YMMV / Unpacking

• Adorkable: The protagonist is so fond of her stuffed animals that they not only go with her from house to house but she adds to her collection throughout the years. She's also an avid gamer, and while she does upgrade her consoles from a Gamecube to a Wii and a Gameboy to a DS, she keeps all of her old games. She's also a fan of Dungeons & Dragons.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The boyfriend; a controlling jerk who refused to accommodate the protagonist when she moved into his apartment, or simply someone who was used to living a minimalistic lifestyle and simply wasn't able to live with someone with a more casual outlook? While the boyfriend didn't move his belongings for the protagonist, she is allowed to move them herself, suggesting that he trusted her. Additionally, was the break-up an awful one, given that the protagonist either can't bear to look at her ex-boyfriend's photograph or sticks a pin through his face, or was she just reeling because she really cared for him and is struggling in the aftermath? Given that she's still into making coffee the same way he does, using the same equipment no less, the protagonist isn't traumatised by her time with him.
• Awesome Music: The game's soundtrack, composed by Jeff van Dyck, is catchy, heartwarming, and captures the general mix of excitement and melancholy that comes with moving and calling a new place home.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Putting an electrical device in a sink, bathtub, or shower room will reward you with a cutesy sticker of a skeleton getting shocked.
• Difficulty Spike: As difficult as this game can get;
  • 2007 sees the protagonist moving into an apartment with two roommates and she has to place her belongings amongst theirs without moving what has already been placed. She's also acquired a lot more books and art equipment but only has a relatively small room to store them in. Of particular note is the bathroom and kitchen, where her roommates' stuff takes up a lot of the available drawer space.
  • 2010 has the protagonist moving into her boyfriend's apartment but he hasn't cleared any space for her at all, meaning she's the one who has to move his things around to make room. But even with the most careful placement, it's still difficult to fit everything in, and the protagonist has to leave her art equipment on the coffee table or on the kitchen counter. She's unable to place anything on the walls at all.
  • 2012 is when the protagonist briefly moves back home after breaking up with her boyfriend. She now has to cram a lot more stuff into her small childhood bedroom and adjoining bathroom.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: For a game with only a handful of very vague and mostly unseen characters, the girlfriend is almost universally beloved for their colourful and pretty taste in clothes and belongings and for the positive influence they have on the protagonist, even if they are only implied to appear in the last two levels.
• Fridge Horror: What happened to the protagonist when she went from a reasonably athletic young woman, going by the football and trophies in her possession, to needing heating pads, painkillers and even a cane? Not helping matters is the fact that this happens after moving in with and then breaking up with her boyfriend.
• Genius Bonus: The silver fern flag, an alternative to the New Zealand flag, can be seen in the dining room of the third house (2007).
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The stuffed toy hen and her increasing number of chicks can be difficult to place as there are certain areas they can't go, a chick is added to the collection almost every single level, and not everyone wants them crowding up the bed. They're lucky that they're adorable.
  • Some of the items might be unfamiliar to players and therefore they don't know where to place them, such as the hanging hand from 2013 that looks like a palm-shaped body scrubber, but is actually a wall decoration called a hamsa. Sometimes it's also hard to see what some items actually are due to the simplistic graphics.
  • There are times when an item would be perfectly acceptable in a certain place but the game just doesn't accept it; such as leaving certain appliances on the kitchen counter, having various items in drawers or leaving your shoes by the door.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: In Dark Star Mode, you clear a level by putting everything in the wrong places. One way to increase its difficulty is by playing "Floor is Lava", where you're not allowed to put anything on the floor.
• Stress-Relieving Gameplay:
  • If you try to place a picture of the protagonist and her ex-boyfriend on the cork board after their break-up, she'll stick the pin through their face.
  • Dark Star Mode, where you clear the level by putting everything in the wrong place, encourages you to deliberately make a mess in the boyfriend's apartment since you can also move his things. Since playing the level normally is hard since it's tricky to figure out which of the protagonist's belongings fit "correctly" in the boyfriend's apartment, doing a Dark Star run here can be seen as cathartic if you believe that the boyfriend is a jerk to the protagonist for not being accommodating to her.
• That One Level: Moving into the boyfriend's apartment can be annoying as there's barely any room for the protagonist's belongings, so they won't go where you expect them to be.
• The Woobie: Our protagonist goes through a pretty rough break-up given her reaction to a mere picture of her ex-boyfriend in the aftermath. Of special note is how she couldn't even find room to hang her diploma in her boyfriend's apartment unless it was in the closet. She also appears to be struggling with her physical health, as she goes from bringing a football with her from house to house to using heat pads, painkillers and even a cane in a later house.

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