You’re at a friends’ house having dinner and they need another fork, and they ask you to get it. So you get up, go to the cutlery drawer and open it – and you freeze. It’s like the knives and forks and spoons have had a rave in there. Is it even safe to put your hand inside it? Maybe you’re not hungry any more. Oh you should have known! You saw their bookcase when you came in, you saw their shoe rack. Chaos! Utter chaos. Why can’t they just tidy it up!
A Little to the LeftDeveloper: Max InfernoPublisher: Secret ModePlatform: Played on PCAvailability: August 2022, with a free demo available on Steam and Itch.io now
This – this urge to tidy things up, to neaten things – is A Little to the Left, a game about restoring order to the world one small mess at a time. A game about straightening pictures and sorting out drawers (and many other things) and the joy that can bring.
It begins with a wonky picture. There’s no explanation because no explanation is needed – there’s just the offender on the wall, screaming silently at you to sort it out. So you do – you use the mouse cursor to nudge the edge of the frame and restore peace and harmony to the wall. Dingaling! A tinkling bell informs you you’re right. Then, you’re onto the next small mess, and that is how it goes.
The joyful part comes in how it is all realised. A Little to the Left has a fuzzy crayoned warmth to it, a jaunty uplifting tone. And the objects you interact with have been carefully recreated to sound exactly right – sound better, even, than in real-life. Christian Donlan likened it to ASMR and he’s right – it’s strangely peaceful, strangely compelling.