Most games about tidying things up present players with all the items, and the objective is to sort them into the right locations. Fofumia does things a little differently. Lumia is a one-eyed cat that has never seen the cat equivalent of Caesar, the Dog Whisperer. It’s scatty, and for most of the game, each level kicks off with Luno, or one of their one-eyed friends, destroying the level by mixing everything up. Fofumia tasks players with finding all the objects out of place like a hidden object game first, before moving them into the tidy-up phase for each object. You can do this per item, or simply by dumping everything in the centre of the level; the choice is yours.
There is no stress to playing Fofumia, which when said aloud, reminds me of FOMO, or fear of missing out. There are no time limits in the game. Players need to find all the items and place them in their rightful home, and each item has a shadow outline for where that might be. The game loves to use tiny objects like bottles, mugs, dishes, a banana, or a box, rather than a mixture of big pieces. Thankfully, if you have to find four bottles, the game will accept you placing them in any of their four slots.
This penchant for using the smaller objects does occasionally cause a few minor issues when items roll or bounce around behind other objects in the level, as it obscures them from the player’s view. Why does this happen? Well, Luno doesn’t just cause the initial drama; it runs around feral. If Luno hits an unanchored object, it’ll go flying. Whilst this could be annoying, often it’s helpful to identify something you haven’t got to yet. Luno will also pick up smaller objects and play with them, like balls or pencils. I liked that Luno wasn’t just a story mechanic. When something does get obscured from view, or you just get stuck, there is a radar aid players can use. It emits a pulse from your cursor, turning any hidden object bright red. I used this a couple of times to help spot a few objects that’d rolled out of view. You can also pester Luno by clicking them, and they’ll often run towards an object and knock it around again.
Not all objects are equal, as some create short, casual mini-puzzles. These are often jigsaws or lining up things in colour order. They are very rarely challenging, as there is often enough of a clue to solve them before you begin. What frustrated me were the controls for these games, specifically if you play with a controller. For these games, the right analogue stick is used to move the cursor at a painfully slow speed. It cannot be remapped, and there is no let-go button or undo feature for the jigsaws. This means if you want to put something down, you have to drag it out of the playing area, repress pick up, and slowly pick up what you want and limp back to the playing area. Use a mouse if you can. There are also cleaning minigames that do not care where you waggle your mouse or stick in relation to what is dirty. They feel pointless and unsatisfying to complete.
I enjoyed playing Fofumia for what it provides, and there is nothing wrong with the title. I was a bit surprised to reach the end of it within three hours. Despite each level being crammed with items, you only need to sort around 20-40 items per level for most of the game. I think with all the great artwork, there could have been room for more carnage and sorting to beef the levels out a little. I’ve also replayed levels, and the same items are reused, so that limits immediate replayability. I’d leave long gaps between playthroughs to forget where things go!
Fofumia is gentle, cosy, and well-made. Whilst it may be a little short and simplistic for some, it definitely scratches the relaxed, stress-free tidy-up itch. If I owned Luno in real life, however, we’d be going to cat training lessons yesterday!
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