Over the course of the Thanksgiving week/weekend I played through every Halo game besides Halo 5. I think I got my fill of FPS’. Those games are especially fun when running through them on easy and steamrolling anything that is in view of Master Chiefs base 75 Field Of View. In between saving the human race more than three times I convinced my wife that she would like a game that I had been eyeing since its debut on Steam Nextfest. I gave her the Xbox controller and told her to unpack someone’s, this week I wife and I played Unpacking.

Unpacking is a “Zen” like puzzle game from Witch Beam and published by Humble Games. It released November 2nd, is on the Switch PC and Xbox Gamepass and retails for $20.

I’ve been sitting here for days trying to articulate a cohesive rundown of Unpacking’s story but it is so difficult. It isn’t because the story is absent, it is very much present throughout the game, but I am having an internal struggle about what to highlight. Unpacking is very much a game about growing up but it also has to do about a woman’s journey from her parent’s house to her college dorm and eventually her own home. Unpacking’s story is so open that it allows the player, if they ever had to do any sort of unpacking, to insert themselves into the story. It is, at times subtle and at other times very powerful emotionally. Unpacking a set of novelty chic’s, a stuffed animal, a laptop and D20 gives the player a glimpse into what is important in this world to the character in this story, which at times can be incredibly relatable.

There is one moment that truly powerful, when this woman moves in with a man in a cramped apartment. There is no room and the objects that she valued from previous homes are now having to be put either underneath the bed or out of sight. It is truly something else.

I will ALWAYS keep my Yarn Yoshi Amiibos with me. I will pack them and unpack them throughout my entire life.

Boxes appear in rooms and the base objective is to “find a spot for everything.” There is room, and you must find it. Putting away dishes, books, board games, towels, clothes and utensils are only a small taste of what you’ll unpack. Everything has a spot and you cannot and will not succeed unless everything is in its proper spot.

I love pixel art and Unpacking does it the best. Clean, colorful and it looks damn good. It is so good that the art on the books, Gamecube controllers, DVD cases can, for the most part, be distinguished. Unpacking is a great to look at.

The music is super relaxing and catchy. While I was making cookies for Thanksgiving we left the title screen music on and it fit the mood perfectly.

Just easy on the ears music.

I love Unpacking. It is a nice relaxing experience. I told my wife that it would be a game her, so we sat down, I only played maybe an apartment and another level but she took it and ran. A day later she had completed the game. All in all, it took around four hours to complete because we were moving so slow.

I couldn’t recommend this game anymore. It is something special and I’m glad that it I got to see it be released and share it wife my wife.