Game Review - Unravel (PS4)

Unravel is a story about a little yarn…demon…thing exploring the world and memories of a little old woman. *spoilers to follow*

Unravel starts off with the little Yarn Demon (or Yarn Cat as my daughter likes to call him) called Yarny in what looks like an older house in one of the European nations. There’s a little hand-embroidered pillow with definitely not-English on it, and as you play the game you figure out it’s not in the English speaking countries. In front of Yarny is a small photo album, but there are no pictures in it. The player then navigates the house of an older person (it’s got that Grandma’s house vibe to it). Yarny is tethered to the yarn basket he woke up in, so you’ve got this little yarn “tail” behind you.

Unravel is a side-scrolling platformer. The player is limited to a linear path, left or right, and can only go up or down the Y-axis. To access levels you have to find picture frames in the woman’s house and then you “enter” them. You basically go through time and find tidbits of this woman’s life and her memories. You collect small knitted “patches” at the end of the level and bring them back, putting them on the photo album. Once you’ve done that, the photo album can be opened up and now there is writing in the front and new pictures. Each level adds more writing before a new set of pictures.

In each level the Yarny leaves the house, ties off onto a nail in the level, and away you go. As you move through the level, your character starts to “unravel” and lose his yarn. Eventually, you can’t proceed any further because you ran out of yarn. You can back-track and gather back up your yarn and try a different route, or you can keep your eyes peeled for a nail with a bunch of yarn attached to it. Those Nails with yarn on them replenish your yarn supply and act as a checkpoint. Something to note is that there is no HUD or gauges telling you how much yarn you have left. It’s all visually represented on Yarny.

The other unique aspect is that Yarny can sling his yarn at objects. Sometimes he can attach it to a lightbulb that has a bit of yarn tied off on it and swing around, or he can string it between two nails tightly and create a little trampoline/tightrope. Sometimes he’ll attach it to an object to pull it down, or drag it up. The whole gameplay revolves around well-placed jumps and attaching and swinging and stringing. If you throw the yarn in the wrong order, or tie off in weird places you can run out of yarn. To solve some problems requires a bit of physics and repelling and timing. It’s deceptively simple, but really is a lot of fun.

The controls are also quite simple, as is the user interface. You have a jump button, a grab-on-to-objects button, a sling-yarn button, a gather-yarn button, and a tie-off button. There’s no HUD, just your character and the world. It helps bring focus to the puzzle and less about information bombarding you.

The game is a side-scroller at heart, but the visuals really add depth to the game. On the PS4 the game was absolutely beautiful, with the yarn from the little guy looking like real yarn, and the water, flora, and fauna all quite pretty. There are also real photos inserted throughout the levels, so there’s some reality to tie it all together. The other part of the game, outside of the gameplay itself, that blew me away was the music. The music was perfectly chosen and composed. The whole game has a sort of nostalgic and sad feel, and the music drives that home in each level. I could just listen to the music and be content.

So the story is a bit…convoluted. Again, the game takes place in one of the European countries, and I’m guessing Eastern Europe. As said before, you go through pictures and collect memories of this woman and sort of see her life lived out and visit each location that the pictures captured. In the beginning it’s fairly simple. It looks like it’s her childhood with her sibling, and exploring the outdoors and the world. There’s a level where it looks like they went camping and one where they were swimming and fishing. But soon you start to see references to some sort of toxic mess, like maybe they were mining for oil or coal and the company that mined screwed over the town. As you progress you can make some speculation about the story, but you’re never told anything and nothing is outright explained. It’s really cool and makes the brain work, but it also means that if you don’t have some of the cultural context you may not understand everything you are being shown (like me. I still don’t understand all of it).

So to wrap it up, Unravel was a surprisingly great little game with excellent visuals and audio, simple but fun gameplay, with an interesting storytelling method and experience. I’d suggest picking it up, especially if you want something that can be picked up and played in short bursts and you don’t want to keep track of political intrigue or which cave you needed to delve into. It’s a very refreshing game!