My initial reaction to the first level of Unpacking was to find the one-at-a-time reveal of each new item I needed to place nerve-wracking; I was worried that without knowing what sorts of items were coming next, I couldn’t be sure whether I was placing things correctly. I then realized I could move items after placing them with no penalty, so instead of placing things one at a time, I decided to unpack as many items as I could and place them on the floor until I ran out of floorspace, then go about the task of putting everything away. This made it much easier to plan the space. However, I did still find myself frustrated by a few items that had seemingly arbitrary limitations on where I could place them; for instance, I couldn’t place the diary anywhere except the desk drawer (which had no visual indication of being openable) and couldn’t place the jump rope on certain areas of the floor (with no visual indication of where those boundaries were). While I understand these limitations are likely meant to be part of the puzzle, I found it annoying that I could only discover where the game would allow me to place certain items through trial and error, since this prevented me from effectively planning ahead. I was also somewhat irrationally frustrated at the inability to place items at a diagonal; it felt like the game was encouraging me to express myself with my room layout, or at least do my best to make something aesthetically pleasing (what with the photo album gimmick), but in my opinion, many of the items looked stiff and awkward placed at 90 degree angles. I thought they would look much better placed a bit more haphazardly, but that desire for creative expression clashed with the game’s other nature as a puzzle— a format that necessarily requires strict rules and some way of judging correctness.
I also have mixed feelings about the game’s lack of onboarding and the limited guidance it offered in terms of controls and direction. On the one hand, it did feel more experiential and hands-on to discover the game’s mechanics on my own rather than having them explained to me upfront. However, it made me worry that I may unknowingly have been making gameplay decisions that would affect my experience later on and that I may not have made if I’d had more information, which seems at odds with the goal of a cozy game. For instance, when choosing between 3 books at the start of the game, I chose the blue one because I liked its color the best, assuming (because it asked me to write my name on the book) that these represented save slots and that my choice would otherwise be irrelevant to gameplay. However, it occurred to me that my assumption may have been incorrect and I may instead have been choosing between routes, difficulties, or some other facets of gameplay because the game never told me the meaning of my choice. This lack of explanation also frustrated me during the puzzles themselves. For instance, I initially stacked all of the books flat on their sides because the “rotate” key didn’t seem to turn them upright; it was only after I had carefully stacked almost of them that I realized I could turn them upright by dragging them against the side of a shelf, but at that point I was so annoyed at the prospect of having to undo my stacking work to align all of the books upright that I didn’t bother, even though propping them up would have probably produced a nicer-looking room layout.
All that said, it is difficult for me to judge a “cozy game” in this context because it inherently runs into the pitfall of “forcing cozy.” Even in my free time, I often find it difficult to relax enough to enjoy sinking time into a cozy game, so any cozy game I’m compelled to try and fit into a busy week so I might write about it for a grade is one I’m unlikely to enjoy the way it’s meant to be enjoyed. I look forward to trying Unpacking again when I’m less busy and in the proper headspace to appreciate it.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughtful and nuanced take on “Unpacking.” Your initial apprehension about the item reveal process and subsequent adaptation to placing items on the floor first resonated with my own experience. The game’s blend of puzzle mechanics and creative expression can indeed be a source of both enjoyment and frustration. Your critique of the seemingly arbitrary placement limitations is spot on—those moments of trial and error can disrupt the flow of what is meant to be a cozy experience.
I also appreciate your insights on the game’s onboarding process and the ambiguity surrounding the initial choices and mechanics. This lack of clarity can indeed detract from the intended relaxing nature of the game, making players second-guess their decisions. Your point about the forced nature of experiencing a cozy game under time constraints for a grade is particularly poignant. It’s a reminder that the context in which we play games can significantly impact our enjoyment.
Overall, your analysis captures the delicate balance “Unpacking” attempts to strike between structured puzzle-solving and personal creativity, highlighting both its strengths and areas for improvement. I look forward to hearing your thoughts after you revisit the game in a more relaxed setting.
Hi Jasmine! I definitely get where you’re coming from with the one-item-at-a-time reveal, especially with the second room / apartment. I hated when one box would contain items from all three rooms – bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen – leading to a lot of clicking back and forth to put it in its rightful place. Your strategy unpacking the entire box at once was cool though! I will have to try that in my next run-through, as I also like to plan the entire space out ahead of time rather than item-by-item.
The lack of a tutorial was definitely a double-edged sword, although I personally enjoyed the hands-on, trial and error aspect of figuring it out myself. It was a bit frustrating in the beginning though…
Overall, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I hope you have a chance to play Unpacking again at a better time!
Hi Jasmine,
Thank you for your post on Unpacking. The game’s lack of instructions does get kind of annoying at times, and I found myself going “ohhhh….” when I learned you can rotate or open drawers in between Unpacking. The puzzle aspect definitely seemed to have clashed with the unpacking aesthetics of the game.
I think that you bring up a good point about cozy games. I wonder how games can balance forcing coziness while exhibiting the characteristics of a cozy game.
Hi Jasmine!
I read the first sentence of your blog post and was like “ohp!” when you said it was nerve-wracking, but I think I know what you mean. I kind of think the appeal of the game is through placing items one at a time, because I think I would have been very overwhelmed to see the amount of items I would have needed to put in correct places if I saw everything at once…oops! I also agree that some items would have looked better and more natural if placed at a different angle / different way but yeah, I guess it has to be a puzzle somehow. Anyways, nice blog post!
There’s a difficult balance to strike between overwhelmingly expository tutorials and the virtual nothing that unpacking offers. I mean, I personally find it super obnoxious when I have to spend 10-15 minutes at the start of a game just for them to tell me ‘press jump to space’ or something like that, and a lot of games take a bunch of effort to disguise their tutorials for that precise purpose. On the flipside, unpacking tells you actually nothing. You just get straight to unpacking. I didn’t struggle to figure out what to do, because the name “unpacking” does a lot of the heavy lifting on that front, but I definitely was annoyed when the game basically told me “no your choices of where things go are wrong.” I didn’t even consider that the books could be routes or anything, but I think that’s valid too. I can understand why that would be a plausible worry, and you can’t even handwave it as “they’d certainly tell you if it was” because the game doesn’t really tell you much at all!