Slide into an Indie Puzzler that will push and pull at all your heartstrings. Find out more in our Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review!

2024 has been a great year for puzzle games. Animal Well gave us an expansive world filled with unending secrets. Paper Trail used origami folding to bend the world to your will. Now Arranger has slid into our lives bringing a wonderfully creative puzzler about moving onward and fighting complacency. Will this Indie Puzzler slide its way into our hearts or does the adventure end before it’s begun? Find out in our Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review!

Jemma beginning her journey.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review – Story

Jemma grows up without a sense of belonging as she was left on the doorstep of The Hold when she was a baby. This is a walled-in town that lies protected from the outside world. Venturing out of the town’s walls, the first soul in years brave enough to try, Jemma will learn where she comes from and what really is threatening the people of her world.

There are many quirky characters to meet, even for just a moment.

Arranger’s narrative is episodic, with Jemma rocking up to a new destination to solve a problem and then move on. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with this shallow narrative structure; I couldn’t connect with any character because they’d be in and out as fast as I could solve the puzzle. The story also felt unbalanced, with intriguing world-building feeling almost crammed into a game too small for it all and many important questions remaining unresolved until far too late into the game.

You’ll meet many quirky characters throughout your journey.

Gripes aside, I loved how Arranger told its story. In the negative space surrounding the world Jemma moves around in are panels showing story snippets or environmental elements. Moving through the game’s many vignettes, you’re treated to beautiful sequential art detailing your surroundings and drawing you into the moment. These flashes of storytelling were the most memorable, sticking with me long after I had finished the game.

There are some beautiful vignettes to slide through on your journey.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review – Gameplay

The world of Arranger exists on a grid, similar to those sliding puzzles you’d get in one of the higher-brand Christmas Bonbons. Jemma has the innate ability to move the world around her, pushing/pulling objects and people along with her. Arranger builds on this simple concept beautifully, crafting a cerebral experience that leaves you wanting more. The difficulty ramps up smoothly, owing to the constant stream of new and intuitive puzzle elements introduced at regular pacing. The earliest hurdles you will face are objects along your path affected by “Static”, the purple alien substance threatening the inhabitants of the game’s universe. Static items refuse to budge when Jemma walks along its axis and prevent her from moving any further in that direction.

Static is poisoning the land. What is the cause??

This is where Arranger’s satisfying movement shines, allowing Jemma to wrap around the environment by walking into a wall (so long as there is a wall directly opposite). This mechanic makes for a quick way of traversing long distances, with Jemma snapping from one side to another in an instant. It also adds another dimension to the game’s puzzles, making the player think laterally about the space they inhabit. The game responds well to fast tapping, which is a plus if you want to get it done quickly.

Puzzles never enter the territory of “too challenging” or “unfair.

The low stakes gameplay allows you to take your time with puzzles, with no fail states or softlocks. Further pushing the accessibility of its content, there is an option to skip almost any puzzle you come across. Nobody likes to be stuck in a section of a game for too long, and this lets players move on in the story without risking burnout. The downside to this, however, is the few bosses you’ll cross at the end of each chapter. In what should be a tense moment where you’re facing a menacing monster, these battles instead feel out of place as bosses wait patiently for you to stumble into the correct solution. Outside of those brief moments, Arranger is a blast! There are a multitude of appealing puzzle elements crammed into this 5-6 hour game, so many that it almost feels like a disservice when a gimmick is only briefly touched on before you move on.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review – Visuals

With memorable, quirky character designs and interesting locations featured throughout, Arranger inspires with a lively hand-drawn aesthetic. Furniture and Mattress has done a great job at discerning what is important information for the player and what is added flair. The world that exists inside the moveable grid is predominantly made up of plainly detailed tiles and objects important to the landscape. The void existing outside of this is mostly filler made of simple shapes and colours, apart from the comic panels lending detail to your surroundings.

An example of the wonderful colour palettes in Arranger

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review – Audio

Arranger’s soft, understated OST and accompanying foley always feel natural to the environment, never getting in the way of the gameplay. Such as the subtle scraping of shifting tiles or the light splashing as you float across a river makes the journey just as pleasing as the destination. It’s an interesting substitution for the footsteps you’d hear in a game with regular traversal mechanics, a detail that fit perfectly throughout the whole game.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review – What Else?

For the enthusiastic explorer, you may find a few offshoots from the areas you visit along your journey. These places off the beaten track provide an extra opportunity for puzzling, with 3 slightly more challenging riddles to solve that open a temple with another more traditional slide puzzle. The biggest issue I found with these areas is how easy it is to miss on the first playthrough. There’s no real opportunity to revisit these temples after certain points in the game without backtracking a significant distance.

These extra hidden puzzles are a nice addition.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure Review – Conclusion

Arranger crafts a charming puzzler that feels smaller than it deserves due to its fleeting puzzle elements. Its serviceable narrative coupled with a brief game length may turn away some gamers. However, with its accessible difficulty curve, lack of fail state, and option to skip almost all puzzles, players will rarely feel at odds with the cerebral parts of the game, making it enjoyable for all.

Why should you play Arranger?

• Clever puzzles throughout
• Creative visual storytelling in surrounding negative space
• Accessible tools for fledgling puzzlers

But why shouldn’t you play Arranger?

• Episodic story structure makes it hard to connect with characters
• Puzzle gimmicks are fleeting, making the game feel too short

A review code was kindly provided by Popagenda for the purpose of our Arranger review.  You can check out our other reviews here and if you haven’t already, be sure to join the Qualbert Discord to find out about the latest game and review updates!