I'm always on the lookout for games that offer new perspectives and new ways to play, especially ones that don't rely on constant violence as the main way to engage the player. Sure, I like the violent stuff too, but a healthy mix is a good thing to me. So I was excited to finally dig into Unpacking from indie developer Witch Beam and publisher Humble Games, a game that is about, simply, unpacking boxes.
Well, it's actually not that simple. In this game you trace one young woman's life from childhood well into to adulthood over the course of about 25 years, unpacking the boxes she brings along as she moves into new rooms, apartments, and houses. As her life expands, the things she's collected or needs for daily life changes and expands, and it's through handling these things and finding places for them in each new location that the player starts to pick up on a story.
Unpacking is full of wonderful pixel art that you see the moment the game starts up - and it fills every screen, at basically all times, right through to the end credits. Every room and item is meticulously and lovingly crafted in pure 2D pixel art delivered from a three-quarters perspective, and it really is the source of most of the charm. Combined with this is a lighthearted soundtrack that reinforces that mood, along with carefully sourced sound effects that accurately reflect the items you'll be placing as you move them around. So yes, the cup with pens and pencils it rattle around as you shake it or place it onto a desk, and the hot water bottle sloshes around as you figure out where in the bedroom the game wants you to put it.
The Challenge
Unpacking presents you with a room, or for most of the game, a set of rooms in an apartment or house and a bunch of boxes. The player will have to open the boxes, pull out one item at a time - each click presents an item from that box as kind of a surprise - and then find places for all of the items that make some kind of sense. So that means the frying pan needs to go on the stovetop, in a cabinet, or on a shelf in the kitchen - it does not belong on the couch. And if you open a box in the living room and find a toaster inside it, you'll have to move over to the kitchen to place it appropriately.
This does lead to my first real criticism for this game, which is that I found some items difficult to identify that the pixel art didn't necessarily help with on small items. Is that an egg timer or a short, round bottle? Is that a glove or a weird piece of art that goes on the wall? The developers do give you an option to zoom in, but it didn't always help for me. The items are small enough that details can't be made out, and players can't get a detailed view of the cover of a book or game, a closer look at a photo, or even get descriptions of items. It's too bad because this could have been used to optionally add a lot of interest and flavor.
What Story are we Telling here?
At one point there is an item that is obviously important to the main character, but can't be placed where you'd expect because there is simply no room to place it where it goes. This challenge and the solution that has to be found communicates subtly to the player that there's a problem happening that's bigger than the process of unpacking boxes. This was a fantastic way to do a bit of storytelling entirely without any words, and I loved that it was integrated into the game's challenge but I found there wasn't nearly enough of this, especially considering how these parts were the most memorable part of the game for me. That's a missed opportunity in my mind, and a big shame.
Following the Path
Still, it is intriguing to see at least this one person's journey through life by looking at their things, especially when one comes in as a sort of active voyeur who moves around this person's items yet doesn't actually see or meet that person. Many items move in and out of her possession throughout the time period this game covers, and that alone tells a story too. With that said, the entire game is wrapped up in a few hours and while there are some cute little achievements that are only accomplished by placing unpacked items into the environments in specific ways, there doesn't seem to be much replay value. To that end I do feel that the game is just a bit short for its normal $20 asking price and that it could have held on a while longer before it overstayed its welcome. The developers did include a photo mode, but I can't say I really enjoyed it or found it added much to the experience. Your mileage may vary, however.
Unpacking certainly has a lot going for it - it's about as charming as you can get for a game of this caliber, especially with its presentation, and it has a gameplay loop that is both freeform and puzzle-lite, covering an activity that many of us are very familiar with yet that I've never seen in a game.
8/10