Assemble with Care Review

Don’t worry, I’ll fixed this right up

I’ve been looking at Assemble with Care for a while, with it having you obviously assembling different items throughout the game. I finally got around to getting it, so how did it turn out?

I actually did not expect Assemble with Care to have a story attached. Okay, it says on the store page, but you know me, sometimes I pick games just on the art style. You play as Maria who is an antique restorer (though can branch out if needed) that travels the world as she wants to help everyone rather than those only in her town. She has just arrived at a new town called Bellariva where she’ll stay for a couple days and make money to be able to afford some more food and her next trip. Luckily for her, there are a couple people that needs help fixing their items and you came just at the right time to attend their annual festival. And hey, you might actually help your clients with their personal relationships at the same time.

There are thirteen levels (with an extra bonus one), though two of them are just unpacking/packing up Maria’s suitcase. Each level starts and ends with some story, introducing you to Maria, her thoughts on Bellariva and its citizens, and any clients that come your way. You’ll not only learn what you’ll be fixing, but also some aspect of their lives that you end up helping them in one way or another. In between is what the “Assemble with Care” title refers to, fixing their broken items.

Once Maria learns and is given what her client wants repaired, you’ll be able to fix it. They will generally tell you what’s wrong with it, but you’ll need to figure out exactly isn’t working correctly. Like pressing a button and finding out the sound isn’t coming out correctly. This will bring you to figuring out how to disassemble it to get to that part and then fixing it. You might just have to replace some wires, or a whole mechanism could be broken, and maybe you need some super glue. It all depends on the item. And as you’re doing this, Maria can offer a little tip (like if something is missing or what’s wrong with it) and your client might chime in (yes sir this will fit back in, let me do my work). Most of the items are pretty easy to fix and assemble back, but there are two or three that are pretty tricky and seem fixed but not yet.

Though, I did find myself annoyed at the controls every so often. This was released first on Apple Arcade and it shows with how you interact with the items. I did have a couple instances where I picked up a piece that I didn’t mean to (with the bonus level having me grab something on the other side of where I was trying to wire stuff) and multiple instances throughout where I either rotated the item when I meant to pick something else up or picking something up when I meant to rotate the currently selected item due to the rotate option popping up when around the outside of the item (which can either be close to it or be far away). This isn’t something that is a deal breaker, but it is annoying.

Verdict

Before I ended up buying and playing Assemble with Care, I only thought it would be a couple levels where you assemble some items; only to be pleasantly surprised that there is a story attached here and it wasn’t just about assembling items but fixing them so they can work again. I quite liked Assemble with Care, I liked the story where you helped some of the people at Bellariva and for the most part fixing the items you’re tasked to fixing was pretty nice. You can definitely tell this was made for mobile, as the controls here can and will cause some annoyances on PC, but I still liked that aspect. If you’ve been thinking about getting this game, you can’t go wrong. Though you might end up wishing there were more levels for you to do.

And honestly, I would totally buy a game where you just figure out what’s wrong with an item, disassemble it, figure out how to fix it, and assemble it again.