29-Sept-24: Gray's Gaming Gabs - Packing Up The Rest Of Your Stuff On The Last Day At Your Old Apartment, by Turnfellow

Ever have one of those moments that just sticks with you? A scene flash frozen, all your senses of sound and smell and feel vivid, signifying nothing really in particular, no real emotion or weight, but it just... sticks? For the longest time, Packing Up The Rest Of Your Stuff On The Last Day At Your Old Apartment has been that feeling put in a game for me. I played through it, had fun and then, now and again, the game would pop up in my mind. Maybe I'd redownload it, play through it again, and then repeat. Always lurking again, ready to resurface for what felt like no reason in particular.

When I started my Cohost, I was inspired by Aura's monthly games she was playing. I made my own for January, started making one for Feburary, and promptly forgot about it. I was later inspired by Pengy's Strange Gaming Diaries, wanting to make my own reflections on particular games I was playing, and never got around to it. A variety of reasons, I could just never think of a game I wanted to talk about, I wasn't playing anything interesting, or just replaying the same old multiplayer games. With Cohost about to end, I was ready to let it fade -- I didn't have much to say that wasn't already said, after all.

Then, again, it pops back up. Packing Up The Rest Of Your Stuff.

Time feels heavier. It was released back in 2017, and seven years is quite some time to change. Before, I was entirely focused on the gameplay itself, packing away your items in a kind of inventory Tetris into three boxes of different sizes, feeling oh-so-clever that I could cram the massive rainstick into the tiny shoebox due to an exploit. I still did the same exploit, replaying the game today. Didn't even need to put anything in the donation bag, the game's way of dealing with 'overfill' for items. It's no wonder I just played through this game in the past, and thought nothing else of it at the time.

There's no dialogue, but the game does have small bits of writing, snippets for the items you pack. They're not always eloquent: "I guess this is my sugar?" for a leftover bag of it, to a simple "Ugh." for the broken-apart head to a toilet plunger. But of course, there's memories tied to other things.

"Split this bottle in the park on a hot day. We got sleepy and fell asleep against a tree, shoulder to shoulder." A wine bottle labeled Sangreata.

"Arizona in 2006 or 2007. We pulled over at every little shop between Tucson and the Grand Canyon. Maybe 2008." The aforementioned rainstick.

As the items clear away, the larger furniture can be removed as well, packed away in a sound cue. Mattress, dresser, box fan. The Ogg music player will probably the last piece to be packed away, diegetically playing the music in the bedroom. There's no music except for the ambiance of a summer's day as you tape up the packing boxes, bringing them away with a simple click, leaving the bedroom, previously cluttered with memories and life, barren. Exit out into the hallway, as the day turns to evening light, letting you see all the furniture in the hallway removed in a time lapse of sorts.

The apartment's fully modeled, even if nothing compels you to explore the place. Roommate's bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom. I don't think I ever noticed the train passing by the kitchen window.

I don't think I ever noticed the melancholy.

Because that's- that's the point of this whole game, right? The sadness on a place you've lived in coming to an end? That all the memories and all the things and all the stuff you had needs to be packed away and sorted and possibly donated and you want to keep everything, even the shitty little broken-off knob on the dresser or the broken plunger or bag of sugar that you could just buy at the store? The blinds in your bedroom don't open properly, the walls have cracks and marks, there's a porch you can't even go out onto. It's a place! Lived in, loved in, god, it was a place and now you have to leave and you don't want to leave, or you do and it's a burden to pack and remember and

You have to. Take another lap around the place, around the barren apartment, around the empty bedroom. It doesn't change that it's moving day. You'll still have the memories, if not the stuff. Maybe the memories will fade. So be it. So it goes.

I'm not good at endings. I'm not good with endings. Two, going on three years of writing visual novels and the idea that everything can be tied up in a little bow has never sat right with me. After everything's all said and done, the event's finished or season's past, there will always be a next day, and you have keep on going.

Packing Up The Rest Of Your Stuff On The Last Day At Your Old Apartment ends with you grabbing the box fan, the last piece to be packed, and walking down the stairs, out the door. The credits are scrawled onto the wall to your left in sharpie. You don't see out into the street, it simply fades to black, and onto an end screen. Among my many playthroughs, I don't think I ever remembered the end screen. If I did, I don't think I would have ever remembered the significance of it, the final words the game says about moving out of an old apartment.

I think it's a good ending.

Download to the game here.