I’m the type of introvert who’s made an art of choosing the right seat in public places. With such honed skills, I assumed a puzzler like Is This Seat Taken? would be second nature, and I was mostly right. This adorable indie might not bring anything radical to the table, but it’s a perfectly pleasant pick-up-and-play experience, that will undoubtedly scratch any low-stakes puzzle itches.
Strung together by a loose story about a rhombus with dreams of treading the boards (yes, really), Is This Seat Taken is about organising people into the right spots so that everyone’s preferences are satisfied. This might be at the cinema or museum, a taxi or a boat, but each person (well, “shape” might be more accurate) has their own conditions to meet, and they can be rather fussy.
Things start simple: slot this handful of shapes into a taxi, and make sure persons A and C are sitting by the window. But each stage brings a new challenge. In the cinema screen, some guests will use their phones or chat. On boats, you’ll get party groups who need to be kept separate from those who just want to sightsee. And everyone wants to steer clear of guests who forgot to shower.
The idea of performing such feats of organisation in the real world is enough to break me out in a cold sweat, but Is This Seat Taken couldn’t be more chilled. There’s no timer and no punishment for putting somebody in the wrong place. Heck, you can even finish the level without everyone sitting comfortably — though you’d lose valuable ‘thumbs up’ points, and my respect, in the process.
Busier stages can feel a little trial-and-error-y, and the absence of any kind of hint system meant I had to pull everyone from their temporary places and start from scratch on more than one occasion; I would love an undo/reset button for this kind of thing. Fortunately, no puzzle outstays its welcome. I polished off every level (in which there are five or six stages) in around six hours, and stages themselves are broken down into micro-challenges, primed for anyone who wants to squeeze in 10 minutes of gaming while the pasta’s cooking. It feels tailor-made for precisely this.
The onscreen cursor is smooth and intuitive, the characters are cute, and you can even use touchscreen controls in handheld. If it all sounds rather mobile puzzler, that’s because it is — I appreciated every new challenge and tweak when I’d come back to the game, but two or three levels on the trot felt a little repetitive.
All in all, Is This Seat Taken is solid pick-up-and-play puzzler. It may not do anything new or unique, but the condition-meeting gameplay loop is primed for anyone after a low-stakes distraction. It won’t keep you occupied for hours on end, but it’ll do an almighty job of reminding you that your seating preferences are not to be scoffed at.
