Room Setup Therapy - Unpacking (Game Review)

It's interesting how games have expanded upon so many areas. You can play a furniture simulator, but the thing you start to notice that some of the developers levels have stories behind them. This game isn't too subtle about that but you can tell there's quite a lot to "unpack".

Unpacking is a zen type puzzle game where you spend majority of the game, just taking out everything from the box from books, game consoles, coloring pen set, laptop, toothbrush, etc. Then placing them in various places of the house. All for a pretty respective girl for whom you unpack from childhood to university to well, adult life. While you unpack her stuff, you sift through and uncover hints about her who she is and what she is going through.

It's a short run of a game, but this is one of those therapeutic experiences with a bit of brain-teaser where you're sorting out inventory in the house, while it does seem like passive fun, doing chores with a sweet music track in the background, there are times I've stumbled and kind of lost interesting in continuing to play even.

Life isn't sunshine and rainbows, you come out of your nest and fly away into the world. Trying to figure who you'll want to be or be able to chase your dreams in the urban jungle. The game starts off with a no-name female character, who likes video games, lots of reading, enjoys, and occasionally be a toy collector. There are obvious given later in the game that she seems to have studied law and is into litigation and video games. Could be both of them in the mix for her occupation, but that isn't exactly cleared up.

Doing menial tasks can oftentimes take your attention away from the important parts of the game, the storytelling. The game doesn't have any protagonist telling you what's going on, nor giving you full hints to help contextualize what's going on while you're busy putting everything in their place.

Unpacking is kind of like What Remains of Edith Finch, except without the voice-over narration and allowing you to look into the life of a woman who kind of moves around to lots of different houses. It's like watching the film Boyhood from an isometric perspective but it's more like Girlhood instead.

Of course, people who have no clue about what people use and buy from US will not be able to play this and fully comprehend what's going on. It'll just seem like a menial task game where you experience the short-lived joy of moving items around furniture.

Though even with the polygonal art style, there's enough discernable information provided for the players to understand what's is happening. Each level you complete leaves an album photo with added subtitles. It's just one text per photo, but with every item you see around the house, you start putting all the pieces together.

There's a lot to do when it comes to unpacking stuff, for some people, their attention, like me, won't last long doing these menial tasks. And that is fine, you can take short breaks before going back to finish it. The game has an autosave feature where you leave the game whenever you want and continue from where you left off.

For me, this was somewhat of an easy game to play, because I mostly know where all this stuff is supposed to go. That's thanks to my years of playing Sims games, lol. But yeah, the game doesn't allow to put everything where you want. Putting the items in their right spots serve their purpose. Not that you have to put each item on an exact pinpoint. Just around the suggestive areas the game would tell you.

Though the problem is, at times some items you just don't know where to put them. So you're randomly placing them till the game tells you the level is completed. They have no texts to identify what they fully are. Which is ok for the most part, but there's no hint option, so you're kind of stuck. Till you've got it right.

As you finish each level, around to the extent of the character's life right now in current time, you unravel what happened through these years. What kind of boyfriend she was with, whether she found Mr. Right or not, going back to her old home or having children and moving into a bigger apartment.

The most neat part of the game is the ability to fast forward what you did on the level till the moment you've paused. This one showcases in quick fashion the work you did. Kind of nice, makes you want to reap the benefits of all that menial work.

Unpacking isn't going to change your life nor your perspective on things entirely. But the game provides a serviceable gaming experience with a real story behind it.

The game took me around 3hrs to finish, it's a pretty short game. But one that allows you to explore and fix something you have changed your mind about. Fun, colorful short game. Though not worth the 20 USD it's asking for.