Couch Installation Service
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5.00
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Couch Installation Service is a game about being a hard-working employee and doing your couches arrangement job as efficient as possible.
- 35 levels full of couches and benches waiting to be placed in right way
- 3+ hours of gameplay (most likely a lot more)
Steam User 8
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Couch Installation Service is a couch-pushing Sokoban with a twist, which is that as you try to push (never pull) couches, they twist around their centerpoint and end up on a diagonal, rather than sliding as a rigid structure along an orderly square grid. (Hope that makes sense, see the trailer if not.) The twisty-diagonalization of couches off of an orderly grid means 2 things for gameplay: (1) it costs extra steps to get couches "out of the way," and (2) it costs extra steps to re-align couches onto an orderly grid. And your goal on every level is to get 1-4 couches squared away into a specific spot on the (implicit) grid. You get a gold star if you can do it in a minimal number of steps, but you don't need gold stars to proceeed with the game.
The slick UI, simple controls, and colorful (even cheerful) graphics -- plus the small size of each level -- all invite you to ask, with a bit of smugness: "How hard could it be?" For my part, I found Couch Installation Service to be remarkably difficult. YMMV, but I found it very challenging (and rewarding, when it clicked) to wrap my head around how to work with/around diagonals. Even if you don't aim to optimize your stepcount on every level, it's still a real challenge just to complete many levels.
There are 35 levels in total. After about 30 minutes of gameplay I had beaten 11 levels, and had pretty easily scored "gold" on 5 of them. I was feeling pretty good. Then I spent a fruitless ~20 minutes alternating between trying to beat the 12th level, and trying up improve my score on any earlier level, tearing my hair out the whole time. Then I ragequit and abandoned the game for several weeks. Then I came back and repeated the same agonizing process for another 30m before finally beating level 12 and deciding that a review couldn't wait for me to feel like an expert Couch Installation-er. That day may never come.
Levels unlock in sequence with bottlenecks: so if you get stuck you might really be stuck. But the in-game "About" menu provides a link to a full set of walkthrough videos (and there's also a Steam Guide with exact keypresses), so unless you're a masochist who forces themselves to endure the pain (hi!), you can always progress. Your "target" stepcount is displayed prominently, and your steps are counted as you go. You have unlimited undo and pressing R quickly resets a level. I do think that forcing the player through levels in sequence could be dropped without loss -- settings could offer a toggle to open the game up -- but sadly the solo Dev doesn't seem to be monitoring the Steam forums or their email.
While the design is pretty polished, there are some quality of life issues two of which are especially notable. (1) A lack of sliders for either SFX or music, only mutes for each. (The couches make a grindy-slidey noise every time you move them, so that might be an insta-mute either way, but the music is vaguely pleasant). And (2), as you play a level there's an odd oscillation/float effect that occurs as the whole board gently sways. You can see it in the trailer. It's not super irritating, but the fact that there is no toggle to turn it off is a little irritating.
Controls are Mouse only in menus, but Keyboard only in-game with no rebinding, but both AWSD and arrow keys work for movement. Pressing the F key quickly toggles between fullscreen and windowed. While the game does report your time-to-completion when you finish a level, there is no ticking timer during gameplay (only a step counter) and AFAIK time-to-completion doesn't matter. There's only one save file at a time, which you can reset, but you can always revisit old levels.
Overall, (quality of life issues notwithstanding) the price point is very reasonable, design is pretty polished and solid, and IF you like challenging Sokobans it's a great pickup. I'd put the quality/challenge of gameplay maybe one small step down from Pipe Push Paradise, or The Golem -- though it might be shorter than either of those, if you're quicker than me in picking up the mechanics.
Steam User 6
Sokoban with a twist.
A nice little 2D puzzle game, presented in 3D.
Think Sokoban, but where crates are two spaces and can stand diagonally.
Difficulty starts out nicely, but eventually some levels are harder to complete at all, than to find the shortest path.
In general, levels are fun and challenging to play.
The music isn't worth mentioning, and becomes annoying, so I turned it off after a short while.
The game doesn't remember if you turn off the music or prefer to play full screen, so you have to toggle it each time you play.
It is satisfying to collect gold stars - especially when you get them below the suggested number of steps.
I completed all levels, but gave up on the last two gold stars.
"(3/5) A nice game - you should buy it, only if you're a fan of the genre."
Steam User 5
When I was a young boy, I learned the discourse involved in the experimentation of controversial couch coordination and the forces and physics that are required to traverse some couch habitats.
What I was not aware of at the time, was just how difficult of a life a couch truly has, the simple reduction of the pulling mechanic creates a challenging surreal out of body experience as you take control of Bob. Bob is just starting his business of couch and sofa care, Bobs Quick Couches. This lifestyle simulator and couch installation instructional, brings you into Bob's world, you get to experience Bob, as he moves up in the world and makes a name for himself. By the end of the game You can be sure to have a refreshing grasp on the woes of couch catastrophes and just how you can fix them. The knowledge that I was able to gain, will stay with me as tools for future couch moving endeavours.
Happy Couching
Steam User 1
Couch Installation service is a sokoban-like puzzle game with an extra constraint: two boxes of the same type cannot be separated. With this constraint, and carefully placed boxes, there are several puzzles that will give you headaches. Accompanied with beautiful graphics and smoothing music, this short puzzle game is definitely one of the best you will ever play (9/10) !
The downside of this game is also obvious, there is only one mechanic. Compared to games made by Increpare or Johnathan Blow, you don't feel like learning something as you play through the level, which should be a key component for any puzzle games.
On a deeper level, saying that you learned nothing would be incorrect as you learned some abstract things like "this placement of boxes is a certain death". As you have more knowledge, your pruning speed increases, but I hope this is more intuitive.
Steam User 1
Relaxing puzzle fun, quite difficult though! Good to dip in and out of for short bits.
Steam User 0
It's a great sokoban game. I hate sokoban games, why do I keep buying these.