Hello Unpackers! I'm Cel, your new community manager. I'll be managing Unpacking's TikTok, Twitter, and more. A lot of has been happening this past month, so let's get straight into it!
Award Nominations
Thanks to our wonderful community we are honored to say we've been nominated for several awards:
Very honored to have been selected for all of these lists and nominations. We thank YOU for loving our game and supporting us so much. We couldn't have done it without you all!
5,000+ Members in our Discord!
We also have reached 5,000 members on Discord! The community space has been crucial to the success of Unpacking and we're happy to share that we grow every day. We're glad that we can share Unpacking with you and you with us. Let's have a great year together! If you're not already a part of our discord, you can join us here: https://discord.gg/unpacking
Cheers, Cel and the Witchbeam Team
Steam Lunar New Year Sale
Hi Unpackers! 📦✨
Guess what? We are still on sale!
That's right! Unpacking is part of the Steam Lunar New Year sale for 20% off.
Starting right now you can get Unpacking on sale up until the 3rd of February!
Happy Unpacking! ːhappyfroggyː
Unpacking in Midweek Madness Sale!
Hey Unpackers!
We're having our first ever sale with Steam for Midweek Madness!
You can get Unpacking for 20% off starting today up until the 27th of January.
Happy Unpacking! 📦✨
Cheers, the Witch Beam team
Vote for Unpacking in the Steam Awards!
Hello Unpackers!
You did it! You nominated us... and we made it to the Final Five for the Sit Back and Relax category! ːhappyfroggyː Thank you so much!!
It would mean the world to us if you could vote for us again and help us win — we're up against some very cool games, but we're gonna try our best! ːcoolchickː
Cheers, Wren and the Witch Beam team
Unpacking Accolades!
Hi Unpackers!
The reception to Unpacking was so good we wanted to make a little accolades trailer to honor all of the joy, emotions, and love we were given this year. In our first 10 days, we sold over 100,000 units of Unpacking which is a mind blowing number!
[previewyoutube="m6unR5JdqAs;full"]
Thank you for all for joining us on this journey!
Best,
Victoria and Witch Beam
Thank You 💜 Unpacking Post-Launch and Awards!
Hi Unpackers!
Wow, it’s been a wild month since we released Unpacking on November 2nd. During that time you smashed ALL of our expectations – we climbed the top of the Nintendo Switch charts globally, were featured on Steam’s front page, and so much more. But even more than that, we got to see how much you all loved and connected with our game. Whether it was the diploma moment, the tears, or the discovery of our 14,000 foley audio sounds, you were just as vulnerable and overjoyed as we felt making this.
From the entire team, thank you.
Press Round Up
Unpacking seemed to be overall loved by various news outlets, and it was real cool seeing our little puzzle game up there with some big names. If you’re interested, we highlighted them over on our blog.
Voting, Community Wiki, and What’s Next
It’s still awards season, which means if you enjoyed our game you can help it win some pretty cool accolades! (And then the next time we move, we can awkwardly try and pack the trophies into boxes. If they even come with trophies???)
You can vote for us to win the Can I Play That? Accessibility Awards – Indie Excellence & Best Cognitive Accessibility. If you feel Unpacking deserves any of these, it would mean so much if you would nominate Unpacking. It only takes a few clicks to do so, and it would mean so much to us!
Meanwhile, for those who have been stuck or wanted to discover all the secrets of the game, our lovely Discord community has started an unofficial Unpacking fan wiki, which you can see here.
As for the most frequently asked question we’ve gotten so far… Will there be more content?! We love how much the game has connected with people, but we don’t currently have plans to make additional content. We are really happy with the arc of the game. It’s not the biggest story, but we liked how things finished. Stories start and end, boxes are unpacked, and it’s ok to feel settled. It’s why we spent so long (3.5 years!) working on it — we didn’t want to cut anything we planned. There is a lot of story hidden in the items and environments. If you enjoyed the game, you can always play through again and see what else you can learn about the characters and story. (Only a few people have discovered one of the biggest secrets..!) Basically: we truly appreciate the love and community behind this game. Not wanting to add more content isn’t a sign that we don’t care! We want to respect our game and story, and not try to arbitrarily add to it. For now we’re done, but the future holds many mysteries. If you’d like, you can follow the game’s creative director Wren on Twitter to see what she gets up to, after she takes a well deserved break.
Notes about scams
It’s come to our attention there are a number of scam Unpacking apps on the Google Play store. To clarify: Unpacking is NOT available on mobile, and there are currently no plans to port it to mobile. We’re sorry for any disappointment!
Whew!
That’s it for now. Hope you all have a good holiday and rest of your year! 2022 has a lot of mystery to it, but if our game has taught us anything… There are plenty of good things to unpack.
Cheers,
Victoria, Wren, and the Witch Beam team
Nominate Unpacking for the "Sit Back and Relax" Steam Award
Hey Unpackers!
It’s that time of the year - the Steam Awards nominations are now open.
We’ve received a lot of love and kind words from you all about Unpacking, and nothing makes us happier than hearing how much you enjoyed the gameplay, the sound design, or the ever-growing chick plush collection.
Unpacking is a game inspired by the experience of my partner moving in with me, and discovering the story behind every item he brought with him. Plus, a love of organizing, of course. The actual act of moving and unpacking can be a stressful one, but we hope this game made it a more relaxing and reflective experience.
If you feel the same, it would mean so much if you would nominate Unpacking for this year’s Steam Awards for the Sit Back and Relax Award. It only takes a few clicks to do so, and it would mean so much to us.
But no matter what, thank you for being a part of this journey!
♥, Wren and the Witch Beam team
Fixes and updates
This update addresses an issue that could prevent the game starting if the window had been moved to a second monitor along with some other minor issues.
In some cases, moving the game window to a second monitor that had a different scaling factor to the default monitor would prevent the game from restarting. Previously we were advising workarounds but this should no longer be a problem
When VSync was disabled, the game was capable of excessive CPU usage. A maximum framerate has been set for when the game is run without vsync
fixed an issue involving drawers that are above doors that could allow incorrect item placement in 2007, 2013 and 2015
fixed a couple of minor visual issues
Save files and progress should be unaffected.
if you have rebound your controls in a way that makes navigating the menus difficult, it's possible to reset them now from outside the game by adding
resetcontrols
to Launch Options. Remember to remove this text once you've customised your controls or they will be reset each time you start the game!
Fixes and updates
This update addresses an input rebinding issue and fixes some smaller issues and placement rules
Input rebinding allowed binding the esc key over the primary action input, resulting in menus that couldn't be navigated. This is now prevented and if you had bound it this way the game will revert your input bindings on start
fixed a Steam integration issue that was blocking progression in rare cases
fixed issue where items could be placed in the corner of a shower and not retrieved
fixed issue that occasionally caused items in drawers to be very hard to select if there was an item on the floor behind them
fixed a "vanishing book" issue caused by holding a book over a shelf while changing rooms
added a missing sprite to a toothpaste in 2012 and fixed issue where an item in 2018 could be hung on hooks and towel racks when it wasn't meant to be
tweaked the dining-room reverb in 2007
fixed an issue that was causing red validation outlines to render with visual artefacts on specific screen resolutions
several items have had some extra areas assigned to them either because they should have been that way originally or we saw it in someone's stream and were like "yeah, fair"
fixed other various visual issues
Save files and progress should be unaffected.
Features and improvements
Big Picture mode now uses a virtual keyboard when naming your album
the pulsing button effect that signals that other rooms have unpacked boxes has been reduced slightly
The pulsing can also be turned off entirely by adding
nopulse
to Launch Options - this is considered a workaround and will hopefully have an in-game menu option in future.
Thank you for playing!
✨ Unpacking is out now! ✨
Unpackers!
It's finally here.
Unpacking is out now on Steam!
[previewyoutube="vPcoMltTVXE;full"]
Unpacking is a zen game about the familiar experience of pulling possessions out of boxes and fitting them into a new home. Part block-fitting puzzle, part home decoration, you are invited to create a satisfying living space while learning clues about the life you’re unpacking. Over the course of eight house moves, you are given a chance to experience a sense of intimacy with a character you never see and a story you’re never told. After 3 years of development, we're so excited to finally share our cozy game with the world! We hope you love it as much as we do.
There are a ton of ways you can help us out other than just buying the game too. Especially for a small indie studio, we also appreciate things like:
Spreading the word to family, friends, and even your favorite streamer
Leaving a review on Steam
Sharing our news on social media
But no pressure - we're grateful to have you here at all!
Share Your Rooms!
A fun new feature of the game is our built-in playback and GIF maker feature. This allows you to easily capture and share your unpacking process with the community.
One of our favorite things is seeing your creativity and organizational skills shine. Please feel free to tag us on Twitter @UnpackingALife if you end up using the feature. You can also tag us if you stream the game - we might even pop in and say hi!
AMAs
Finally, if you end up having any burning questions about our development process or Unpacking in general, we have two AMAs lined up. You can catch us on either:
