CHENNAI : Jemma seems to always make a mess of things. You see, ever since Miss Susie found her dropped at her doorstep as a baby, she realised that Jemma was quite different from the other people in their tiny town. Every time Jemma took a step forward, the objects in her horizon moved with her. People and things even seemed to move through walls to loop into each other. This made things quite confusing for the townsfolk. Jemma cluttered up the place, caused ladders to collapse, and generally made life in their walkable small town quite difficult. So, the moment she was old enough, she moved out. But all was not well outside. A weird substance called the “static” surrounded the realms. Grimy, immovable, and pervasive. Getting rid of it was her new goal.
Arranger is a puzzle game that works by organising the environment in the form of a grid. The best way to imagine this is by visualising a Rubik’s cube — Abacus hybrid. Jemma moving vertically means that objects in her path move with her, vertically. If there are multiple objects on her vertical path, they clog up the way ahead, restricting her movement. She needs to navigate around the objects, push it out of the main route, and then proceed further. I don’t think I am doing a very good job of explaining it in words, which is probably why the game lacks a verbal tutorial too! The puzzles are very visually intuitive, and seamlessly transition between the different environmental themes and puzzle varieties. All I had to remember were the foundational rules of Jemma’s weird powers: that all things move with her as she moves.
The puzzles have a lot of variety, and never get boring. Monster combat sequences were my personal favourite. This involved moving a sword along Jemma’s chaotic pathway, to attack “static” monsters right in their face. The sword puzzles got a lot more complex as the game progressed, with some of them involving moving portals, and successfully razing through monsters that teleported through pipes and drains (you’d have a sword waiting for them at their escape route!).
Now these are all boilerplate puzzle game devices. A simple mechanic, convoluted with new elements thrown in here and there. What made Arranger even better was its incredibly silly story and quests. Jemma is determined to prove to herself that she isn’t an active nuisance and goes around solving people’s problems. The problems, well, aren’t that deep, and make for good dialogues. There was a sequence that involved Jemma hiding a girl out of her parents’ sight to sneak her out of their house. Another interesting puzzle theme involved avoiding laser beams from security bots, by placing objects in front of them. Shearing sheep with scissors, poking monsters in the eye, and even making two gorrillas mate — these were just a few of the ridiculous thematic puzzles in Jemma’s world.
Arranger is almost the perfect puzzle game. I don’t want to be mealy-mouthed with my biggest issue with the game though. It’s simply too short. I finished the game and its side quests in all of eight hours. I think there is opportunity for replayability, especially if I want to speedrun the puzzles with the least number of steps taken by Jemma. But the bottom line is this: I would like more puzzles. Make it more expensive — but make the game longer. Why not release a puzzle every week! It’s a super versatile mechanic and I’d hate to see it all done over a weekend. Arranger is a great game for beginners and puzzle-lovers alike. The game is available on the PlayStation, PC, Nintendo, and the Mac OS.