Since its launch in 2022, A Little to the Left has captured gamers‘ hearts and minds with its delightful organizational puzzles. This therapeutic tidy-up simulator has grown a passionate fanbase – including right here on this blog!
In this guide, we‘ll be breaking down solutions for one of the game‘s most creative head-scratchers: the candles puzzle. Grab your virtual matchsticks, it‘s time to line things up just right.
What Makes A Little to the Left So Special
Before diving into the candles conundrum, let‘s take a moment to appreciate what makes A Little to the Left so special.
This indie puzzle game focuses on tidying up everyday household objects, from books to plants to knickknacks. With its soft, vibrant art style and chill vibe, it‘s visually and audibly soothing.
Over 75 grid-based levels encourage you to sort, stack, and organize items into clean, harmonious arrangements. The spatial challenges start simple, then gradually combine more elements and mechanics.
But it‘s not the difficulty progression or variety in puzzles that has earned the game stellar reviews and a word-of-mouth fan explosion.
Order, Zen, Catharsis
What makes A Little to the Left stand out is how it perfectly taps into the human desire for order and organization. Imposing tidy arrangements upon messy objects activates the brain‘s pattern-recognition on a primal level.
As psychologist Wijnand Van Tilburg told CNN:
"Organization seems mundane, but psychologically it makes sense. Orderliness offers a sense of control, structure and predictability, which is deeply important to well-being."
This explains why sorting bookshelves or perfectly lining up tchotchkes is so satisfying. A Little to the Left distills these feelings into bite-sized puzzles.
Beyond mental organization, the game also encourages mindfulness and relaxation through its cozy aesthetics. Letting your mind unwind while incrementally adjusting objects to symmetry is uniquely cathartic.
As one Steam reviewer wrote:
"It‘s my happy place at the end of a long day. The puzzles hit the perfect balance of requiring effort while not being frustrating. I can feel my stress melting away as I line up the little cats just so."
For these reasons, A Little to the Left has cultivated a passionate player community since its launch. Fans routinely share their puzzle solutions and creative arrangements online. Let‘s see what wisdom they have around the candle conundrum!
Inside the Candles Puzzle
The candles puzzle appears in level 7 of Chapter 5, titled "Near Earth Organizer." This chapter introduces light and illumination elements to the soothing spatial challenges.
Upon entering the level, you see:
- 6 candles arranged horizontally on a surface
- Candles are different heights – some tall, some short
- A single matchstick
The goal is to arrange the candles into a visually satisfying formation, either making them equal height or ordering them from shortest to tallest.
Here‘s a quick primer on how the pieces work:
- The matchstick can lengthen or shorten candles
- Its lit end extends candles when touched to the base
- Its unlit end shortens candles when touched to the flame
With these basics down, let‘s solve this candle conundrum!
Solution 1: Make All Candles Equal Height
The first solution is to make all 6 candles precisely the same height.
Step-By-Step Process
Follow these steps to uniformly level up the candles:
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Identify the shortest and tallest candles on the far left and right.
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Use the matchstick‘s lit end to extend the shortest candle. Add height gradually until it matches the next shortest candle.
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Shorten the tallest candle by touching its flame with the matchstick‘s unlit end. Reduce it to match the next tallest candle.
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Repeat steps 2-3, making incremental adjustments to bring candles to an equal intermediate height across the row.
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Make any final tiny adjustments needed to perfectly unify the height.
Example of equal height solution
And that‘s it! With careful heightening and shortening, the candles now form a clean horizontal line of uniform height.
Finding Order Through Symmetry
Imposing symmetry onto asymmetric objects activates the mind‘s pattern-recognition and provides a sense of visual harmony.
Lining up the candles to identical heights, despite starting at random lengths, delivers order from chaos. This transition from disorder to uniformity is incredibly gratifying.
The matchstick gives us the incremental control needed to gradually shape the components into perfection. This step-by-step journey to tidiness and alignment is what makes A Little to the Left so addictively soothing.
Solution 2: Arrange Candles in Ascending Order
The second solution keeps the candle heights varied, but lines them up in ascending order from left to right.
Step-By-Step Process
Here is the methodical process to make a candled stairstep:
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Start by identifying the tallest candle on the far right. Leave this one unchanged as your "anchor."
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Working right-to-left, check candles against the height of their right neighbor.
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Use the matchstick to lengthen any candles that are too short compared to the one on their right.
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Shorten any candles that are too tall compared to the one on their right.
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Repeat comparisons and incremental height adjustments until candles ascend from shortest to tallest.
The final result is a clean staircase formation:
Example of ascending height solution
Maintaining variation in candle heights can sometimes be more aesthetically pleasing than strict uniformity. Both options deliver tremendous organizational satisfaction.
Finding Order Through Progression
The human eye is drawn to linear progressions – gradients, scales, and increments appeal to our pattern-seeking nature.
Order doesn‘t always mean making everything the same. Arranging items into logical stepped progressions, like ascending candle heights, activates similar cognitive pleasure.
Noted neuroscientist Beau Lotto remarks on this phenomenon:
"We are compelled to create order from disorder. If things aren’t ordered in a way we understand, we invent patterns and connections.”
This candles puzzle lets our perception find balance by organizing randomness into a clear progression.
Tips for Candle Puzzle Success
Based on this puzzle‘s mechanics, here are some tips and strategies for efficient solving:
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Scan all candles first – Identify shortest and tallest, then focus efforts on those edges.
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Work outward – Adjust middle candles last to avoid ruining previous work.
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Undo changes if needed – The matchstick makes re-adjusting candle heights easy.
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For ascending order, work right-to-left checking and adjusting heights.
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Make small incremental height changes for finer control.
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Double check candle heights at the end for absolute perfection!
The Game‘s Passionate Puzzle Community
The popularity of A Little to the Left shows no signs of waning. If anything, the community around discussing and solving its organization puzzles keeps growing.
Dedicated players regularly share their puzzle solutions, creative arrangements, and game experiences online. For example, this candle conundrum prompted lively discussion on Reddit:
/r/ALittleToTheLeftGame thread with 117 comments
Fans enjoy competing to find additional or alternative solutions to puzzles. The candles challenge has players working to devise other arrangements using the same components.
Seeing the imagination and passion of this community is heartwarming. It highlights what makes A Little to the Left so special – a shared love of organization, patterns, and harmonious order.
Further Puzzling and Organizing
I hope this guide provides a satisfying look into solving A Little to the Left‘s candles puzzle. Let me know if you need any help with other tricky puzzles in this brilliant game!
If you enjoyed this therapeutic tidy-up challenge, I encourage exploring more problem-solving brain teasers, such as Two Dots, Monument Valley, or Mini Metro.
For additional organization inspiration, check out Marie Kondo‘s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Just beware it may spark some cleaning frenzies! With the right mindset, tidying can be incredibly cathartic.
Now if you‘ll excuse me, I feel an urge to go align my bookshelf…
