I’m deliberately trying to be vague about all this for the aforementioned reasons - but to be honest, Unpacking itself keeps things deliberately vague. The house is already a bit of a mess when you move in to the situation, so adding to the clutter with your own bits and pieces you’ve been lugging around since childhood feels just right.īut do you feel the same when you find yourself in an environment that is obviously a bit “nicer”? And, if someone else were to enter the picture, how would you feel about their stuff intermingling with your things? On top of all that, you have to ask yourself: does the meaning of two or more people’s things mixing together change as you grow up? In her university house, for example, it’s clear that no-one present has any problem whatsoever with everyone mixing all their stuff up together. This is relevant to the overarching sense of the protagonist “growing up” over the course of the narrative, too. What can we understand from the way the objects are laid out at the start of the stage? What does it mean for us to bring our own objects into that situation? And should we mix in our own objects with the things that are already there, or keep things resolutely discrete so that if, for whatever reason, we do need to move on, we can easily retrieve our own stuff without disturbing someone else’s? It’s this intermingling of objects in the later stages of Unpacking that makes it the most interesting. These moments are particularly emotionally engaging, because you have to decide how much you’re willing to “invade” the space of a setting that is clearly already established - and how much of your own sense of identity you’re willing to stamp on the place someone else (also unseen) has clearly also had their own views on how things “should” be, and the big question is who are you to decide that they’re “wrong” in some way? I’ll refrain from providing too many details for the sake of the aforementioned “spoiler embargo”, but I will say that some of the most interesting storytelling occurs once our heroine is into adulthood, since it’s at this point we find her, on several occasions and under several different distinct sets of circumstances, arriving in a situation where there are some things already in place in the property she’s moving into. It then continues onwards as she grows into young adulthood, leaves home to go to university and from there begins to define her own life. The game’s story starts in the late ’90s as the protagonist, seemingly a child at the time, gets her own room for the first time. The soundtrack by Witch Beam’s composer Jeff Van Dyck is also excellent, providing a non-obtrusive yet emotionally engaging accompaniment to the action, which at several points does a wonderful job of raising interesting questions in the player’s mind before anything has even happened on-screen! There’s also a few sly nods to Witch Beam’s previous game - the absolutely fabulous twin-stick masterpiece Assault Android Cactus - so watch out for those while you’re pulling things out of boxes. The game is presented beautifully, featuring some absolutely fantastic (and properly integer scaled) pixel art that is packed with plenty of nostalgic references. If you want complete freedom, an accessibility option in the game’s menu allows you to complete each stage by putting everything anywhere you want - though it’s worth noting that on several occasions, some key story information is subtly delivered by the “required” places you put certain items. Once you’ve unpacked everything, the game’s default settings will check where you put everything and highlight anything that is obviously out of place for the most part, though, you’re given a reasonable amount of freedom and creativity to arrange things as you see fit, and to be as tidy or as messy as you want. In each level, there are a series of cardboard boxes to open up and pull items out of one by one, and it’s your job to find an appropriate place for everything to go. Over the course of eight levels, we take on the role of a nameless, faceless female protagonist as she moves house several times. Simply put, Unpacking is a game about, as the name suggests, unpacking.
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