An out-of-nowhere, soon-to-be-released announcement of a new game is always a welcome bit of news. And of the sufficiently-abundant teasers and reveals we got during yesterday’s start of this swathe of livestreams and online presentations, it’s perhaps developer Furniture & Mattress' debut release, Arranger, that certainly fit that billing more than others. Or to give the game its full name, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure.
And that subtitle looks to be an apt fit; while it may look like the latest spin on Sokoban-styled puzzle-solving, Arranger has a bit more to it than just that. The game centering around the adventures of Jemma who is, as the developer describes, “a small-town misfit on a journey of self-discovery”. But it’s in the gameplay too, where Arranger houses some potentially interesting takes on the traditional Sokoban formula. A premise which, fromrecent personal history, needs no other introduction to pique one’s interest.
Review: Void Stranger
An enigmatic premise with just-as-sprawling a delivery, Void Stranger is a triumph and easily the year’s most engrossing gaming experience.
Beyond The Grid
Puzzles still structured in that familiar, grid-like layout but here, are tackled by way of shifting entire rows and columns of squares. In fact, Jemma herself has the ability to “slide off” one side of a given path and rather than falling to her death, reemerges back on the other side – offering up the potential for even more creative scenarios. But with its focus on narrative and exploration alongside, Arranger isn’t solely focusing on a challenge-only approach. Described as a streamlined RPG of roughly 8-10 hour length where players are “only as challenged as you want to be”.
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure releases across PS5, Switch & PC (both Steam and the Epic Games Store) on July 25. you may check out a sample of the game, in the form of a demo, right now over on Steam.
