"A Space for the Unbound" Review

Publishers: Toge Productions, Chorus Worldwide

Developer: Mojiken Studio

Available for: Playstation 5, Playstation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows

Reviewed for: Playstation 5

My favorite part of seeing the nominees for The Game Awards every year is learning what the year's "Games for Impact" nominees are. In most years, I'll have heard of maybe one of the nominees, and a quick look through the titles and their synopsis will usually turn me on to a really good game that I otherwise never would have heard of or tried out. Such is the case this year! After a brief look at this year's prospective winners, I decided to take a chance on A Space for the Unbound, with my main reason being that I, for the life of me, couldn't figure out what the nomination reason was. I already knew about Goodbye, Volcano High because of coverage from Laura K Buzz and knew that it likely came from its transgender representation, its climate change parallel themes, or both. I'd also already heard of Tchia and Venba and figured both nominations likely stemmed from the representation of New Caledonian and Indian culture respectively. I'd never heard of Terra Nil, but it was clearly a game with an environmentalist theme. I have no f***ing idea why Chants of Sennaar was nominated, but I've obviously already played that one. So, the only game I hadn't heard of (and that wasn't a mobile game like Terra Nil) was A Space for the Unbound, and though I could probably guess that Indonesian cultural representation might've had a hand in the nomination, a brief look at a plot synopsis left a lot of intriguing questions that I found myself wanting answers to. So, now you know how I ended up playing this little indie game from Indonesia. Now, let me tell you why I love it wholeheartedly.

As I've already partly implied, A Space for the Unbound takes place in 90's Indonesia in the fictional town of Loka City. You play as Atma: a perhaps predictably laid-back high school boy with a love of the arcade. Atma is dating Raya: a model student, doting girlfriend, and a bigtime cat lover. Paralyzed by indecision about their futures, Atma and Raya set up a bucket list of things they'd like to do before they graduate. After some hijinks involving setting up a home for a local stray cat and going to see a movie together, the two run into a problem that I imagine all high school sweethearts eventually run into. See, Raya has the godlike power to manifest just about any outcome she sees fit. I don't mean that Atma is whipped, I mean homegirl literally has godlike powers. However, after using her powers to manifest a cat wonderland for the two of them to pet cats in for a while, a gigantic winged cat appears, declares that it's time for the world to end, and from there, reality starts to break down. As you may or may not already be picking up on, you're going to spend a lot of this game with questions, but that's how the story starts. From this point, Atma teams up with various other classmates to try and put things right and solve the mystery behind Raya's powers. 

So, to start giving my notes on specifics, let's start with characters. I have to start by saying: Raya and Atma are really cute. The earliest way that Raya uses her powers is to put some extra money in Atma's pocket so he can buy food for that aforementioned stray cat and feel like a hero in front of his girlfriend. Furthermore, she reveals her powers to him for the first time because he spent more money than she had expected for the cat food and could no longer afford 2 tickets to a movie. So, being frustrated that her plan had failed, she rewrote reality in the moment so that they suddenly won a contest with a prize of 2 free tickets. It's just nice to see a drama-free, wholesome love story. Atma and Raya are well-written characters even independently of each other, which definitely helps what I've already said. But it's not just them: this is the kind of game where you truly get to know most of the members of this small community. And I have to say that this is one of the best-developed casts of characters I've seen this year. The game isn't that long, but I felt like I'd known some of these characters for years by the time the credits rolled. Another aspect of the characters worth noting is that there are some characters that do some pretty bad things...and the game does an excellent job of giving us perspective as to why they turned out the way they turned out without making excuses for them or implying that the people they hurt owe them forgiveness. The game gives us and certain characters context important to understanding, say, their biggest bully. But to stay with that bully example, it leaves the subject of forgiveness and moving forward up to the characters involved. In some cases, there's no way to do so. In some cases, things will be ok when all involved parties can have some time to grow. In some cases, wounds will remain for a while, but forgiveness and understanding is an easy thing. But the game does an excellent job at showing a cast of teenagers behaving far more maturely than some adults do. 

And on that subject, some notes on the story. When you open up the game, the first thing you see is an un-skippable content warning. Due to that fact, I don't feel like it's a spoiler to list out some of those themes here. The game, like many indie games, deals with themes of depression...but it also deals with bullying, non-explicit animal death, and suicide. Having said that...some of those themes are treated with such ambiguity that you might not necessarily catch on that the theme was present in the first place if your brain weren't already on the lookout for it. But I digress. There's not a bunch I can say on this because, like with a lot of these games, the blinder you can go into the experience, the better....but I do have this to say about the game's writing. It's truly spectacular....in most ways. There are some things that don't quite translate well from the native language to English (the things bullies say, for instance), but especially towards the end of the game, as you get better acquainted with the truth behind the story, the writing...hurts. It hurts a lot. For me, this isn't the "boo-hoo" kind of emotional narrative-driven indie game a-la That Dragon Cancer. But it is a get-under-your-skin-and-make-you-feel-really-sad kind of indie game a-la Last Day of June, despite having a happy ending. There's a level of unrivaled soul-crushing relatability in this game's writing that's bound to be painful for other people like myself who live with depression. So...just be warned that the game does get pretty heavy despite treating its heavier themes with a tasteful degree of ambiguity.

In terms of gameplay, there's not a whole bunch to talk about. If I had to give the formula a label, I'd say it's primarily an adventure game. For those who have been living under a rock, that means you'll typically spend a chapter walking around the world picking up items, talking to people, and solving puzzles based on the items you pick up and the information you gather. There are some segments that take those two concepts and fuse them together in kind of a surrealist way, but I'll leave those bits unspoiled. Aside from that, there is some degree of combat. These combat segments are made up of arcade-style (read: up, down, left, right, x button, etc) quicktime events to attack and a "stop the bar when it lands on the green line" quicktime event to defend. Combat is typically over after you or the enemy lands 3 hits. So, it's not anything to write home about, but it's inoffensive.

That brings us to the technical side of things. Obviously, this is a pixel art game, so it doesn't have very much to hold up, but it shouldn't be surprising that the game performs excellently and has no real technical flaws. So, with that said, lets talk about design, because I include that in the discussion of tech. And on that, I only have two notes. In order to run, you have to double tap the directional button. You simply walk too slowly otherwise, so it's a bit of a hassle. And in the same vein, when you're having characters escort you somewhere, they only move at walking speed. So if someone volunteers to show you where something is, you have to either guess where to go or walk at a snail's pace the whole time. Needless to say, a pretty strong technical package with my only complaints being pretty small...but those small complaints do hurt the replay-ability factor, so it's a thing to note. 

Folks, you'll know if this game is for you based on the gameplay style alone, so there's really not that much to say in conclusion other than if it sounds good to you, you'll probably enjoy it. The only other nominee for the Games for Impact category at the Game Awards I've played is Chants of Sennaar, so I can't exactly say which of the nominees objectively deserves the award. But for its handling of the content it handles, excellent therapy-informed explorations of characters, and impact in its most basic sense, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this one is the winner.

Let us review:

Small design flaws - 0.5

The final score for A Space for the Unbound is...

9.5/10 - Near Masterpiece 

Excellent work, Mojiken, excellent work!