Unwording

Uplifting.

A very quick, charming game about resetting depressive thoughts. At first word puzzles, it expands into a celebration of life, community, and simple pleasures. UPDATE: You CAN pet the dog.

[h3]Monotonous Puzzles and poor messaging.[/h3] [b]Unwording is a short 1-2hr story about recontextualizing Tom's thoughts through puzzles thanks to a bird & seemingly nothing else, with the length relative to your puzzle skills, lexicon & word association knowledge.[/b] Unwording has you experience Tom's life as a sidescroller with puzzle prompts placed in his Apartment, Street & Workplace that display his current outlook on life. You travel through the former areas across three days with each day hosting a unique puzzle format alongside movement & artstyle that provide a view at Tom's mundane life & "growth" from darkness. The puzzles change from day to day starting with word forming by rearranging alphabet blocks, to infuriatingly hidden word alignments before finishing with text prompt inputs. Outside of puzzles Unwording starts with an interesting sketched 2D artstyle during Day 1 before devolving into a basic & buggy 2.5D sidescroller during Day 2 & finishing in 3D. [i]Frustrations with the themes & messaging at the end | Extended playtime due to unintended idling.[/i] [h3]Days & Puzzles[/h3] [b]Day 1.[/b] The first day or level has an interesting sketched 2D Artstyle where you locate and interact with puzzle prompts near objects. The puzzle format has you form a new phrase that reflects the negative state of the character by rotating & placing alphabet blocks. It is simple and the game provides enough context for the otherwise unknown answer through an interaction prompt that reveals associated phrases & environmental context clues prior to entry. [b]Day 2.[/b] The second day converts the artstyle & gameplay into a 2.5D environment with depth. The added depth causes issues with movement getting stuck on any geometry that sticks out from the wall. It is also where I encountered bugs related to mouse recognition that caused me to restart my game & lose the day's progress. You have to recontextualise the first day phrases by tediously rotating a scattered set of cubes to find & form 1-3 infuriatingly hidden words whilst making sure the camera is aligned perfectly to register the word. There is a low opacity hint system in place that reveals the alignment but the game occasionally failed to register correct placement unless it was pin-point. [b]Day 3.[/b] You run around the usual environments, interacting with new & old objects but now you have to type words to solve the puzzle using what you know about Tom, the current environment and randomness. This system is a mess where it is completely trial & error hoping the list of words that the game accepts lines up with your own lexicon. [h3]Controls:[/h3] The game uses the Mouse & keyboard with WASD, Spacebar & Q/E for movement & interaction. Difficulty outside of personal lexicon, there are two difficulty options that can be swapped between at any point.[list][*]Easy reveals the length of phrase & word, provides extra hints if you get stuck, confirms if a placed block is correct straight away & reveals brighter hint lines during Day 2. [*]Normal hides the phrase/word length, reduces the brightness of hint lines during day 2, reduces the amount of hint blocks available & only confirms if a block is correct if the adjacent block is correct.[/list] [h3]Story, Themes & Growth[/h3] Story wise the game is the following: Guy is down in the dumps, potentially depressed although the puzzles seem to indicate just sadness. He goes through his day with negative thoughts before a bird enters his apartment freaking him out. The bird excretes on his bed and he decides to clean it up, the bird then excretes on his phone to which he does not clean. The next day he leaves the apartment & starts recontextualising the negative thoughts he had the day prior and after doing so with a bit of lethargy, the day after he is now happy and safe a baby from being run over, can engage with the world, random people and his co-workers, the end. [b]The simplicity of Unwording's design & moot story greatly affects the mental health topic & themes.[/b] I understand what Unwording is showcasing about depression & sadness but how it is displayed and the speed at which & context behind how Tom recovers is so simplistic that it simplifies the struggles and seemingly minimises it to minor anxiety and the solution is to don't be sad, put down your phone(you should but that's not the point) and just talk to people. The character has no interaction with another person prior to the change in his life and the only interaction he has is a bird that ♥♥♥♥♥ on his phone & bed that makes him act, BUT the complete 180 to where he changes his entire reality and allows him to recontextualise the hopelessness & darkness he saw in the world ONLY one day prior is asinine. Now, sure there are people in the world who wake up and go about their day/interactions like they haven't been depressed for whatever period of time but the way in which Unwording showcases the disability & suffering, offers nothing but the possibility Tom will relapse once the game completes & that the answer to the former is to get over yourself. [h3]Conclusion [/h3] Unwording is a cheap game for $1.50AUD during sales, I do not recommend it and instead if you do wish to experience it, watch a YouTube playthrough because in spite of the interesting artistic changes that occur between the three days, the puzzles aren’t that fun & the story/message is empty lacking any depth into the subject matter. [i]The main takeaway that I'll remember from my playthrough while being facetious, is that the Bird must be one hell of a Mental Health professional.[/i]