Furniture & Mattress’s new game moves us, usually along one axis
You’ve seen the GIF of Antonio Banderas, the one where he leans back from the computer? It’s in all of the memes; you know the one. You can taste it. You can hear it. You can feel the moment where he finds ultimate satisfaction, where he ACHIEVES something, something that’s potentially inconsequential in the grand scheme of life but has so much meaning to him at that very second. That level of contentment borders pleasure. It’s palpable. It’s a punch in the chest of dopamine. It’s the quietest way to say “ah, fuck yes FINALLY.”
That’s Arranger. Every second of it, from the title screen to the final line in the credits. It is one long string of “yes, finally, GOT IT.” And we do, we always do.
The new game from studio Furniture & Mattress takes the sliding puzzle that we’re all familiar with and adds the DNA of the Legend of Zelda, creating a hybrid that’s parts cozy and chill and comfort food, and parts “I have no fucking idea what to do now.” It’s like getting lost in the world’s most snug, giant blanket in the late Autumn season, but then realizing we’re LOST IN A GIANT BLANKET. It can feel overwhelming, especially if we’ve tried over and over and over to solve something. And then the answer just appears. Out of nowhere. It always appears. And we’re left wondering how we missed it.
It makes me feel SMART and DUMB at the same time. When I manage to solve a puzzle “OH MAN I GOT IT” becomes “HOW DID I MISS THIS” becomes “I WONDER IF ANYONE ELSE MISSED IT TOO I HOPE NO ONE KNOWS I SCREWED THIS UP.” But the realization is that everyone feels this, because the puzzles – especially the late game ones – can be solved in several different ways, fully reflective of how we bring our own self into each situation.
And that’s fucking beautiful. Knowing that we have the answer, but we just don’t look at the question in the right way, that we don’t tilt our head just enough to see things a little differently. I just had to move this one block over, and that was it, then everything fell into place, how did I miss it before.
The game is designed that way, with its layers and aspects all working together. It’s deceptive because we think it’s a puzzle game or a Zelda game, but it’s really a mirror, reflective of how complicated we make things in our lives. Arranger is a tale of hope and friendship and self worth, told through the life of a girl named Jemma and her innate ability to carry the weight world behind her, literally. Jemma doesn’t traditionally move, she slides the ground. As an outcast, a misfit, she’s creating a mess, knocking things over, spilling paint, rebutting order and making accidental chaos. To us though she’s finding her way, her place. That can be rough at times – rarely does life give us easy answers to complex questions, often giving us complex answers to easy questions – and that doesn’t gel with those around her who don’t understand her reality, making things even more agitated (and kind of talky – I wish there was a conversation skip button at times).
Those layers slowly peel back, revealing at the end that this is a story about all of us, individually, and what we go through when we try to find our place. This is an adventure game with dungeons and villages and townspeople and weapons and (really cool) boss fights, but they’re all static, causing us to do things TO them to engage. That consistent emphasis of our “place in the world” becomes central to everything we do. And, frankly, it makes the game feel more focused and beautiful. And by the time we’ve gotten the hang of it, by the time we’ve finally learned and linked the game’s many ways of affecting its world, it’s over, tied with a neat bow in a perfect weekend-long gaming experience.
Arranger is simple, but from the outside it really feels like one of those videos where we watch a chimp solve a rudimentary puzzle in a way that humans just wouldn’t. We’re all chimps when we play this game, basically, coming at it with innocence and coming out of it with a little more clarity and appreciation for our approach to, well, everything.
This review is based on a Nintendo eShop code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. The game is available for all major platforms, including Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, PS5, and Netflix.
No Comments