Good morning! This is Nick Suttner. You may have seen my name on the PlayStation Blog in various forms before (most recently as the writer behind Carto), but I'm very excited to come see you today as co-founder of the small studio Furniture & Mattress, to reveal our first PS5 game Arranger: an exciting adventure.
what is that confusing role, you can ask? Well, we've spent the last few years building the kind of world you'd expect to find in a role-playing game: curious towns and gloomy wildernesses to explore, eccentric characters to meet and strange monsters to fight in the dungeons. . But in Arranger, everything is expressed through the language of a puzzle game. Hence: a confusing role!
The entire game world exists on a sprawling, interconnected game grid, and as our protagonist Jemma moves, everything on the same row or column moves with her. It can also loop itself – or other objects – from one edge of the grid to the other. Over the course of our 8-10 hour single-player adventure, we regularly twist and turn these simple mechanics on their head in many interesting ways, trying to keep things easy while still providing satisfying puzzles. (And several support options to skip them if you're not in the mood.)
Of course, no RPG would be worth its guts without a satisfying story. And like our puzzles, we've tried to create something fun and light-hearted, with themes and ideas that are thought-provoking if you're open to them. Above all, it is a journey of self-discovery, as small-town misfit Jemma heads beyond the confines of her hometown for the first time – to discover an exciting, but divided, world , invaded by the immutable force known as static. Can she disrupt a stagnant world and shake things up a little?
Certainly, we have not kept all RPG tropes. We have no XP to accumulate, nor new powers to unlock this door progression. Instead, we offer a steady stream of new ways to test your understanding of the mechanics. And there's no inventory to manage in the game either – everything you'll need to interact with exists on the grid alongside Jemma. So if you find a locked door, well, of course you'll need a key – but in Arrangeryou'll have to figure out how to move it there, one tile at a time, taking sometimes winding paths and overcoming unexpected obstacles.
Finally, if the art looks familiar, there may be a good reason. That's because gaming is an art made by my co-founder David Hellman, artist behind the classic and modern Braid. This is his first full game as lead artist since then, and with a small team of super talented artists to support him, they strive to create something visually striking and unique. David also draws on his background as a comic book artist for our cutscenes, creating evocative comic-style panels to express many of our most important story beats. Along with my other co-founder Nico Recabarren, designer of fan-favorite Ethereal, and the incredibly talented composer Tomás Batista, we bring decades (!) of game-making experience to the sensibilities of a small team, to create something for you. special.
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure launches summer 2024 on PS5, and we couldn't be happier to finally reveal it to you. Thanks for taking a look!
