
Far too many games fall into this gameplay loop and we can easily forget that videogames need not be violent to be enjoyable. Overall, unpacking is a real breath of fresh air for someone like me who tries of beating people to death in videogames. One of my favourite things about Unpacking is probably that the game does not outstay its welcome and is the perfect length for compacted enjoyment. The story of Unpacking may seem non-existent, but there is a subtle narrative at play, as each home you unpack seems to be for the same person as you follow them on their journey of life, sharing their adventure and heartbreak along the way.

One room in particular had me hide a photo in a drawer, which was really obtuse and specific I’d never have figured that out without looking it up, but at the same time it fits with the narrative. My biggest criticism of the gameplay is that it can be restrictive in where items must be placed. I tried starting the game, and the time it says until it's ready to play goes up by one second every few seconds. I finally got gta4 to finish downloading, but now it is attempting to unpack it, even though I bought for myself. There is a lot of satisfaction to completely unpacking a room. Steam won't unpack a game So my steam has been giving me trouble lately.

This begets a fun game of Tetris-like gameplay as you slot items into shelves or chaotically chuck them wherever you can find space. The premise is incredibly simple: you have boxes piled up in each room of your home and you need to literally unpack them and place items in a suitable manner. The gameplay is the bread and butter of Unpacking. The vibrant artwork is pleasing to the eye, and my only criticism is that smaller objects can be hard to distinguish and identify, but this was never game-breaking for me. The graphics of Unpacking take a simplistic and befitting approach. It is also a very simple game yet one that also carries a compelling gameplay loop that had me coming back again and again, completing the game one level at a time. It is also a very simple game yet one that also carries a compelling gameplay loop that had me coming back Unpacking is a very different game. Rather than showing the character having an emotional coming out or being kicked out by her parents for her sexuality, Unpacking focuses on working in queerness into the character’s life as just one aspect of her personality among being an artist, enjoying dungeons and dragons, and playing video games on consoles like the GameCube and the Wii.Unpacking is a very different game. If the player misses this detail in this chapter, the final level in July 2018 shows the main character moving in with this partner and setting up a nursery, and the final credits make it undeniable that the main character is in a queer relationship with another woman. In the next chapter in November 2015, another woman moves in and, notably, sets up in the same bed as our main character. The first time the player encounters the main character’s queerness is when she needs to unpack a pair of rainbow socks after moving into an apartment with a lot of extra space in January 2013. Unpacking takes players through the mundane but heartwarming parts of a queer person’s life, without making it so subtle that it can be ignored.


The queer stories depicted in popular media tend to focus either on the suffering of queer characters or a traumatic coming out, both of which do not accurately represent the journey that a queer person goes through as they enter adulthood and learn how they want to express their queerness. When everything is unpacked, the game forces the player to hide the picture away in a cabinet or drawer. If the player tries to put this picture up on the wall, a red pushpin is stuck directly into the face of the boyfriend. The next time the object placement alarm feature is used for the story is in the very next level, when the main character moves back into her room in her parent’s house from the first level and keeps a picture of herself and the boyfriend. The boyfriend’s apartment also has a very dark and uncluttered aesthetic, which clashes with the main character’s more colorful and maximalist aesthetic and makes her personal items look out of place once the rooms are fully unpacked. In September 2010, the main character moves in with a boyfriend who has no wall space for her to display her degree, and the game actually forces the player to store the framed degree under the bed. Back and Relax Award -Steam Awards 2021 Finalist: Innovation -Taipei Game Show 2021. Throughout most of the game, this feature is just used to keep the player from throwing clothes around the room and putting too many things on floors and near sinks, but in two notable cases this feature is used to tell an important piece of the story. Unpacking is a zen game about the familiar experience of pulling.
