Unpacking

You shouldn’t hesitate to pick up Unpacking. This is a true indie gem; a game that deserves to be celebrated for years, or even decades, to come. From the clever storytelling through objects to the incredible sound design imprinted into each and every item you pick up, every minute spent with this game is a joy. You’ll be invested from start to finish – and you won’t want it to end.

Offering a beautiful canvas to work with, Unpacking is a calm and tactile little sim about something most of us would usually dislike.

This compact little puzzle-story-game has care in every line. It tells a lovely story without words, leaves you room for interpretation, and invites you to be playful. It's absolutely lovely.

For those that need a chill game that doesn’t take too much thinking and can be finished in a few hours, Unpacking is the perfect scratch for that itch. It is described as a zen game that has meditative play with no timers or scores.

Unpacking is a delightful and charming puzzle game, one that perfectly takes a chore such as moving and perfectly shows how it can highlight the most important parts of our lives, allowing us to reflect upon them and the transitions we go through along the way. It helps that it also has terrific gameplay built around trying to find space by rearranging items as if they were blocks, all while telling a captivating story through each small bit taken out of each box. It's an impressive little package that you'll want to dive into.

Moving your own stuff sucks. Moving someone else's is a lot more fun.

Although simplistic looking in design, each item is incredibly detailed in Unpacking. There are hundreds of different, and familiar-looking, books, toys, movies, and tabletop games throughout the story. As time passes and the levels progress, so does the technology. Early on, players will find themselves putting together a big CRT monitor and computer on a desk, while later levels advance to laptops and flat-screens. These small details really provide Unpacking with a feeling of nostalgia, even if the player didn't own these items specifically, and it's easy to relate with the unnamed protagon...

I’ve been looking forward to playing Unpacking since I first played the demo at PAX Australia 2019, what feels like a thousand years ago. I loved its simple premise: you take things out of boxes and place them around a home. After playing its 2-level demo a few times, I hoped the final game would deliver more of that same, relaxing experience, and I am pleased to say it absolutely does.

Cute, charming, and surprisingly satisfying, Unpacking scratches an itch that no other game attempts. But it's also too bossy for its own good at times.

Unpacking largely succeeds at creating a calming experience, which is funny, because there's usually nothing "calm" about moving into a new home. However, if you remove the placement restrictions, this is a game where you can sit back, soak in the music, and enjoy a pressure-free story. The only real downside to it is that it's an all-too-brief experience, wrapping up in just a few hours.

Unpacking is an incredibly accessible, meditative game revolving around room decoration and block-fitting puzzles.  There is no pressure here and the only target is to make each environment a satisfying place for the main character to live.  This may not be the type of game that you usually play but it is well worth checking out, although short sessions of a level at a time may be a good idea due to the repetitive nature of the gameplay.  Being another recent arrival to Xbox Game Pass there really is no reason not to try it.

Unpacking is a game all about helping a woman move into different places throughout her life. A simple and possibly tedious concept takes a dreaded chore and transforms it into a calm and engaging narrative experience, told entirely through the items you unpack.