Is This Seat Taken? review

I feel like I saw about a dozen write-ups about Is This Seat Taken? when it launched that were primarily based around the novelty of its concept. I guess this is fair, considering the seating-chart as puzzle game idea is one that is immediately attention-grabbing. That said, the game itself feels more like a byproduct of a fun pitch than something that is particularly enjoyable for what it is.

Arranging shapes

Is This Seat Taken? is a puzzle game where every level is a different scene that needs to be populated with people (i.e. a wedding, a classroom, etc.). The catch is that each of these people have specific qualities and needs that demand you arrange them in a specific way, such that people who want to hang out with their friends are near each other, loners are left in isolation, people with sensitivities to noise are kept away from those playing music, and so on.

You are free to drag and drop these people as you see fit, with the only requirement being that you place everything that can be placed somewhere in the scene. You then get ratings based on how satisfied everyone is with that arrangement before moving onto a continuation of the same scene or a completely different scene entirely.

As fun as a chair

Thanks to its cute, geometric people and cartoon style, Is This Seat Taken? makes a pretty positive first impression. It's also fun to learn about preferences like certain people who wear too much cologne or want to avoid doing work as guides to how to arrange them.

The only problem is, these qualities are about as enjoyable to see in the trailer as they are to experience in the game. There's not a whole lot of other stuff to consinder once you get to get past the initial novelty of seeing seating new requests in Is This Seat Taken?, and the game creates its challenges primarily through mixing, matching, and layering a lot of the same ones over and over again.

Squeaky seat

I get that this kind of design is part and parcel with many puzzle games, but it drags Is This Seat Taken? because it feels like the novelty is what this game hangs its hat on, and there's a surprising lack of it once you get past the first couple stages. There's nothing mechanically satisfying about arranging people in a scene, and I'd even argue that doing so can frequently be annoying thanks to some oddly squirrelly touch controls that make it entirely too easy to accidentally misplace or swap people.

Something else to note about Is This Seat Taken? that is not great on the mobile front is how your progress isn't saved over the course of the distinct stages within a level. This is to say that if you start a level and complete two of the four stages before closing it, you might come back to the game later to see that you now have to complete those two stages you already completed again.

There's nothing particular about the design of the game that demands this lack of checkpointing, so it just feels like an irritating oversight.

The bottom line

If you strip away the charming trappings of Is This Seat Taken?, it is a perfunctory puzzle game with some bothersome design qualities. This is easy to see because the pleasant facade of the game fades into the background rather quickly. This isn't to say it is bad, necessarily, but I'd only go as far as saying Is This Seat Taken? is fine enough if you are merely looking for something to do on your phone.

The only problem is, there are a lot of charming puzzle games you could be playing that clear this bar by a much wider margin.