A STORY WITHOUT WORDS: AN ART GAME CRITIQUE OF UNPACKING

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**SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for Unpacking follow.

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Unpacking is an isometric pixel art puzzle game developed by Witch Beam and published by Humble Games on November 2, 2021, available on PC, Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch. The game is based on the experience of unpacking possessions from moving boxes and figuring out how to fit them into a new home. It follows a single character’s life over the course of twenty-one years and allows the player to follow her through eight house moves, experiencing “a sense of intimacy with a character you never see and a story you’re never told” (Unpacking: A Zen Puzzle Game). Unpacking makes effective use of its puzzle-solving mechanics, environmental storytelling, and a familiar, relaxing atmosphere to successfully communicate a complete, nuanced, and emotional narrative without relying on words, transitional cutscenes, or any kind of explicit narrative elements. In order to explore how the game does this, I will be looking both at the game’s design qualities, such as mechanics and environmental storytelling, and expressive qualities, such as atmosphere and the implicit messages communicated during the gameplay experience. 

Unpacking revolves around a very simple set of rules, player controls, and core game mechanics. It is a home organization puzzle game that has eight levels, with each level representing a new “move”. Each level consists of between one and nine rooms that the player can freely switch between. At the beginning of a level, the player is shown a year, and is then presented with a room and several boxes filled with various objects that must be unpacked and placed in the available rooms. As the levels progress, there are typically more rooms and more boxes. The player must click on a box to remove the next object, and can then place the object anywhere in any room in the level. They have options to rotate and orient the object as they please, and there are often shelves, cupboards, and other pieces of furniture to place objects on, in, and around. Once every object has been placed and the boxes have been removed, a red outline will appear around any objects that are not in allowed spaces, and the player must move them to an appropriate location before ending the level (although this setting may be turned off for an even more flexible gameplay experience). Once a level is complete, the player “takes a picture” of one of the rooms in the level and is given a very short, unique caption to go with it in a photo album that serves as the game’s level navigation. From this menu, the player can then access a timelapse of their level playthrough, access the level again to make changes, restart the level, or move on to the next level and unlock the next page in the album. 

The gameplay is almost meditative in nature; there are no timers, scores, or completion meters, and the player has very few restrictions placed on their play. For the most part, players have the freedom to place the objects in the rooms however they please. The methodical, repetitive process of unpacking and organizing creates a relaxing, satisfying game experience that encourages players to be conscientious and empathetic. With no other game mechanics to distract from the unpacking process, the player is left to muse over the perfect placement of each unique object in a very low-stress setting. The required attention to detail naturally inspires empathy in the player, which allows the game to tell a story through the objects and rooms presented to them. 

Unpacking’s narrative lies solely in its environmental storytelling – what objects and rooms are available to the player in each level, where and how they can be placed, which objects stay the same and which change, and what each of these elements might say about the main character and her life. Other than a short caption assigned to each photograph taken at the end of a level, there are no words or explicit narrative elements in the game. Characters, including the main character, are not given names or faces beyond small, semi-abstract photographs that may be found during levels. There is only a single, short cutscene presented after the credits that depicts the main character, her partner, and their new baby together in the backyard of the final house. In order to piece together the game’s story, the player must pay attention to the objects they are taking the time to unpack, and because the process of sorting through someone’s belongings is inherently intimate, the game promotes a tremendous amount of empathy for the main character. 

Details about the main character and her life are communicated in various ways: a sizable board game and video game collection tell the player about the character’s hobbies, a barista’s uniform in the closet hints at her current job situation, and an award located in her office might hint that her career as an illustrator is taking off. Certain objects are available throughout the game, signifying their importance to the protagonist, though their appearances might change to reflect the passage of time. Other objects disappear and are not seen again. Certain levels begin with objects already in the space that the player must work around (e.g. moving in with roommates, moving in with a partner, moving back into your childhood home). Even the space – or lack of space – available for the protagonist’s things can reveal details about her life; for example, when she moves in with her first boyfriend, there is no dedicated space for her to work on her art and no room for her to hang her diploma on the wall, so the player must place it underneath the bed. Without seeing anything other than their living space, the player is able to make inferences about the relationship. Certain levels take place in the same living space as a previous level, and in this way can demonstrate some kind of major life change through the changes to the space (e.g. moving back into your childhood room after many years away, helping your partner move into your home after you have already been living there for a few years). There are some restrictions are in place as to where certain objects can be placed that also communicate details about their meaning. In addition to the diploma under the bed, another example of this is a photo of the main character and her boyfriend after they break up; the photo must be tucked away in a cupboard, out of view, and if it is pinned on a bulletin board, the pin will be placed through the ex-boyfriend’s face. These small details tell the player a great deal about the events that have happened in the protagonist’s life, in between the snapshots the player has access to. By having the player follow her across twenty-one years of her life and allowing them to see the gradual changes adjustments to her belongings and living space, the game is able to present a nuanced story that shows tremendous growth in multiple areas of the main character’s life, including her career, her relationships, and her own personal growth. Through its incredibly strong and effective environmental storytelling, it can do so without showing the protagonist or having the player interact with any other characters. 

In addition to the objects themselves, there are many visual, sound, and music elements that come together to create a familiar atmosphere. This, combined with the slight changes in tone for each new level, support the narrative and add to the emotional impact of the many implicit messages communicated to the player. As mentioned previously, Unpacking has an isometric, pixel art visual style that contains each room in its own “box” (much like the moving boxes the player is working with). The soft, pixelated graphics contribute to a nostalgic, “retro” feel, which is fitting both for the protagonist’s age (as she would’ve grown up in the 90s) and the pensive tone of moving – a process that seems rooted in a fond reflection on the past. The sound design of the game helps fill in any gaps left by the lower visual detail of the pixel graphics; every object in the game makes a different sound when the player picks it up, and placing an object down makes a unique sound based on the object’s weight, material, and the surface it is being placed on. For example, a picture frame might click when it is rested on a hardwood floor, but it will only thud softly if placed on a carpet. This contributes to an immense sense of familiarity and immersion, as the sounds of the various objects the player is interacting with are lifelike and grounded. 

The soundtrack of Unpacking also contributes toward a nostalgic, reflective game atmosphere. It is at times reminiscent and dreamy and at other times energetic and optimistic, its tone shifts reflecting the changes in the protagonist’s life as well as the growth she experiences. This also helps to communicate details about the game’s narrative, along with the environmental storytelling. For example, both the song “Pretentious” on the game’s soundtrack and the fourth level, the boyfriend’s apartment, feel at odds with the rest of the game’s soft, relaxing atmosphere. They’re cooler, edgier, and a bit off-putting. This clash of aesthetics makes the player feel as though they are invading a space that is not their own, rather than feeling like they belong, which inevitably turns out to be a fairly clear representation of the protagonist’s first relationship. When compared to the reflective, romantic tone of the song “Soulmate” combined with the easy combination of the protagonist’s belongings with her girlfriend’s, it becomes clear that a great amount of growth has occurred, and the protagonist is much happier in later stages of the game. 

Through its incredibly thoughtful environmental storytelling and style choices, Unpacking creates an intimately familiar and reflective game atmosphere that tells a deeply moving and emotional story through the game’s mechanics, rules, settings, objects, visual design, sound design, and music. The game demonstrates an innovative way of telling a story that challenges the assumption that a narrative must be made explicit in order for it to be understood or impactful. Unpacking proves that games can tell nuanced stories without words, and can be just as thought-provoking and moving as games with explicit narrative elements.

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Works Cited

Unpacking. Xbox One version, Witch Beam, 2021. 

“Unpacking: A Zen Puzzle Game about Unpacking a Life.” Witch Beam, https://www.unpackinggame.com/.