Movies make me cry. TV shows make me cry. Books can make me cry, I absolutely blubbered during a book just last year. Those videos of teenagers asking their stepfathers to adopt them make me cry.
But videos game rarely make me cry.
Red Dead Redemption has the distinction of being the first game I remember sobbing to. I remember just sitting with the controller in my hand, the game waiting for me, and frozen in sadness.
But few games go there for me. You can probably determine a few reasons why. A lot of games focus on shooting or survival. Many focus a lot on gameplay design and loops long before a story is squeezed in between. Whatever the reason games just seem to avoid the tear-jerking zone for me.
Then I played through Unpacking.
Spoilers for Unpacking below, it's only a few hours to get through and I recommend it!
If you haven't played Unpacking, allow me to fill you in. You're in charge of opening and emptying the contents of several moving boxes. Piece by piece you place each object in its proper spot until finally moving on to the next level. Quickly you'll discover that the game is unraveling a narrative. Beginning in a young girl's room you're now moving into a college dorm, then into an apartment with a roommate, and then into a boyfriend's apartment. This is where you hit a wall.
Unlike the previous homes, there are few spots for your stuff. Games and books might be stacked or shoved wherever they fit. Kitchen gadgets that were just the pride and joy of your kitchen counter are now all awkwardly on the kitchen island. And your college degree can't be hung on any of the walls forcing your to stash it in the closet or under the bed. It feels alienating. Isolating. As the player you understand this relationship, despite all the promise of cohabitating, will not work out.
It's an emotional roadblock that gets bookended by the next level, moving back home. The full layout of the home can be seen but you're limited to a bedroom and shared bathroom. Your digital life is back to square one and it feels demoralizing.
You move out again into a sparse apartment. However, the following level just repeats and now all your carefully placed things are being joined by someone else's carefully placed stuff. And then there's the final level.
The experiences in Unpacking are probably not universal, but the feelings are. Feelings we all can understand. When the character moves in with her boyfriend it strangely feels lonely and alienating when it should be a loving and accepting moment in her life. When she moves home you feel the bittersweet sense of defeat and relief woven together.
And the final level is a home. A full home, with an office, dining room, and nursery. Unpacking the baby's things and neatly preparing for all the love, joy, and happiness in the future for this burgeoning family makes me well up just thinking about it.
Not because it's sad, but because all the emotions and misfires the character suffers make that final move feel like a real home. Those things we keep around us that share our weird journey reflect where we've been and Unpacking tells us none of those feelings are unique to us. A weird sense of comfort that loneliness, futility, and unsureness are all shared.
I cried because sadness can feel isolating. I cried because Unpacking, to me, is about how sadness isn't the dead end it fools us into believing. We all share these basic common links and somehow that makes our journey a little bit less lonely.
Log in to comment