A Little to the Left - Review

Back during a Future Game Show earlier this year, there were plenty of games that looked good, but A Little to the Left caught my attention for a different reason. It wasn’t the kitty cat or the fact it was a puzzler, but rather that there was no wrong way to solve a puzzle, though the cat didn’t hurt. Now that I have been able to complete the game, has it achieved what I wanted, or has it left me feeling a little of center?

The gameplay that is on offer here is very simple, you proceed through a list of puzzles, that get slightly more challenging as you go, requiring you to put things in a specific place. The puzzles can require you to do largest to smallest or align things via a pattern that is hidden within the spines of books. The game doesn’t tell you what to do either, so working out what you need to do, is a challenge all its own, before you actually solve the puzzle. While the earlier puzzles are really straightforward, the game doesn’t hold things back and starts providing puzzles that allow for alternate solutions early on. How this is done is via the game throwing up stars when you are successful, indicating the number of ways in which you can solve them. At any point you can jump into the menu and select any completed puzzle to re-do, should you desire to. While the game doesn’t open up all the puzzles from the outset, it is pretty flexible in letting do the ones you have access to, whenever you would like. The only real challenge for the puzzles, apart from some of them being devious, is that darn cat, which will randomly show up and mess up your hard work.

Controls are perhaps the weakest point on Switch, if you are playing with a controller. When using said controller, you are given a virtual hand, that you move with the left stick and use the A button to select the item the hand is over. You can use the right stick or the triggers to snap the hand to the nearest item in that direction, left trigger goes left as an example. The problem is that sometimes the snapping will go up, rather than down, if the one above is slightly closer, so it can be more trouble than its worth. Using the stick to control a virtual hand however is not flawless either, there were plenty of times when attempting to select one item from a pile, that it couldn’t work out which item was needed. The main method that I used for interacting with the game was via touchscreen, which is perfect as the game released first on mobile. As you might expecting, touching works by you touching and dragging the items in question. While there is no multi-touch support on the Switch, it worked near perfect all the time, the only times it did not, were if an item fell to far off screen.

The games most striking aspect though, at least for me, were the visuals as they reminded me a lot of Saul Bass, an artist who drew up plenty of movie posters. The style isn’t the same of course, but there is a lot of simplicity in the games presentation, with pastel colours and textured effects to give them life. Any screenshots of the game look great and the game looks just as impressive when you are playing it. The games menus is pretty straight forward as well, giving you options, without complicating them, so you can do what you need to do. If you get stuck in trying to solve a puzzle, the hint system has you erasing scribble, in order to uncover the solution underneath and even this looks great.

The sound side of things is a mess, not bad, but not quite right either. The games musical score is perfect for the type of game on offer, there is a nice balance presented as tracks are calming, yet not drowse inducing. The problem is the music tends to overpower the games indication system, which is something you need to hear for when you place items. There were times when I thought I had a puzzle solved, but nothing was happening, only for me to realise that one piece was slightly off and due to the music overpowering the ding noise, I never noticed the lack of it.

A Little to the Left is an utterly charming puzzle game, the challenges start off simple and ramp up over time. The fact that there are no scores or timers, means you can just immerse yourself in the challenge for as long as you would like. Controls will take some getting used to, but again as there is no rush, you won’t have to worry about complexity there. The presentation is slick and easy to be impressed by it never gets in the way of the puzzle and while the audio balance is way off, it still provides some nice chill music. If you are a puzzle fan, get this game and if you are not, get this game. It is perfect for people who are not gamers, thanks to its simple approach to everything, but some of those puzzles are anything but simple.

The Score

8.5

Review code provided by Secret Mode

The Pros

+Puzzles are fun and rewarding, especially the ones that don’t have a clear purpose

+Getting told that you could have solved a puzzle another way, is a great incentive to try it again

The Cons

-Sometimes the controls don’t want to work right, which can be frustrating

-The balance of the games audio isn’t quite right, which makes it hard to hear the sound when you place sometime in the right spot