came the concept of following one character
from childhood into adulthood through all the
moves in her life, and Unpacking was born.
Freed from the real-world drudgery of bad
backs and breakables, it is a wonderfully
peaceful thing to interact with. Light streams
into a boxy bedroom: we click to open a
cardboard box, then once more to pluck out an
object. First comes a skipping rope. Thena piggy bank, which we nestle in a bookcase.
We consider a cuddly toy dragon for a moment
before setting it on the chest of drawers, then
change our mind – it feels much more at
home tucked up in bed. There’s an element of
Tetris in hunting down gaps in the 3D grid
(although we’re free to rejig things at will to fit
more neatly), likewise in the line clear-like
sense of satisfaction in folding up an empty
box and having it disappear with a delicious
pop. But not every victory is so obviously
heralded: there’s just as much joy to be gained
from your own judgement that everything is
just so. “That was really important to us, to let
players express themselves,” Brier says. “It’s
not just, ‘Can something fit here?’, it’s, ‘Do I
want it to be here?’ It’s not Hoarding: The
Game, it’s Arranging Your House: The Game.
You want players to have options.”There are more possibilities than might at
first appear. Even in a later level set in a small
flat with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, we
initially struggle to see how we’re going to
cram everything in. That is, until we click
about and discover openable cupboards for
bulky pots and pans, and realise that we can
fold clothes instead of placing them all on
hangers. Finished spaces used to be even more
packed, Brier tells us, but early playtests
showed that, in working backwards from
successfully unpacked rooms, they’d
inadvertently made their own ‘solutions’ too
rigid. Now, every item has at least two places
where it can sit. “This game slowly revealed to
us that it’s less about the puzzle aspect, and
more about the self-expression and the feeling
of zen,” Brier says.
Once we’re in that flow state, flicking
between rooms to place objects, we notice the
finer details: the way the light changes as the
day wears on; how familiar belongings
reappear, and certain others don’t make the
transition. As various art supplies become
a consistent theme, we realise we’re learning
about the life and times of the unseen,
unheard protagonist – even other people they
live with, as the studio apartment gives way to
a shared house already half-filled with stuff
(around which you must navigate your own
things), or a roomy home with a partner. “It’s
a fairly mundane story,” Dawson says. “There’s
nothing fantastic, or really world-shattering,
about it. The idea is that people go, ‘Oh, she
draws a lot – that reminds me of me, or
‘That’s an interesting insight into something
I’m not.’” Brier nods: “It’s very much based on
experiences that we’ve had, and that our
friends have had. We just want this character
to feel like a real person.” QPacking order
“All the boxes are
hand-packed,” Brier
laughs. Dawson has put
together a packing
system that allows
them to begin with an
unpacked room and
pack away the items in
a particular sequence.
“A lot of it is kind of
priming,” Dawson says,
explaining that the
vinegar comes before
the oil and the mouse
mat before the mouse,
because playtesters
mistook vinegar for
wine, or didn’t
recognise the mouse
mat, which affected
their decision-making.
“You can sometimes
make things land a bit
like jokes,” Dawson
adds. In the prototype
of the kitchen level,
the microwave was
at the bottom of a
later box. “So people
would have all their
shelves arranged, and
then this ginormous
object would come
out and they’d be
like, ‘Oh, god!’”LEFT One of the latest
features to be added was
the packing paper in each
box visibly lessening each
time you pull out an object.
It’s a subtle indicator of
where you are in the process,
and how much space you
might yet need to leaveIn larger levels, clicking the
symbols on either side of the
screen whizzes you across to
another room. There’s been
some cross-pollination with
the packing, you see, and
some boxes contain items
meant for other rooms
This game is less about the
puzzle aspect, and more
about the self-expression