Go! Go! GOTY! 2020: Game 1: Assemble with Care
By Mento 0 Comments
- Game: USTWO's Assemble with Care
- Release Month: March
- Quick Look: Here.
- Started: 02/12.
- Completed: 02/12.
A gentle puzzle game to start off Go! Go! GOTY! this year. Created by the same team behind the chill Monument Valley, Assemble With Care was originally a launch game for the Apple Arcade service, and its design from top to bottom feels intended for a mobile device: everything is built for touch controls (though the mouse suffices as an alternative), and it has an easy-going pace and atmosphere separated out into a dozen-plus bite-sized chapters. Since I have no Apple device through which to subscribe to the Apple Arcade service, its Steam release in March of 2020 is the official one as far as I'm concerned (a distinction I'll also extend to Oceanhorn 2, should I get a chance to play it on Switch soon).
As itinerant repairwoman Maria, the player rolls into the town of Bellariva looking for some work and to enjoy the town's modest charms as a big festival approaches. Soon, she's tasked with repairing everything from watches to cameras to slide projectors by two parties in particular: the local mayor, a widower who is struggling balancing his work life with taking care of his feisty daughter; and a pair of estranged sisters looking to mend their once close relationship, first by working on their respective money troubles. These two threads play out across the game's many stages, each based on a separate mechanical or electronic device that has since ceased to function.
The gameplay has you viewing these devices, breaking them down to their constituent components, figuring out what needs fixing or replacing, and then repeating the disassembling in reverse to restore the device to its former glory. There isn't a whole lot of complexity - you're normally only working with whatever parts you're need, which conveniently helps you figure out what screws or cogs you may have left out - and besides some fussy object rotation controls and some smaller parts that might prove tricky to manipulate as needed, there's not much that should slow down the simple gameplay loop involved. It's ultimately not really a game about repairing broken things, at least not in the literal sense; these objects and the years of love and active use they've endured are more symbolic of the relationships of those who own them, and work to restore some past vitality that their owners have been lacking of late. Put another way, you're fixing the owners as much as you're fixing their possessions, as trite as that might sound.
The game earns that sentimentality, however. Wholesome from start to end - even the game-within-a-game that you discover while fixing an old portable games console is about taking photos of wildlife rather than murdering them - it makes the whole repairing process the sort of pleasantly casual pastime that might be sorely needed in this stressful year. It's not something that will need more than a couple of hours to see in full, but it does a fine job recreating the Zen-like appeal of using your hands to do something productive as a means of taking your mind off other matters. I could recommend grabbing it if you see it cheap on your phone or tablet of choice, though the Steam version I played is perfectly feasible also.
GOTY Verdict: A fine little game, but maybe too slight for the list. Then again, it might not have enough competition to keep it out of this year's top ten.