Welcome to my Unpacking review. We were not given a review code for this title.
Unpacking is a wonderfully hand-drawn puzzle game released by Witch Beam, an indie game development studio, on November 2nd, 2021.
While included in the “puzzle” category, this is in my top 5 most favorite cozy games of all times: no timers, no errors, no tricks. Unpacking is one of the most relaxing and emotionally charged games I’ve played in a long time.
Starting is easy, with easy settings are really nice accessibility options, which I immediately toggled. There’s no difficulty to select, making it into the same, lovely experience for everyone involved.
This review may contain minor spoilers for gameplay and story beats, though I always try not to reveal any major plot twists or surprises.
First Impressions
Unpacking is simply gorgeous. The drawing style is simple and effective, and the colors are so calming, I wish every game was painted this way.
Without any tutorial, the game immediately throws the player into the story, by giving it a small but delightful twist: upon starting, players can select one of three colorful albums, and give their own preferred name to the main character of this story.
One thing remains the same: the player acts and unpacks as the same person, a girl, as she moves through the different stages of her life. With a very simple mechanic of clicking to pick up an object and re-clicking to position it/put it down, the game is very clear from the get-go.
The room is filled with objects from the MC’s life, and upon having unpacked every single item, the game tells the player whether or not everything is where it should be. Mind you, this doesn’t mean that every object has its specific spot in each room, instead Unpacking highlights the items that are not in the right area (players can also select which color they’d like the highlighted objects to be!). That might mean a book that was left abandoned on the floor, or that a diary should be kept in a locked drawer instead of on top of the desk.
While set up with an incredibly easy concept, the game does not give out hints or suggestions to the player, letting every person pick and choose which set up works best for them.
To give it an extra spin, however, the game has a collection of stickers, which will unlock only if an object is placed in a specific position or next to another particular item, and which can be used in photo mode to create beautiful memories.
But what happens once a room is completed? That’s where the real story begins developing. A picture of the room is taken by the game, and it is safely secured in the album the player has picked.
Characters & Story
The game begins in 1997, when players unpack three cardboard boxes and set up the room of a very young girl. Let’s call her Chloe, like me. Chloe is the main character of this game, but certainly not the only one: none of the other characters ever receives a name nor a face, letting the player decide for themselves how they want to imagine Chloe’s family, friends and partners to be.
The environmental storytelling is incredible from the very first chapter: players are immediately immersed in the life of this young girl, identifying some of her passions through the possessions that are placed around the room.
There’s plushies, there’s books, there’s action figures. Chloe, no older than 10 years old, has a few items that she will keep throughout her life, painting a beautiful portrait of loves and passions and likes and dislikes.
While no physical description is ever given, the player familiarizes themselves very quickly with who Chloe is. A very clear example comes from Chapter 2, when the game asks the player to unpack Chloe’s college dorm room. It’s 2004, and for a 90s kid like me, it was certainly a throwback having to find space for the giant computer, or having to store the gameboy Chloe has taken with her.
At this point, Chloe has grown up, with seven boxes full of possessions to unpack—but some things are hard to leave behind: players quickly unpack art supplies, video games, and a few of Chloe’s beloved stuffed animals that she had back in 1997. The love for some aspect of her life is very clear, and the more the game moves forward in her life, the easier it is to understand who this young woman is.
Chloe’s life continues on, and the player follows her through it by unpacking every room Chloe ever calls home. From her college dorm, she moved to her first apartment in 2007, with different rooms and a bathroom to be unpacked; from her dorm, she moved in with her first serious boyfriend in 2010.
The boyfriend’s home is where the game truly steps up its environmental storytelling.
It’s very clear from the moment players begin unpacking that there is nearly not enough room for Chloe to set up her life: the kitchen and the bookshelves are filled to the brim with her boyfriend’s items; the closet is not equally organized; Chloe’s diploma is forced to be stored under the bed.
The game creates a space where the player is forced to feel how stifling and crowded the apartment feels, how not-ready it seems to be for Chloe to move in. We don’t know much about him, but the feelings the game communicates are not necessarily positive.
And it’s the next chapter of the story that pushes things even further, when the player is thrown into June 2012, unpacking the very same room from Chapter 1. The main character is back living with her parents—the nostalgia, the sadness, the dejected surrender is palpable, even if the game has never shown or talked about any critical event in particular.
Everything is told through every room, and through every object that Chloe takes with her. From her love for D&D and Nintendo consoles, to her collection of travel souvenirs and chicken plushies, Chloe’s character is shaped and narrated in a beautiful and very visual way.
Chloe moves on, and with every chapter the player can witness her growth, her maturity, her accomplishments and her failures.
Her love.
I have to say, I wasn’t expecting to cry during this game. I was fully aware that this was a story with beginning, middle and end, with a very specific story that the player is simply unveiling one object at a time.
In 2015, two years after having moved Chloe to her new one-bedroom apartment, more boxes appear in the house. It’s immediately very clear that these are not Chloe’s belongings, but instead possessions of someone else moving into her space.
One of the first items is a beautiful summer dress, and it took my breath away.
As a queer kid who’s been used to drama and complaints surrounding many mainstream games that received backlash due to queer characters, this was devastatingly simple. Chloe’s new partner is a woman, or at the very least someone who presents as a woman: Chloe’s queerness is never put on a pedestal, never questioned: it simply is.
Unpacking does a phenomenal job in telling the story of a queer woman who dates and falls in love, and it is so beautifully uncomplicated that it made my heart somersault.
And while we don’t know much about the MC’s new partner, we do get glimpses of her personality: she loves Anti Hero, which is a TV-series or a video game and of which she owns a growing amount of merch. Her black and purple hat is eventually joined by shirts and pants, and one more cute item in the last chapter.
The story of course progresses. Because at this point, there’s a future to look forward to. Chloe and her partner live together for many years, and in 2018, the player is invited to unpack the last home.
The last Chapter.
A beautiful house with two bathrooms, a studio, a dining room, an entrance with souvenirs of all of Chloe’s travels, a walk-in closet and…
A nursery.
Gameplay Loop
As mentioned, the game is insanely simple. Players don’t have to think about inventory, or powers, or stats. Everything flows nicely with the simple clicking of a mouse (or a controller).
The only mechanic that the game introduces from the very first chapter is the ability to right click to rotate an object. But not every object can be rotated, and some are simply meant to stay the way they are.
Stickers are the game’s only form of achievement together with the completion of every chapter, and they are awarded for very specific positioning of items in different points of the game.
While they are marked as Hidden Achievements, many are easy to accidentally unlock.
The three different albums the player can select from at the beginning encourage the possibility of different playthroughs, where players can explore different set ups for every room. Additionally, once the game is completed, the album remains available for the player to go through, and the game makes it possible to re-unpack the favorite chapters.
There are several interesting mini-mechanics in the game: I called them mini-mechanics because they are not necessary for the game completion, but they absolutely make Unpacking a more interesting experience.
These mini-mechanics are things such as the ability to lift the pillows on the bed to hide small or flat items beneath them, the ability to stack or store books and notebooks both vertically and horizontally, or the ability to place items on top of one another and clicking the bottom one to lift them all, making it an easy transport from one room to the next.
Another mini-mechanic is the map function, which allows players to navigate each house going directly to the desired room instead of going through each area on the list.
The game takes four to five hours to complete, with a good sixth hour if players want to go hunting for all the stickers. There’s a total of 25 achievements on the Steam version, with eight of them being for completing each chapter and the remaining seventeen for interacting with the environment by placing items in specific places or using the rotate mechanic to instead play with the object: players can solve the Rubik’s cube or make the mannequin dab through this mechanic!
Technical Issues
While I played this on Steam over the course of two different afternoons, I did not find specific bugs worth of note. I also replayed the game several times to find all the stickers and to write this review, and it didn’t give me any trouble.
Settings are easy and straightforward, with everything working as it should.
The game froze once only, but a quick restart put me back to where I left off.
Unpacking automatically saves the player’s progress after each Chapter, and if the player tries to leave without having completed the level, the game will let them know that unsaved progress will be lost if they continue.
Sometimes, I doubted whether the game was bugged or not: in one instance, it wouldn’t let me hang a picture on the corkboard where all the other pictures were hanging. That was simply the game telling me that the picture simply didn’t belong there: it was a picture of Chloe and her ex boyfriend/partner, and the only way the level let me continue was after I hid said picture in a cupboard. So if you encounter an object that does the same thing, it might be a way for the game to tell you that you need to move it!
Overall, especially considering that this game has been around for a couple of years, it seems that every possible bug has been fixed.
Summary
Understandably, you might not have the need or the interest to read the full review, so here’s a few pros and cons:
Pros
- Beautifully drawn, beautifully characterized and with a story that was beautifully told
- Incredibly simple mechanics and very short to complete
- It’s queer! Woohoo!
Cons
- No instructions given at any point in the game
- Replayability is there, but for one to three replays max
- No chance to personalize the main character besides naming her
Conclusion
In conclusion, Unpacking quickly and easily climbed through the rankings of my favorite cozy games. The simplicity of it, its mastery with environmental storytelling and the beautiful art make it a highly enjoyable game that is not too hard but still fun to play and to complete.
The main character’s growth that the player can witness through the environment—and the environment alone is lovely to watch and interact with.
While a bit clunky in moving from room to room in the bigger homes, the game is straightforward, easy to access and change to the player’s liking and even easier to love. It’s one of those games that stays in your heart a bit, even after finishing it.
I would definitely recommend buying, but given the fact that it’s a 6-hour long game at max and that the developers have no intention (so far) of adding any DLC of sorts, it’s probably a good idea to wait for a sale.
While it’s not a prohibitive cost, it’s also often on sale—so add it to your wishlist and keep an eye out for a deal!
Who Unpacking is for…
- Nostalgic players who love easter eggs and call backs through objects
- Lovers of environmental storytelling with a set story that can’t be changed, only facilitated
- Fans of simple, straightforward puzzle and/or organization games
Who Unpacking is not for…
- Players who want an interesting, interactive cast of characters
- Players who feel short games are not worth the money
- Players who feel little to no attachment to physical objects in real life
Stay cozy, gamers!
Meet the Author
Chloe is an Italian-Canadian writer, voice actor and archaeologist-to-be. Currently living in the beautiful Calgary, Canada, they spend their time playing Overwatch, Mass Effect and cozy, open world games.
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