smaller issue is that the font is ugly. It’s probably a personal issue more than anything, but it reminded me of placeholder text, which made it seem unfinished.
I also think that the assist system is very poorly integrated. There are two assist options. The first is a quest marker that shows you where to go next. This feels like a replacement for good signposting. There are literal signposts in the world, but as they move when you do, they don’t always point in the correct direction. The pathfinding issue could have been solved easily by adding a map, particularly one with place labels, and it would have added to the world’s whimsy. The other one completes a puzzle if you find it too hard, which feels like the easy way out. The puzzle design is excellent and the team should let it shine. An alternative could have been a hint system, where the next puzzle step is completed for you so players could gain a better understanding.
This spreads to the optional parts of the game. As I entered the end game, Mr Help came and helpfully told me I’d completed all of the optional puzzles. However, Mr Help made me think that I’d be told if there was something I needed to do before the point of no return. I thought I’d done everything I needed to in the overworld, and finally, I thought that these optional puzzles would have an eventual outcome. When I encountered things afterward that I didn’t understand, I felt safe in the knowledge that someone would let me know when it was my last chance to try. I spent a long time building a bridge of rafts to transport a colony of ants, only for them to just find their final ant hill and never appear again. There was also an egg that I didn’t know how to reach and wanted to circle back to later but couldn’t, thanks to the auto-save. I don’t know what the reward for completing every optional task is. Maybe I never found it. Maybe it doesn’t exist?
Overall, the writing is very strong, and despite its short length, I had a good grasp of the characters and their relationships. The whimsical dialogue matches the art style and vibe of the world. While the story is strong, the messaging lacks subtlety. I don’t want to ruin the story and the end game, but some thought could have gone into how it was conveyed. Despite being a pretty tough puzzle game, it doesn’t respect the players’ intelligence. Some people enjoy stories more when they draw their own conclusions, rather than being beaten over the head with one.
Arranger is a unique concept and adds something truly special to the puzzle genre. The level design and difficulty curve is excellent, adding just a little more challenge with every step. Movement is some of the best I’ve seen in puzzle games, and I wish more thought and attention had gone into other aspects of the design. A lot of my criticism comes down to respecting your audience. Respect them to draw their own conclusions, and to be able to solve puzzles themselves, even if they need a little nudge.
Score: 6/10
Version tested: Nintendo Switch