Is This Seat Taken? is a puzzle game about seating charts

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Whether it’s riding a bus or sitting in a movie theater, there’s rarely a situation where everybody is truly satisfied with their seating arrangement. There often isn’t going to be a 100 percent success rate. Poti Poti Studio doesn’t live in that world, but rather in an idyllic one where everybody is perfectly satisfied with their place. Is This Seat Taken? was announced earlier this year with Wholesome Games attached as publisher. This puzzle game was present at this year’s Game Developers Conference and Shacknews gave it a look.

Is This Seat Taken? is a puzzle game that takes place across different scenarios, like a rideshare vehicle, a bus, a movie theater, or a dance club. Everyone wants to go about their day, but it all starts with making sure everybody is in the right seat. The idea is to drag and drop different folks and guide them to a seat that will make them happy. Hovering over each individual will reveal specific conditions that have to be fulfilled. Some might want a window seat in a car. Another one might want to be close to a speaker at a club. There may be someone at a movie theater who demands to sit in the front row. By arranging and rearranging everyone’s positions, the ideal result is one where all parties are happy.

This starts off easy. After all, arranging three people in a taxi is difficult to screw up. However, the stages expand to ones with a greater number of seats and some unexpected complications. There may be child characters who either want to be seated next to kids their own age or who want to be near their parents. Most stages will start off with an empty area, but as some scenarios progress, existing people from the previous puzzle may stick around, requiring some clever rearranging.

A later stage introduces people who haven’t showered. There aren’t a lot of people who want to stand next to someone with a dirt cloud around them, so the challenge becomes to specifically isolate the dirtballs and keep them next to people who are less sensitive about that sort of thing. This is where the game gets surprisingly challenging, especially because smelly people can stink up a pretty big area around them. Later stages will introduce bigger settings, more people, and more conditions.

There’s no indication of how many puzzles will be included in the final version of the game, but there’s room for a lot of creativity. Thankfully, there isn’t the pressure of a timer, so players can mull over their situation as long as they need to. The game is a simple exercise, one ideal for handhelds. Fortunately, the game’s demo is already playable on Steam Deck.

Is This Seat Taken? is expected to release later this year. Look for more information on a release date and platforms during a future Wholesome Direct. For now, look for it to release on PC.

This preview is based on a Steam Demo played on a Steam Deck during a private meeting at GDC 2025.

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2025-03-18 22:37