Reviews
A Little to the Left

A Little to the Left

A Little to the Left is a wholesome puzzle game about arranging items in an orderly manner. It is often compared to Unpacking and while it does have a few levels that are similar in concept and both games give pretty much the same cozy, warm vibe, they’re overall quite different.

A Little to the Left will have you solve 76 levels of increasing difficulty, some of them even having multiple solutions or multiple stages. You’ll mostly get to order various objects based on their characteristics: height or size, color, pattern, shape, type etc, but there will also be puzzles that will require you to straighten up paintings, stack items, create symmetric pictures or play with shadows and a few more abstract ones.

While the first levels are quite trivial to solve, the latter ones are comparatively more complex and will require several iterations of the same mechanic, as well as for you to observe the behavior of the elements in order to understand what you’re expected to do. Worry not though, each of these puzzles can be finished in a matter of seconds, up to a couple of minutes, and while they’re unlocked sequentially, they can also be skipped in case you get stuck (although doing so will invalidate the achievement that requires you to play all the levels without skipping). Additionally, there’s a nice hint system for each puzzle, which will reveal a hand-drawn representation of the main solution, but no indication for the additional solutions when a puzzle can be solved in multiple ways.

Unfortunately, not all the levels are straightforward and intuitive and some of them will require brute-forcing through trial and error (there are only a very few of these though). The fact that the items snap into place helps and usually there’s also an audio indication when an item is moved to its correct position.

Aside from the campaign, you’ll be able to play one randomly generated puzzle, on a daily basis. This is not entirely identical with one of the levels from the main campaign, but a variation of it (for example it can contain more items, but the idea behind solving it will be the same). There are a few harsh achievements related to the daily puzzles, and a 100% completion will require you to play 365 of these dailies, of which 30 will have to be done on a streak.

The rest of the achievements are unlocked naturally while playing (multiple playthroughs are required), but there are also a few level-specific achievements that are missable. At the moment of writing review, some of the achievements related to skipping levels and using hints are broken, and a 100% completion is not possible for now. The developers are actively working on fixing them though.

This charming puzzle game is perfect for those that derive satisfaction from tidying up and organizing things without any kind of physical effort. Although there is a troublesome cat who always tries to mess up your workspace with their furry paw, sadly there is no story apart from this little detail and an ending related to it. Otherwise, it’s a great game for relaxing, with well thought-out levels, calming music and a friendly pastel palette, and it also offers some degree of replayability through its daily puzzles.

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