Preview
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is the puzzle that surprised me more than I expected.
During our visit to gamescom latam, we had the opportunity to play the Argentinian game Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, a puzzle that moves your mat.
In early 2024, a little indie called Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure snuck into the Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase. From the short trailer, I was intrigued by its gameplay. Its main character advances through the world by moving as if on plates, moving the row or column as a whole. A few weeks before its release, I had the chance to play this Argentinean title during gamescom latam, and I was certainly not disappointed.
“I hope what you find brings you more peace than you’ve had here”
With these words begins the adventure of Jemma, a young girl who begins her adventure outside the town that adopted her. Unfortunately, her movements are strange and she does not appeal to many people in this place. However, her exit will not be so easy, because first, she has to see where to leave all the garbage she has accumulated over the years, as well as obtain the key to open the big door that separates this place from the outside world.
Before leaving, she will have to convince the mayor, help a wizard, and even find a kitten that is being harassed by some monsters. This is how the game begins to explain the peculiar gameplay and how Jemma’s movements affect her surroundings. The learning cuvre is staggered and just goes on in an environment of puzzles that play very well with this scrolling mechanic, in some cases having puzzles that years of The Legend of Zelda helped to decipher.
While you can move up and down, Jemma can also cross from the other side of the screen in certain rooms, like Pac-Man going from one side of the stage to the other. These movements can be limited if there are other objects, such as rocks, that collide with another element and prevent our movement band from moving.
Although Arranger had a very easy start, there was a moment when the game started to overwhelm me. A puzzle, which I could describe as those puzzles where you have to arrange the numbers in a certain order, was one of the biggest obstacles I had in front of me. How to move objects when others were holding me back. After almost 10 minutes, the ego and finding new mechanics were enough for my mind to come up with the solution. The satisfaction was great, but also the thought of what kind of puzzles I would find later.
I don’t know how it happened, but after an hour I knew I had to stop. The visual art, courtesy of the same artist who worked on Braid, and how rewarding the combination of extremely simple gameplay with complex but gratifying puzzles was, was enough to keep me there longer than I had planned.
Arranger leaves me wanting more, and with that massage in the brain that you get after puzzles that makes you make a mental effort. This was one of the many surprises I had at gamescom latam, which shows the talent that exists within the development of the region. For now, we have to wait a little while, as this title will arrive this July 25 on PS5, Switch, PC, Mac and Netflix.