A Little to the Left

This game was played in its entirety on a MacBook Air M1 8gb ram 7c gpu running MacOS Sonoma. There were no bugs or crashes throughout my time with the game. All achievements unlocked at their appropriate times. Unlike most of my reviews, I'm going to pay special attention to the prices of the game and its DLCs, as it is a bit more important than usual to touch upon for this review. A Little To The Left is an absolutely charming...relaxation device. I would not call it a puzzler, nor an adventure, nor a gadget. It is essentially like therapy, but instead of the therapist trying to help you work on your problems and issues, the therapist here is just trying to make you feel good. Playing this game is basically like praying at a shrine devoted to the little lizard part of your brain that sends out endorphins when "things make sense". Now, to be fair, sometimes "making things make sense" does involve quite a bit of trial and error and puzzle-solving deduction. Still, I stand by my statement that this game's main purpose is to make you feel happy. It does so in the most charming way possible, with special attention paid to the very relaxing but still upbeat music. I don't feel the need to talk too much about the consumer-facing aspects of the program. The graphics are good, the music is very appropriate, the sound effects do not get in the way, the difficulty is low but every now and then will stop and make you think. There is really nothing offensive in this game, and it's all quite mild. The same goes with the 100-day (though you could extend this to 365 days, but I will not) daily routine. These are slight offshoots of the main types of gameplay you will experience in the main story, though there are a few completely new gadgets/puzzles to solve here. They repeat endlessly though, so after I finished the 100 days (actually 90 days since you get a 10 day boost), I felt I had seen and done enough. Here's where the price discussion comes in: I DO NOT THINK the DLCs are worth it. This is not a normal position for me to take. If the game was good (and this one was), then I normally will enjoy the DLC for the game, even if it is just "more of the same". But, both DLCs here have some large issues to overcome, and first and foremost is the price of each. When I purchased them, they were more than double the price of the main game. Again, that can be "okay" depending on what's inside. This is really the only negative I can throw at the game: the DLCs are overpriced, under deliver, have some of the worst puzzles in the game, and also introduce new bugs. The puzzles are a problem. Many of them are of the same style as in the main game. Some are new. Among the new ones, there are a few whose solution is so incredibly obtuse, that even looking directly at every hint and even the final answer, I had zero idea how they were able to solve this and even what element or logic they were latching on to to uncover the answer in the first place. A lot of the puzzles in this game use a fairly simple physics engine to place and move items. It works great in the main game. In both of the DLCs, I repeatedly ran into issues with the physics engine. Pieces that were in their correct location would sometimes shoot out of their compartment as though spring-loaded. Items would sometimes vibrant violently upon being placed on top of another item (required for both puzzle solutions and odd achievements) before launching ALL items around the screen. Sometimes I would know the solution to a puzzle, but would be unable to physically get the pieces to move into the correct places. The solution was to just keep trying over and over again and they would eventually "click". Because of this, I would probably give both DLCs a thumbs down and advise to not purchase them. The main game, however, was thoroughly charming and enjoyable and I happily recommend it to anyone. TLDR: Playing this game is basically like praying at a shrine devoted to the little lizard part of your brain that sends out endorphins when "things make sense".