This game takes something as ordinary as moving and turns it into a story. Sure, the main aspect of this game is a puzzle, in the sense that one must figure out where to fit their things as they move into new spaces, but along with that aspect the narrative is following the life of a young woman. You never see this person, but you know this is a young woman through her belongings. This game is a great example of “show not tell”, because the only time the game gets a chance to tell anything is in the photobook. Even then, this photobook only gives short remarks to the spaces you move into. Most of the content the player can and must infer. Still, the game does an excellent job both narratively and mechanically.
In terms of narrative, you have your own specific objects. In day to day life, we all have many personal belongings which we hold dear and could describe us very well. You own objects for the things you like. But, you also own objects which describe who you are. One great example is the player moving in with each of their respective partners. You never get to see who they are, but you get to see all of their belongings. So, you can tell how the first partner is a man (through the ties and clothes that he owns), then you get a very subtle yet very clear hint that the main character is gay (through rainbow colored socks), and then she moves in with a woman (because of her owning lots of dresses and feminine undergarments). What really struck me as how immediate these assumptions were. The main character could’ve simply liked rainbow colored socks, and moved in with a man who likes dresses. But that isn’t the case, because the creator plays upon our immediate assumptions very cleverly. They take the time to create these subtle hints towards the life of this person, which we then find to be so obvious.
In terms of mechanics, they are also very subtle in guiding the user in how to play the game. The game’s intuitiveness lies in how different objects have expected places to be in. Many times I found myself thinking of where I would want to put something, and I found space for it exactly where I wanted it to go. Yet with how subtle the right answers can be, things which seem unintuitive get attention drawnt
I loved how subtle the storytelling in unpacking is! Especially how in the beginning of the game you could place items anywhere, but as the character gets older they have stronger preferences where everything goes and a stronger sense of self which can be seen in everything they own.