Let’s get one thing straight: I hate this boyfriend. In September of 2010, two apartments post-college, there is one space that marks a pivotal turn in the story of “Unpacking”: the Boyfriend Apartment. “Unpacking” emphasizes that, in a college dorm, the space is finally your own to do with as you please. From my million blankets to a worn copy of “The Lord of the Rings,” everything mattered to me just as much as the main character’s art supplies and stuffed pig seemed to matter to her. The dorm is small and the kitchen is messy, but they invoked fond memories of my freshman year at the University of Michigan, learning to divide a bedroom in half and trying to pack that half full of anything that might make the room familiar and cozy. I never moved until I went to college, so where the first level may have acted as a demo, the second level was a thrill. The next level, a college dorm in 2004, adds a kitchen to the equation and is, for me, when the familiarity really begins to kick in. Did you happen to put a stuffed animal in the cabinet under the bathroom sink? “Unpacking” will let you know to get that bad boy back on the bed where he belongs! There are few explicitly “right” places for things to go, but there certainly are places that are “wrong” or make more sense than others. “Unpacking” is relatively free range in allowing its players to choose where to put things, but the game also acts as a guide - once everything is unpacked, items placed in the wrong spot will glow red until properly stowed away. Your job as the player is to decide where each item belongs in the limited space offered and to determine how best to organize that space. Inside there is a variety of items to be found: books, stuffed animals, art supplies, musical instruments, all the makings of a young artist. There are three large boxes on the floor, and the player is prompted to open them. What I found was a video game that went far beyond its surface story of helping the main character (you, for all intents and purposes) move into new places and, instead, played out a truly moving narrative about growing up, love and, well, unpacking.ĭeveloped by the Australian indie studio Witch Beam, “Unpacking” opens in a bedroom in 1997 - a small room, evidently a young girl’s, with a lofted bed, a desk and a small dresser. Having moved between Michigan and Tennessee at least seven times since starting college, I’ve also found a fondness for unpacking all my belongings and figuring out how they can be organized in a new space, so imagine my delight when I stumbled across a game called “Unpacking.” I was absolutely enthralled by the cute puzzle game oriented around unloading boxes in rooms and was quick to buy and play through it. If I weren’t in college, I would have picked up a career as a professional organizer by now - I love organizing and discovering all the ways things can fit together in a space most efficiently.
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