| Quick Verdict: Is This Seat Taken? is a great game for those who love puzzles but want to play on a lower difficulty setting. The challenge level does scale up as you progress, but with no time limits or penalties for switching people around until you get it right. |
| Game: | Is This Seat Taken? |
| Developer(s): | Poti Poti Studio |
| Publisher: | Wholesome Games Presents |
| Review Score: | 9 |
| Cozy Score: | 9 |
| Price: | $9.99 |
| Pros: | You set the pacing. There are no time limits or penalties unless you push through to the next level with unhappy people. |
| Cons: | Some levels have waves and it won’t save if you bounce out early. I get why that is because there are elements that leave behind pitfalls as you play a level, but in the harder puzzles, it can be a bit disheartening to restart from the beginning. |
| Platforms: | PC, Nintendo Switch |
| Genres: | Puzzle |
Is This Seat Taken? is a puzzle game where you’re given a group of people with very specific desires in their seating situation. You’ll have to juggle everyone’s requests and place them all in their optimal spots. The difficulty will scale up gradually, resulting in more complicated requests to organize.
As you play, you get a little overarching story about Nat. In Is This Seat Taken? the world is made up of shapes, predominantly circles, squares, triangles, and pentagons. However, there is a fifth, rarer shape: the rhombus.
Nat is a rhombus with aspirations to become an actor and because they’re different, they feel as if they don’t fit the Hollywood aesthetic. That is, until they see Luca, a fellow rhombus thriving on the big screen. As you progress through the levels, you’ll follow Nat as they try to meet Luca in hopes of getting advice.
Is This Seat Taken? will take you through various cities and modes of transportation, so things are fresh even when settings repeat throughout the cities. There are several gimmicks utilized that will require you to fit everyone together like a perfect Tetris run.
At first, you’ll have to balance things like people wanting to be alone, wanting to talk to a neighbor, not liking loud music, or being sensitive to strong smells. But, it’ll widen to wanting to share food, wanting to stand, not wanting to sit in a dirty seat, or even not wanting to sit next to a fan of a different team.
Each person’s desire almost always has a counterpart. If someone wants to stand, then you have to worry about who you seat behind them because someone sitting won’t be able to see. Or, if someone had popcorn, they’ll leave kernels behind, resulting in a dirty seat that persists for the rest of the level.
To be fair, I don’t think most of us would want to sit in a dirty seat…
People who didn’t shower that day or wear too much cologne will have an area of effect the same as music players or talkers. So, if someone wants to read, sleep, or just doesn’t want noise, you can’t seat them near those who are making noise.
Sometimes, there will be other movable elements to juggle. On the train, you’ll have to make everyone’s luggage fit. In the restaurant, you can move around the food to all the tables to suit everyone’s needs. And every so often, someone will have a bag that they want to keep with them.
There are even times when previously placed people will require you to move them around as they’re no longer happy in the next wave. Add in that some people want to sit next to certain people or specifically don’t want to be around others, and you’ve got a game that can be a real head scratcher at times.
Luckily, there are no time limits or penalties, so there’s no rush to the finish line and you can switch everyone around as much as you’d like until everyone is happy. There’s a handy little sign near the button to move on that lets you know if someone isn’t pleased or if everyone’s needs are satisfied.
The only issue that I really found is that each level has waves of people to manage and if you get stuck and decide to come back later, you’ll have to redo the previously completed portions. It’s all or nothing when it comes to levels.
On one hand, I understand why that is because of the elements like popcorn that can be left in the seat. You may have placed people in areas that make moving forward hard to impossible and need to restart. However, it can still be a little disheartening to come back to a puzzle that was giving you grief and having to redo the entire thing.
Watch the trailer for Is This Seat Taken?
All in all, Is This Seat Taken? is a straightforward, smaller puzzle game that you could do in bite-sized chunks or all in one sitting, if you’ve got several hours to spare. If you’re looking for higher stakes, you may want to save Is This Seat Taken? for a lazier rainy day and try something else out, but you’ll still want it on your gaming shelf.
I had a great time and as someone who loves puzzles, but is kind of notoriously bad at them, Is This Seat Taken? gave me a bit of a challenge without the frustration or hopelessness.
If you’d like to give Is This Seat Taken? a shot, you can grab it over on Steam or Nintendo Switch for $9.99. Otherwise, you can check out my thoughts on some of my other recent reviews like Whimside or MakeRoom.
