There are constraints: certain items belong in certain rooms, but 99% of the time, it’s common sense where things are meant to go. (Which is lethal for my ADHD-adjacent brain, because I will get sidetracked and start unpacking the bathroom boxes instead of hopping back into the kitchen… never mind.) And our protagonist notoriously packs the toilet paper with the kitchen sink, so good luck. As the game goes on, these levels get more complex - literally, because at the end you are no longer consigned to one floor, much less one room. Unpacking is a short game: it takes about three to four hours to complete, with eight chapters in total. Realising dreams that began all the way back in our childhood bedroom. But it’s not only the knickknacks: it’s the tools and the paths we choose, too. Unpacking is a game about joy, about growing up and finding oneself, a story told entirely through the memories and souvenirs we pick up along the way. ![]() The dorm room, the house-share, the moving in with a partner for the first time… The stark contrast in narrative especially when it comes to sharing space works so well and tells such a huge story. This includes not only the items in the moving boxes, but the space itself: is it a blank slate, or are we moving in with someone? Do we feel welcome there, or is the environment telling us - telling the protagonist - that this isn’t going to work. The game uses everything at its disposal to tell its story. And hopefully, the viewers will see and recognise it.īut there’s moments of frustration, too: lingering on a difficult decision because it either meant compromising the protagonist’s identity, or simply not wanting to… well, I don’t want to spoil it. So I just rapidly picked them up and put them down a few times, making them jump up and down - for joy, same as my heart was. Or, well, I could have turned on the mic, but I didn’t want to. When I first found the rainbow socks in the protagonist’s moving boxes, I couldn’t say anything. This playthrough is not about me - but sometimes, it was about those sparking moments of queer joy. I was happy to be absent for this, in order not to take attention away from the story and its characters. So as I was playing this game for an audience but essentially without one, there were actually only a few moments where I wanted to make my presence known. ![]() When you’re playing it for an audience and you, the player-streamer are absent, there is a meta layer to the gameplay, but as the game itself, that layer functions entirely without words. I decided that there would be no face cam, no commentary, just the gameplay, so it might serve as a walkthrough as well as a little movie of sorts. That meant deciding how much or, indeed, how little of me was supposed to be present. With an excellent zen-like soundtrack and sound design, Unpacking is worth a look inside the box.As I played this game through to the end for the first time this month, I also played it for review - the entirety of my playthrough is up on YouTube (see video below), and I also wanted to write about my experience of it for Rainbow Bookshelf. But it is how it tells this story that deserves the biggest mention through almost no words at all you understand what is unfolding in front of you. The ebbs and flows of the story will make you want to see it through to the end, even when the lines between unpacking items and Unpacking (the game) start to blur. Unpacking is a very original title, and one that is a lot more than virtually unpacking boxes. ![]() And things do start to get tiresome, almost like you are unpacking in real life. Unpacking is flexible enough to give you some leeway over item placement, but you won’t get the gold star if things aren’t in the room they should be. The message this section is portraying can be grasped very quickly but to complete levels you must have everything unpacked and in some cohesive place. One section will have you revealing clothes and their hangers for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, towards the end of the game, things do start to get a bit monotonous.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |