How this guide is built: A Little to the Left has 100+ levels, many with two or three different solutions, object colours and placements that shuffle between playthroughs, and a Daily Tidy that is generated fresh for every player. A flat “here’s the answer to all 100 levels” list is therefore partly wrong for your save (your colours won’t match a screenshot) and totally useless for the Daily, which has no fixed answer. So this guide teaches the system instead: the handful of organising principles the game reuses everywhere, how the star / multiple-solution scoring works, the hint-and-skip decision that quietly gates two achievements, a chapter-by-chapter orientation with worked answers only for the genuinely fixed tricky levels, both DLCs, the Daily Tidy, and a missable-achievement checklist. Facts are cross-checked across the official Steam page (app 1629520) and several community Steam guides. (One requested source set — the TrueAchievements walkthrough pages — was Cloudflare-blocked and could not be fetched; nothing here depends on it.)
What is A Little to the Left?
A Little to the Left is a $14.99 cozy puzzle game from developer Max Inferno, published by Secret Mode and released on 8 November 2022. You sort, stack, straighten and organise everyday household clutter into arrangements that feel right — while a mischievous cat tries to undo your work. There’s no timer, no fail state, and no wrong way to relax with it: the official pitch is “100+ satisfying messes to tidy.”
The base campaign is 5 chapters, 77 levels:
- Chapter 1 — Home Sweet Home (Levels 1–20)
- Chapter 2 — The Lost Recipe (Levels 21–36)
- Chapter 3 — Nitty Gritty (Levels 37–52)
- Chapter 4 — Inner Nature (Levels 53–67)
- Chapter 5 — Near Earth Organizer (Levels 68–77, ending in a big multi-part finale)
Two paid expansions — Cupboards & Drawers and Seeing Stars — add 29 and 37 more levels, and there’s a stack of free seasonal packs tucked into the in-game Archive. We’ll cover all of it.
Why this guide doesn’t list “the answer to all 100 levels”
It’s tempting to want a numbered list of every solution. But A Little to the Left actively resists that format, in three ways:
- Levels have multiple solutions. A single screen can often be tidied two or three valid ways, and each one earns a separate star. A “the answer is X” list hides the other stars you need for 100%.
- The objects shuffle. Many levels randomise which colour or item lands where, so a screenshot of someone else’s solve won’t match your board — only the underlying rule transfers.
- The Daily Tidy has no fixed answer at all. It’s procedurally generated; everyone gets the same category that day but a different puzzle. No spot-list can ever solve your Daily.
What does transfer is the small set of organising principles the game reuses across every chapter, every DLC and every Daily. Learn to recognise which principle a screen is asking for, and you can tidy anything the game throws at you — including puzzles that don’t exist yet. That recognition is the real skill, so that’s what we’ll build first.
How the game scores you: stars, the “ding,” and the cat
Three mechanics shape everything else:
- Stars = solutions. Each level is worth 1, 2, or 3 stars, one per distinct valid solution. For the “complete the chapter” and “finish the campaign” achievements you only need one star per level (any single solve). For 100% completion — and the Tidy Triumph achievement — you need every star, which means finding all the alternate solutions. If a level feels “done” but the star count says 2 or 3, there’s another way to arrange it.
- Reverse order always counts. Any ordering solution works backwards too — “tallest to shortest” and “shortest to tallest” are both correct. Don’t second-guess a clean gradient just because it runs the other way.
- Listen for the ding. Correct placement gives a soft confirmation sound. Placement can be fussy — if you’re certain an object is right but it won’t register, nudge it a hair until it clicks. Some levels don’t ding; on those, keep micro-adjusting until the level completes.
- The cat. A recurring gremlin that swats your work around. It’s harmless to your progress — just fix what it knocks over — but it’s tied to two achievements (see the checklist near the end).
One accessibility note: the game has a Colour Assist option that adds shape markers to colour-based puzzles. If the rainbow-gradient and colour-sorting levels are hard to read, turn it on — it makes those solves much clearer.
The “tidying grammar”: the 10 principles behind every level
Here’s the heart of the guide. Almost every puzzle in the game — base, DLC, or Daily — is one of these ten organising principles. When a new screen appears, your first job isn’t to start dragging; it’s to ask “which principle is this?”
1. Order / gradient — sort by a single attribute
Line items up along one varying property: size or area, height, length, colour (rainbow), light to dark, dull to sharp, full to empty, or least-to-most of some counted feature (holes, sides, ridges, stripes, tarnish). The trick is identifying which attribute varies cleanly across the set — that’s the one the level wants. Examples: Chapter 1’s pencils sorted light-to-dark, books sorted tall-to-short, papers stacked large-to-small area.
2. Symmetry — mirror around a centre line
Make the two halves of the screen match. The reliable method: if you see lots of items where several have duplicates, it’s a symmetry level. Put the items with no duplicate on the centre line first, then mirror the matching pairs outward from there. Some symmetry levels instead ask you to pluck leaves off a plant until it’s balanced, or simply to “create any symmetric pattern” — in which case any genuinely mirrored arrangement works.
3. Tessellation — “fit perfectly” with no gaps
Pack everything into the space so nothing overlaps and no gaps remain — like a jigsaw with no picture. These are the toolbox, kitchenware, drawer and cabinet levels. Strategy: place the biggest, most awkwardly-shaped pieces first (corners and edges especially), then slot the small filler items into what’s left. If labels or images are printed across items, they usually need to line up too.
4. Pattern / image continuity — make it flow across objects
Arrange pieces so a drawing, line, label or image runs unbroken across all of them. The scribbled sticky notes, the postcard whose water connects card-to-card, book spines whose stripes align, bread ties that interlock like puzzle pieces — all the same idea. Look for the broken edge of the pattern and rotate/reposition until it continues seamlessly.
5. Alignment by rotation — “spin”
The objects are already in place; you just rotate each one until a feature lines up across the set. Soup cans spun so the tomato (or the whole label) reads across them, bowls spun so the cracks align, paint cans spun so the drips connect, snowglobes spun so the snowmen face front. When a level gives you turnable objects and a feature that could form a line, this is it.
6. Categorisation — sort into groups
Split a jumble into buckets by a shared property: colour, purpose, material, type, or shape — often into rows or columns. Buttons by colour or by number of centre holes; objects by colour or by purpose (gardening, sports, shoes, tech); items by material into the right drawers. The alternate grouping is usually a second star.
7. Matching / correspondence — each item to its own spot
Place every item onto the specific spot, shape or partner that belongs to it: pen caps onto their matching pens, flowers onto their outlines (some outlines are two flowers combined — watch for those), keys into the locks they fit, objects into their labelled compartments. When the board shows clear “slots,” you’re matching.
8. Restoration / assembly — rebuild from pieces
Reassemble a broken object from the fragments along the bottom of the screen — a vase, eggs, cookies, fossils. A useful quirk: on many of these the pieces only lock into place once the whole thing is correctly assembled, so don’t expect early confirmation — build the full shape and it’ll snap together.
9. State change — act on objects until they reach a target
Instead of moving things, you change their state: polish or tarnish coins, clean paw prints and spills (lift rugs and papers to clean underneath), melt or grow candles, clean a vase and lift the flowers until they bloom. The level usually shows the target state; work each object toward it.
10. Sequence / reference — tell a story or copy a model
Arrange items to narrate something (fridge photos telling a story) or to match a shown reference (laptop icons that must mirror the real room, or items arranged exactly as they appear in a mirror). When the puzzle hands you a “source of truth” image, copy it precisely.
That’s the whole grammar. From here on, most levels are just “spot the principle, then execute.” The rest of this guide covers the meta-systems and the handful of levels that need a specific answer.
Hints, “Let It Be,” and the clean-playthrough decision
This is the one piece of planning that’s easy to get wrong — and you can’t fix it later without a reset.
- Hint: press ESC in a level and choose Hint. You get a book covered in scribble and an eraser; rub away as much as you like to reveal the solution. (Revealing hints unlocks Helpful Hints, fully erasing one unlocks One Clean Page, and revealing hints on 10 levels unlocks Hint Hunter — erase until the little eye icon appears for it to count.)
- Let It Be: ESC → Let It Be skips the current level entirely (unlocks Let it Be; skip 10 for What Is What Will Be).
The catch: two achievements — No Squint Hint (finish the campaign without a single hint) and No Mess Left Behind (finish without skipping any level) — require a clean playthrough. If you’ve already used a hint or a skip (or already finished the game), you have to reset your level progress in Settings to earn them. So decide before you start: if you want those two, play your first run with zero hints and zero skips. (“Finish the campaign” here means chapters 1–5 only; the DLC isn’t required.)
Chapter-by-chapter orientation
Rather than dump every solution, here’s what each chapter introduces and where to slow down. For all the “just apply the grammar” levels, the section above is your answer key. The few genuinely fixed/tricky levels get spelled out.
Chapter 1 — Home Sweet Home (1–20)
The teaching chapter. You meet straightening (Level 1’s crooked picture), tessellation (the toys, the desktop), ordering (pencils, books, papers), pattern continuity (the sticky-note scribbles) and your first multi-solution levels (Level 16 pencils has three stars; Level 13 and 18 books have two). The cat first appears at Level 9. The one fixed puzzle is the finale:
- Level 20 (record player): turn the dials until the light above them comes on, then drag the tonearm onto the one song with no scratches (the only clean groove).
Chapter 2 — The Lost Recipe (21–36)
The kitchen chapter leans hard on rotation/“spin” (soup cans, bowls, the fruit stickers) and adds story/symmetry (the symmetric plate, the fridge photos telling a story). Watch for:
- Level 30 (glasses): spin each glass so its image lines up with the identical one behind it — a small bird, a large bird, and a fisherman.
- Level 31 (table setting): the cat keeps messing with it; just keep fixing it. (This is also where Keep Away lives — see the checklist.)
Chapter 3 — Nitty Gritty (37–52)
The garage/utility chapter is the home of tessellation — toolboxes, kitchenware, light bulbs, the cabinet (click the Q-Tip jar lid to open it). It also has rich multi-solution levels (Level 39 items three ways; Level 45 keys three ways, including arranging them so their ends read as the numbers 1–7) and your first state-change level (Level 49’s coins: polish them, tarnish them, or order them by tarnish). Level 42’s crayons are where you grab Draw Me a Rainbow.
Chapter 4 — Inner Nature (53–67)
The nature chapter introduces restoration (Level 53’s vase), heavy symmetry (plucking leaves until a plant is balanced; several “create any symmetric pattern” levels), and gradient/puzzle-piece work with leaves, gems and rocks. Standouts:
- Level 54 (clean-up): wipe the paw prints and coffee, and move the papers / lift the rug to clean underneath. (Doing the full job — coffee stain plus dragging the broken leaves off-screen — earns Path of Destruction.)
- Level 66 (snowflakes): drag and zoom (use the outer ring to zoom) to align each snowflake with its pieces — three times.
- Level 67 (spider web): place each fly opposite the already-caught fly of the same colour; the gold fly goes in the centre.
Chapter 5 — Near Earth Organizer (68–77)
The finale chapter is the most “designed” — several levels are bespoke set-pieces rather than grammar puzzles, so here are the fixed ones:
- Level 68 (falling-ball paintings): follow the in-game hint to set the five leftmost paintings, then tilt the upper-right painting left so the ball drops into the “garage,” tilt that one left so it becomes a doughnut in the next frame, then tilt the garage painting right and the doughnut painting right.
- Level 72 (laptop): make the icons on the screen match the real room — the clock time, the pencil order, the globe and apple rotation — then use them to organise the environment. When the cat walks across the keyboard and errors the PC, just close the pop-ups.
- Level 73 (matchbox colour-mixing): make one match of every colour and drop each into the centre box to build a white match, then pick it up to light it. Recipes — Red: given; Blue: a red match in the purple box; Purple: a red match in the blue box; Yellow: a red match in the orange box; Orange: a red match in the yellow box, then the red box; Green: a yellow match in the blue box.
- Level 74 (candles): use the matches to even the candles out (black match melts wax down, white match grows it; click a flame to snuff it). The second star orders them tallest-to-shortest wax.
- Level 75 (mirror): arrange the items to match the reflection, open the box using the clasp shown in the mirror on the back of the box, and click the flame to extinguish it.
- Level 76 (lightshade): use the lamp to illuminate the electronics and turn on lights in a heart shape, then return the lamp to its starting position.
Level 77 — the finale gauntlet
The last “level” is actually a fast string of around eighteen mini-puzzles that all count as one — pet the cat, spin pencils, sort cans, flip a knut, click ladybugs least-to-most spots, and so on. They come quickly, but there is no time limit and level-select lets you jump back to checkpoints, so don’t panic. It ends with the tupperware tower: you progress by stacking tubs so that each new row the cat jumps onto is a single lid colour; pre-filled tubs appear, and you keep going until the cat reaches the top. Three finale achievements live here — Harmonized Purr (pet the cat flawlessly, always at the first matching pulse), Unstable Stacker (finish the tower using every available spot), and Rainbow to the Moon (continue the tower in its starting colour sequence; your three rows’ order is random, and you can ignore the autofilled tub colours).
The DLC
Cupboards & Drawers (29 levels)
This expansion adds a spatial twist: many puzzles hide pieces inside drawers and cupboards, and sometimes underneath them. Two habits solve most of it:
- If you’re missing an item, close the drawer and check underneath — pieces hide below.
- Look for second compartments. Some levels have more than one drawer accessed by hovering your cursor at the top or bottom edge of the screen (Level 9 has a green drawer at the bottom and a pink one at the top). Level 28’s drawers are reached by hovering toward the top.
Most levels are tessellation (“fit perfectly,” with labels lining up), plus a few “pet the cat” breathers. The big set-pieces are Level 23 (a seven-step sequence: rings by vertices, clock hands forming an owl, a jewel pattern, gold pieces, the locket, owl tokens each facing the way its drawer opens, then hair combs) and Level 29 (four keyholes in turn: arrange the room, then vehicles by colour, then the farm). Note: the community reports the C&D achievements as somewhat buggy — if one doesn’t pop, a retry or replay usually fixes it.
Seeing Stars (37 levels)
Seeing Stars is the multi-solution expansion — its levels are packed with alternate solves, and that’s mechanically important: the five bonus levels (33–37) only unlock once you’ve accumulated enough stars from the earlier levels. In other words, you have to find the alternate solutions, not just clear each level once, to reach the finale (and the Nine Lives achievement). The boss-style Level 32 must have every solution completed in a single attempt to count for 100% (retries are allowed): it interleaves three gemstone designs with compass, key and multi-tool puzzles. Otherwise, apply the grammar — these levels are some of the best showcases of ordering, categorising and matching in the whole game.
Daily Tidy: the puzzle that proves the point
The Daily Tidy delivers one fresh puzzle a day. Crucially, everyone gets the same category but a different generated puzzle — so there is no shareable “answer.” This is exactly why learning the grammar pays off: a Daily is just one of the familiar categories with new contents.
The recurring categories map straight onto the ten principles: basic symmetry (the crab-claw symbol), books, the buttons/sorting box, calendar, clock, jars, pencils, plant symmetry, the snowflake microscope, stamps, star constellations, sticky notes, bread ties, batteries, and the spider-web one. Two tips that solve most Dailies:
- Reverse order counts here too — if a sort looks right but “backwards,” it’s still valid.
- Play the campaign first. The Dailies reuse the exact logic of the main levels, so a full playthrough is the best Daily training you can get.
There are achievements for completing 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 50 and 75 Dailies (plus all badges), and for streaks of 7, 14 and 30 in a row. The streaks used to be stressful, but the 26 June 2025 update lets you skip one day and keep your streak, and added a longest/current streak counter — so if a Daily stumps you, skip it and continue tomorrow without losing the run. Replaying old levels also counts toward the “tidy 100/250/500/1000 items” totals.
Free seasonal packs (in the Archive)
Several packs that began as timed events now live permanently in the in-game Archive, free for everyone: Something Egg-stra (Easter, including a little egg-hunt level), Good Tidy-ings (winter cookies, garland and ornaments), Snack Pack and Drawer Chores (from the Deep Clean update), Trick or Tidy (Halloween bats, jack-o-lanterns and candy), and Merry Mess (Christmas candy-canes, crackers, snowglobes and nutcrackers). None carry achievements — they’re pure bonus tidying, and great grammar practice.
Missable & specific achievements checklist
Most achievements come naturally from completing chapters and racking up tidies. These are the ones tied to a specific action in a specific level — worth knowing in advance so you don’t have to replay.
Base game:
- Fun for Humans Too — Ch1 L2: shake the caged ball-in-a-ball toy for about 15 seconds.
- Bad Kitty — click the cat’s paw while it interferes (first chance Ch1 L9; easiest in Ch2 L11).
- Sweep Them on the Floor — drag the pencil shavings off-screen in Ch1 L19 (or the crumbs in Ch2 L27).
- Exacting Eggs — Ch2 L26: solve the checkered eggs in the fewest possible moves.
- Keep Away — Ch2 L31: after the unavoidable first grab, move the placemat and tableware out of reach so the cat can’t disrupt the rest.
- Draw Me a Rainbow — Ch3 L42: place the crayons in rainbow order.
- Path of Destruction — Ch4 L54: clean the coffee stain and drag the broken leaves off-screen.
- Harmonized Purr / Unstable Stacker / Rainbow to the Moon — the finale (see Level 77 above).
- Be the Chaos — during the credits, click every name (first or last) and job title.
- No Squint Hint / No Mess Left Behind — clean playthrough only (no hints / no skips); reset progress if needed.
Cupboards & Drawers: Where is My Cap? (L3 — every cap on the wrong pen with no straight swaps; easiest by ordering the pens, then putting each cap on the pen to its left), A Balanced Meal (L7 — stack all items; fiddly, keep retrying), Can Do Altitude (L12 — stack every can), In No Rush (L13 — wait ~30 seconds before petting the cat), Now You’re Playing with Power (L17 — turn on the GameBoy), Show Off (L26 — line up all the trophies).
Seeing Stars: I’ll Take My Water Neat (L10 — remove all the ice), Top Heavy Slice (L11 — all toppings on one slice), Sticky Wand (L22 — stick all four pieces of gum on the lollipop), Whatcha Lookin’ At? (L24 — sort the minis by the direction they face), Grabbed the Wrong End (L27 — extend the blade and click the sharp edge), Keeping Count (L28 — read the hidden number off the golden whistle and set the counter to it), Dead End Boss Gems (L32 — arrange the gems so each white corner meets in the centre).
Common beginner mistakes
- Stopping at one solution. If the star count is 2 or 3, there’s another valid arrangement — and free stars toward 100%.
- Forgetting reverse order is valid. Your “wrong” gradient might already be a correct solve, just backwards.
- Giving up on picky placement. If you’re sure it’s right, nudge it a hair and listen for the ding instead of rearranging everything.
- Spending a hint or skip on run #1 and quietly forfeiting No Squint Hint and No Mess Left Behind.
- In the DLC, not opening or checking under drawers — missing pieces are almost always hidden in or beneath a compartment.
- Struggling with colour levels when Colour Assist would add the shape markers that make them readable.
Watch a full playthrough
This guide is built to teach the skill — but if you get stuck on one of the specific fixed levels above, it helps to see it solved. This no-commentary run covers the base game, both DLCs and the achievements, so you can scrub straight to any level:
Frequently asked questions
How much is A Little to the Left and who made it?
It’s $14.99 on Steam, developed by Max Inferno and published by Secret Mode, released 8 November 2022. It’s also on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and Netflix mobile.
How many levels are there?
The base game has 77 levels across 5 chapters, with “100+” messes once you count the multiple solutions. The Cupboards & Drawers DLC adds 29 and Seeing Stars adds 37, plus free seasonal packs and an endless Daily Tidy.
What does it mean that a level has 2 or 3 stars?
Each star is a different valid solution. You only need one star per level to complete a chapter, but 100% completion (and the Tidy Triumph achievement) requires finding every solution on every level.
My solution looks right but the level won’t complete. What’s wrong?
Placement is sometimes fussy. Nudge the object slightly and listen for the ding — you’re probably a pixel off. Also remember that reverse order counts, so a backwards gradient is still correct.
Should I use hints?
Only if you don’t care about two achievements. No Squint Hint and No Mess Left Behind require finishing the campaign with no hints and no skips, on a clean save. If you want them, play your first run without either; otherwise hints (ESC → Hint → erase) are there whenever you’re stuck.
Why can’t I find a walkthrough for my Daily Tidy?
Because there isn’t one. The Daily is procedurally generated — everyone gets the same category but a different puzzle. Identify which of the ten principles the category is (symmetry, ordering, spin, etc.) and solve it from there. And if it beats you, you can now skip one day and keep your streak.
Do I need the DLC for 100% achievements?
For the base-game achievements, no — the campaign ones only need chapters 1–5. For a full 100% achievement run you need both Cupboards & Drawers and Seeing Stars, since each adds its own set.
Sources: official Steam store page and appdetails (app 1629520); community Steam guides for the full level/achievement list, the individual chapters, both DLCs, the Daily Tidy and the seasonal packs; and naguide’s level-solutions write-up as a cross-check. Screenshots are official Steam media. Gameplay video by Chocoholie. (The TrueAchievements walkthrough pages were Cloudflare-blocked and could not be retrieved; nothing here relies on them.)