“Is This Seat Taken?” Mini Review

Developer: Poti Poti | Platform: PS5 | Playtime: 9:50 | Platinum: 9:55

"Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl", "Shortest at the Front, Tallest at the back", "I want to sit with them instead". All phrases you might hear when being allocated a spot somewhere back in School. As you get older, your own preferences matter more – do you like to sit alone? Somewhere Quiet? What about other peoples needs? That's the premise of people allocation puzzler, Is This Seat Taken? 

While the game does have a story – Nat the Rhombus (everyone is Shape people) trying to find her place in the world as an aspiring film director, it's merely background noise to facilitate the game hopping from place to place. Each set of levels is supposedly in a different country, but it doesn't really affect anything and the game wouldn't be better or worse for its exclusion. 

The actual gameplay here is a grid based puzzler, you have different scenarios in which you must allocate seats to various people, each with their own requirements – some want quiet, some play music, a surprising number of people smell. Your role is to balance ever growing requirements and find a way to sit everyone while keeping everyone happy. It's a very satisfying process figuring out the correct solution but I found that there's only ever one real solution (and mild variations there of) - it's not so much about finding clever solutions so much as THE solution. I realise complaining that a puzzle has a solution is a bizarre take but given the concept, multiple options would have been good. 

There's a fair few levels in the game - there's 5 worlds with a range of 4-6 levels and in each level there are 4-5 stages to get through. It does lead to a teeny bit of repetition and the game does feel a touch samey by the end of the runtime. Each world's bonus levels offer something different to the norm, unlocked by perfecting the levels in the world  - these are probably the most fun levels. 

I won't go as far as to say it outstays its welcome because I did enjoy my time with Is This Seat Taken? but I think the game offers just enough to keep me interested in its runtime. Any longer and I'd need a bit more to the background narrative or more advanced mechanics but as is, it was a pleasant couple evenings spent.