Unpacking

So I finally unpacked the last box in the house and watched the credits roll. Unpacking lets you follow an anonymous girl, reaching adulthood and moving between homes as the time passes. It's a simple game of clicking with the mouse on objects, rotating them with the right mouse button, and placing them on suitable places throughout the room(s) of your new home. It starts off with a single room and it gradually becomes more difficult. Unpacking isn't exactly a challenging game but the pixel art can sometimes make it a tad difficult to precisely tell what certain objects are (is it a toy? a porcelain figure? A refrigerator magnet?) and it kinda requires the player to have certain culture references. If you haven't, for example, ever celebrated channukah, you might not pick up on the fact that a certain box are matches for the Channukah menorah candelabrum and personally I got confused a by a huge cylinder-shaped can which I can only assume is some sort of hair spray canister somewhere in the world. Placing things in their right place and watch an empty house/apartment turn into a full fledged home is satisfying while the music is very enjoyable and mood filling. My only real gripe with Unpacking is that the OST is missing from GOG. It really ought to be put here as it is an integral part of the experience.

I enjoyed my time with the game. With the detail pixle art, it's chill music in the background and the fun of unpacking & stacking objects in the right plases was enjoyable. I was also supprised the story telling of the game was the objects itself I was unpacking. What type books this person likes and what hobbies the person likes. All the objects created a picture of the person's personality, which I find it quite creative by the developer. The game isn't that long. You can finish the game in a day, which might leave you wanting more rooms to unpack. However if you are already intrested in the game just by watching the trailer, I would say get it. Dosen't take up a lot of your time and it's quite a cute game.

I played it on gamepass- the art style ist intriguing just as the music. At the end there is even a real song. I have to admit that when this game started up with the year 1997- I became really sentimental as that was a good time for me, also with my own room. Basically, it's a puzzle game where you pull your stuff out of boxes and arrange them in your new rooms/appartement. Of course they have to follow a certain order- like you can't place forks in your bedroom or a computer in your bathroom (though I'd like to!). It's really relaxing and as said the art stlye is just beautiful and as you progress you grow up, things change while at college or later work. You get into relationships...or...break up, or get a baby. At the end this game is wonderful- only thing is- it's short. I was about to buy it as I enjoyed it too much but the price is too steep for such a short game. However, if you end up buying it you MOST likely won't be disappointed at all. Also, note, you play a girl. While I usually don't mind and am immersed in all games with female characters, this game has a big emotional part as you basically follow yourself growing up. So, you probably would like to see this game from the "you" perspective. But as a grown man I couldn't immerse myself while arrange bras, make up or teddy bears :) At the end, it's a very lovely game anyways. I don't know if there is any other game resembling it. It's unique, cute and beautiful.

I did not recognize that a story was being told until the boyfriend level and the inability to place a certain item anywhere, at which point it clicked. The next level I didn't recognize the actual room until it was completed and I got the scrapbook text, at which point I realized the game was actually intensely clever in how it constructed the narrative. The end caught me by surprise because it came too quickly, there was still plenty of potential in the story being told; I went back and replayed the levels a bit to get the last bit of information out of them through the stickers, but after that it's over; this felt more like reading a short tale than playing a game. As a game in isolation it doesn't deserve this high a score, but it gets major bonus points for using that limited gameplay in an unexpected way to feed a story and tons of background information to the player.

A pleasantly soothing game, that I'd love to see expanded into something larger. You start as a child moving into a bedroom of childish things, once complete you time-jump a few years to the next move and unpack there, through a few relationships and so on. The final move is to a house with a nursery. It's rather sweet as some objects are carried through the successive moves, other's left behind or acquired, and hints at the story of the person whose boxes are being unpacked. But it only covers a small slice of time - travelling into the future or starting further in the past would have made for a more interesting story. Or collection of stories; with this version there is really only one, as replay is almost identical, with only some slight variations in objects and décor.