Unpacking, a game where players do exactly that, was one of the most surprising but delightful indie games to come out of 2021. It takes players through a series of living arrangements, starting with a single child's bedroom and working their way up to an entire house. But as the game progresses, players soon learn that they're unpacking the boxes of a character through the years 1997 to 2018, analyzing her at different stages of life like going to college, mourning a breakup, or raising kids.
What's possibly more important about looking at the game retrospectively, however, is that Unpacking has brought a new storytelling method to mainstream light. On one end of the extreme, video games are packed with action, weapons, blood, and gore, taking players deep into fantasy universes on other planets or filled with zombies. That would put games like Unpacking and A Little To The Left on the other end, then, putting a magnifying glass over the most mundane tasks a person could do but in a satisfactory setting.
What is A Little To The Left?
A Little To The Left first began as a tiny project on itch.io that consisted of just a handful of puzzles. But back in March, the team known as Max Inferno announced that it would be turning A Little To The Left into a full game. Originally, the developers were planning for a 2021 release, but it looks like it's since been pushed back to next year. However, this will give Max Inferno more time to add intriguing elements like additional puzzles, new features, and a "more cohesive narrative thread." Considering what Unpacking was able to do with such a simple activity that most normally find tedious, the last bit is certainly exciting to hear.
Luckily, for players who might be on the fence about a game like this, there's a demo currently available for free on itch.io, which is actually just the original project. It's short and sweet but serves as an excellent preview to the kind of gameplay fans can expect from another organizational indie game.
With pastel colors and pleasing sound effects, A Little To The Left tasks players with organizing a series of everyday objects from messy piles and disarray into neat collections. The demo showcases a handful of levels, though it's likely that the full version of the game will get more complicated as it progresses because it's also a puzzle game. It's not always clear what the goals of the levels in A Little To The Left are, much like in Unpacking where it's not always clear where exactly objects are supposed to be placed or stored.
The demo itself is simple and easy: it starts with a series of colored pencils that need to be aligned, but there is a proper order, so it's a bit more than just moving them "a little to the left," of course. To figure out where their designated spots are, players can match the tips of the pencils up with colored etchings, and they'll be rewarded with a satisfying tune when it's placed correctly. At later levels, however, the tasks become more unclear, for example, how the stack of papers or pile of sticky notes needs to be organized.
Unfortunately, it'll be a little while until players can get their hands on a longer version of A Little To The Left. It's set to release in August 2022, but for now, fans will have to settle for wishlisting it on Steam and playing the demo.
A Little To The Left is currently in development for Mobile, PC, and Switch.