Unpacking is not relaxing at all, what are you all talking about?
I’ve seen a lot of people talk about unboxing lately. The indie pixel-art tasks you with unpacking boxes of things when you move at different times in your life. Everyone I’ve seen about it got lyrical about how relaxing it is, how hot and fuzzy it is, and how – sorry – moving the whole experience is. It turns out that everyone lied.
Unboxing the styles itself is part of a puzzle, but mostly it’s a cold thing that you click until you don’t feel like clicking anymore. The puzzle part comes from the fact that the unboxing becomes like Tetris – you have to make sure that all the socks fit in the drawer, or all the books on the shelf, for example. As the game progresses, there are additional dimensions to this – the first level is just a bedroom, but it ends up expanding into an entire house. You can open a box in the bedroom, but it contains pots for cooking, etc.
While the puzzle part comes from figuring out where things are going, the cold part is meant to come from everything else. Ladles and jelly spoons, this is not the case.
Moving is not a very relaxing experience. Unboxing tries to reduce it to its healthiest parts, allowing you to neatly organize your desk without having to climb around boxes or lug heavy computer monitors around the room. There’s a sense of nostalgia too – the game begins in 1997, and so unboxing things like a GameCube brings back memories for those of us old enough to remember when the game hit its peak.
Unfortunately, Unpacking can’t escape the fact that unpacking is crap. Some idiots always put things in the wrong box, so you have to dig through everything before you can really start sorting anything. It’s bad enough when I’m that idiot, but when he’s an alien in a video game, it’s annoying in the extreme. Last night I unpacked all the boxes in my room, meticulously ordering my desk with my ruler, Rubik’s cube and diary neatly positioned to the side, my big white monitor occupying the upper right corner and an array of miniature figures. ‘action in the front and center. For a second, I understood the call. But then … hang around, where the hell is the keyboard?
Since I mainly use a laptop these days, I had forgotten that PCs, monitors, and keyboards are not one and the same. But also, the room was empty. I had unpacked the four boxes and carefully put everything inside. It turned out there was another room. I clicked into the kitchen, opened a box with a few utensils in it, and underneath was my keyboard. Who the hell packs a keyboard and puts a spatula in the box to keep him company?
Back in my room, I leave, throwing everything on the desk in a fit of rage. Or rather, angrily clicking on each item and placing them on the floor one by one until there is enough space for the keyboard, then desperately trying to place my once beautifully laid out items on n any shelf that would have them. A few boxes later, I was finally finished, except that not really. The game was flashing red on me – I was not allowed to keep my ball on the ground. Eh ? Wait, I’ll put my soccer ball wherever I want, thank you.
On the next level, I unpacked each item on the floor, so I could see exactly what I was dealing with before I made a move. It’s clearly the wrong way to play, but it was also a lot less stressful than the right way to play. That meant everything ended up flashing red with the game informing you that the bathroom floor wasn’t the right place for the toaster, in fact, but at least it meant I could plan on it. advance.
Moving isn’t fun, and no game can. Apparently Unpacking has a sense of charm and a deeper environmental storytelling the more you play it, but I think it’ll be wrapped up in the attic of my hard drive soon.
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