Is This Seat Taken? The Ultimate Battle Against Polygon Drama
Hello everyone. Today we’ll be talking about Is This Seat Taken? – a game that asks the burning question “What if arranging seating weren’t just a logistical nightmare, but also an actual game mechanic?” and then cheerfully expects you to manage the behavioural quirks of animated polygons that are, frankly, more high-maintenance than a celebrity rider list. Yes, it’s about seating fussy shapes on buses, in theatres, airports – you name it. Shapes with baggage. Shapes with demands. Shapes that make you wish for the cool, detached efficiency of a spreadsheet and a miracle sedative.
The Core Gameplay – Puzzle Heaven, or Purgatory?
The premise? Place tiny geometric characters – triangles, squares, whatever your inner kindergarten remembers from toy blocks – into seats that match their utterly unbearable list of needs. Some want to be near a window. Some can’t stand sitting next to “smelly” passengers. Others… play music loudly, apparently just to ruin your day. It’s like The Sims, if The Sims were stripped of houses, joy, or autonomy, and instead decided to loiter forever in public transport seating charts.
Yes, you’ll have limited seats. Yes, needs will overlap in irritating ways. And yes, sometimes you’ll wish you could just throw these geometric divas into a lava pit – but good news, there’s no fail state; only the bitter sense of not collecting enough gold stars to unlock the “secret” levels. That’s right, the game dangles shiny rewards just out of reach for anyone not willing to cater to every neurotic request. It’s basically the gaming equivalent of airline seating… without the screaming infants, but plenty of polygon tantrums.
The Pressure Valve – No Time Limits, But Emotional Fatigue
One genuinely smart choice: there’s no timer. You can fiddle and drag and rearrange these prima donna shapes for as long as your patience holds. This means you can take your sweet time mentally diagnosing each polygon’s borderline personality conflicts – doctor’s note not included. The charm of their silly faces prevents full-blown rage. Still, I found myself in “analysis paralysis” mode a few times, as if I were prepping for surgery but the patient keeps requesting a specific Spotify playlist and a change of room lighting before I make the first incision.
Story? Sure, Why Not
Nominally, you’re following Nat the rhombus – who dreams of becoming an actor – from city to city for reasons that, narratively speaking, are as weightless as clouds in Mario Kart. It serves as an excuse for fresh backdrops: movie theatres, buses, airports. But honestly, I had more fun inventing my own headcanon for the random side characters. Like: what crime did that triangle commit to deserve proximity to the loud music guy? Why does that square smell bad – a deep-state plot to destabilise the bus economy? Or just bad personal hygiene? The game won’t tell you, so make your own fun… because otherwise repetition will.
The Repetition Grind – Six Hours of “Haven’t I Seen This Before?”
My playthrough wrapped in about six hours. By hour five, the novelty was wearing thin faster than a mobile gacha event. You revisit area types often enough that déjà vu sets in, except instead of creeping dread it’s creeping boredom. I even caught myself muttering, “Oh, just deal with it” to these shapes when they objected to sitting near a music player. Imagine Dark Souls bosses refusing to fight unless you adjusted the background ambience – that’s the level of diva behaviour on show here.
Final Thoughts – A Strange, Endearing Little Experience
Look, for all my griping, I found myself warming to these shapes in a Stockholm Syndrome sort of way. When it was over, there was a strange emptiness – why weren’t they complaining to me anymore? The core loop is low-stakes, relaxing, and vaguely addictive, like organising your inventory in Diablo while listening to chill music. But be warned: your tolerance for digital diva demands will be tested.
Overall? It’s charming fluff that overstays its welcome just a touch. Worth it for puzzle fans who like a gentle pace and don’t mind repetition. If you’re looking for intensity or depth… well, this isn’t it. It’s a seat-finding simulator, not a political coup – though considering the behaviour of some shapes, I wouldn’t put black-ops polygon intrigues out of the question.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
Article source: Is This Seat Taken? makes seating fussy people fun, The Verge
