HYPE

Nudge theory in action

Developer/publisher Format Origin Release

Furniture & Mattress

PC, PS5, Switch

Argentina, US

Summer

Have you ever had days when you can’t seem to help getting in everyone’s way? When your very presence feels like a disruption to others? When you leave an apparently unavoidable trail of chaos in your wake without really trying? For the protagonist of Furniture & Mattress’s debut release, that’s every day. Little wonder it takes a full four taps of the left arrow key to shove the hapless Jemma out of bed.

To get to this point you’ll have already played through a dream sequence that tutorialises her curious superpower. In this grid-based world, everything that isn’t bolted down on the row or column you’re currently occupying moves as she does, allowing Jemma to push or drag things along with her – whether she wants to or not. As an early incident proves, it’s become more curse than blessing in the compact village she calls home: as she strolls up to a fellow resident to talk to them, her steps cause the ladder they’re standing on to wobble and then fall, toppling them to the floor. You can understand why, as she prepares to venture out into the wilderness beyond, no one’s in any great rush to prevent her from leaving.

Still, her unique item-shifting ability has its advantages, too. When a local bully bars Jemma’s path, she’s able to bypass them, taking the literal high road by pushing against the top of the grid. Instead of falling off, she reemerges at the bottom, just as elsewhere she can loop around to the right of an obstacle by walking off the left-hand edge of the grid. It’s one of those ideas that is somehow both instinctual and quietly revelatory, the kind of magic trick that only really works in videogames.