I don’t know about you, but I derive an enormous sense of satisfaction when everything is in its right place. I’m not the tidiest person in a consistent way in my everyday life, but when I do any sort of “big clean”, it’s assuredly got to be done my way.
A Little to the Left is a mostly relaxing puzzle game that leans in to that fastidiousness, and developers Max Inferno have now brought the game over to Xbox – including a launch on Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Starting Simple
For a game that is mostly focused around tidying, A Little to the Left starts off nice and simple. Adjusting a picture frame, putting items facing the right way up, or in the correct order for example – it’s not too taxing, it has a delightfully soft and cosy art style and the very lovely, chilled out music can produce a zen-like state of calm as you move things around as you ease in.
Each puzzle has at least one solution, and for some puzzles, there can be multiple ways to solve it, to a maximum of three. When you’ve arrived at a solution, you’ll earn a star to mark that level complete. If you see empty stars, you’ll know there are other ways you could have organised things, and you can choose to immediately restart a level to approach it a different way and go for that 100% completion.
Well Organised
The game is split across 5 chapters, and is absolutely at its best when it has you actually tidying, sorting and arranging everyday objects – be it organising garden tools, or sorting out complex multi-level drawers so that every item and object is in just the right place.
Where it falters - and it sadly does – is when it leans into a very different kinds of puzzle. There are puzzles with a focus on nature for example – trimming leaves to promote symmetry, but it has to be done in the right order, or arranging seeds in just the right, very specific way.
My point is, certain puzzles force a player to approach things from a very different angle – and one that isn’t focused on the simple premise of tidying up in a way that feels neat, or what you or any human would do – it becomes about having to solve the puzzle in the way the designers want you to solve it. Ultimately it becomes about figuring out or guessing which logic is being applied to actually solve the puzzle.
This isn’t inherently bad per se, but if you were hoping for something like 2021’s “Unpacking” then A Little to the Left isn’t it. Unpacking focused on the human element of moving house and settling in to new environments, each personal object telling a story about the person and their past. A Little to the Left is all about the puzzles themselves. In pursuing that design path, it’s often at the expense of those satisfying zen-like organisathons.
It feels like the developers themselves have recognised this – there is a hint system in play, where you pick up a rubber and erase a sketch of the final completed puzzle. There’s no cost for doing this, so you can do it whenever you want. If you really dislike certain puzzles, you can also choose to just “Let it be” and the game will skip right along to the next one, again with no penalty.
Cats are jerks (And I love them for it)
While there are no enemies to fight in this puzzle game, there is a lovely, floofy white house cat to contend with. A mischievous paw may occasionally swoop in, ruining your recently organised items, or perhaps a swipe at some neatly trimmed plants. It’s always amusing, and towards the final chapters, the cat becomes a very frequent visitor.
The other element you may have to contend with is the controls themselves – using the left thumbstick to select and then manipulate objects is extremely fiddly, so you may want to lower the sensitivity a fair bit to make it a little easier to handle. The developers have added an option on the right thumbstick to flick to each selectable object in turn, which does help.
While I mainly played on Xbox Series X for this review, I also played parts of the game on PC - and a mouse rules all when it comes to the control scheme for this game. A strong follow up has to be given to touch controls, which also work great – and good news – this supports touch on Xbox Cloud gaming, and is arguably a great game to play while “on-the-go”.
Once you’ve organised your way through 3-4 hours of puzzles, there’s a nice bit of replay value for you in the ‘Daily Tidy’, which takes elements of previously solved puzzles and puts a spin on them. There’s also a DLC available at launch – “Cupboards & Drawers”. This is the strongest sort of tidying the game has to offer, and my personal preference. If you’re like me and these areas of the game are the strongest for you, it is well worth a purchase.
Tidying Up
A Little to the Left is at its absolute best when it’s focusing on finding just the right spot for everyday things, and at its worst when it’s operating on its own, chaotic-puzzle logic. Those two worlds and design choices are at odds in my opinion, and collide to unfortunately produce an uneven end result. However, I feel confident in saying any puzzle game fan will find something to like and perhaps even love here, and with it being available to try on Xbox Game Pass, it’s worth a download.
A Little to the Left
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- A cozy artstyle
- Relaxing Music
- Some very satisfying tidying.
CONS
- Fiddly controls on pad
- Some irritating puzzle design
