UnpackingShoot-em-up zombie massacre not for you? Try this meditative game about organising possessions
The process of packing and then unpacking your life every time you move home can’t fail to trigger moments of reflection. A long-forgotten item having the power to rewind time, resurrecting a younger version of you that still thought that travel guidebook would transform you into a globetrotter, or that CD would become the soundtrack to the first dance with a wife that never was, or that photograph of you and Archie enjoying walkies on the beach would be recreated every summer – oblivious to the fact that Archie was not immortal. Inevitably, that beach feels much colder and emptier now, without Archie…
Unpacking, by Australian developer Witch Beam, is a game that asks you to travel across the lifetime of its protagonist and populate a series of new homes on moving-in day. You delve into boxes then find the right place or, sometimes, any place, to put each freshly unpacked item. A puzzle game, of sorts, but like a growing number of titles, the sole aim is not to conquer Unpacking, but to experience it and the story that gets told through possessions and spaces.
There are no time limits, or opponents trying to hamper your progress. Certain objects must go in specific rooms, or even specific locations. Other objects can go wherever you please. You already know most of the rules, after all, you’re surrounded by stuff, and you have a good idea of which room it should go in. Only the kinky would attempt to store a potato masher in the bedroom.
While this could easily have been a game with traditional feedback loops – using high scores and achievements to force you to play quicker, more accurately, or more aggressively – it takes a more meditative, laid-back approach. You control the pace.
And like your own moments of reflection on moving-in day, there are occasions when the re-emergence of an item, or its absence, gently exposes a narrative. The environment, not just the space but the other inhabitants and all their belongings, subtly suggesting subplots and directions of travel. Showing, not telling.
Although completing levels is intensely satisfying, it is your observation and empathy towards the ever changing spaces that will be rewarded most, not with a high score, but with the same warmth and quiet bubble of contemplation as finishing a good book.
Unpacking is available for:
Windows / Mac / Linux; Nintendo Switch; Xbox One.
£15.49 (for PC)
Words by Andy Crawshaw – Andy is a games industry veteran with credits on multiple award-winning titles.
First published in Issue 1 of BOTHER magazine May 2024