Unravel commits to an emotionally charged experience, and it had a powerful effect on me that continues to weave a response that won’t fade anytime soon. Accustomed to games with overtly masculine tropes and stereotypes, I was pleased to explore different personal emotions while playing as the cuddly red yarn character, aptly named Yarny. Instead of explicitly telling a story, Unravel is imbued with true storytelling greatness—that is, it shows and doesn’t tell.
On more than one occasion during my multiple sessions playing the game, I came very close to breaking out in tears. I’m not used to this kind of emotion; games often present their most heart-wrenching moments somewhere around the climax. In Unravel, I felt that every level, every tiny detail in its environment, which led to a downpour of emotions. The frequency of emotional moments in Unravel left me tearing at the seams.
Yarny doesn’t speak, and the game never offers voice-acting or text-based storytelling. Aside from the well-crafted quotes presented upon completion of each level, the story is told entirely from the interactions Yarny has with his environment. Though the game never openly admits to it, we are led to believe that the loving hero is trying to collect yarn badges in the hopes of fastening past memories together so they are not lost forever. This method of storytelling—short, emotionally charged quotes and Yarny’s interactions with the environment–means that the story is what you make of it, and to me Unravel is a story of love, a story of loss, and a story about looking to the future.
Yarny, seemingly a child’s toy, quests through several hazards and puzzles to collect memories to add to an album. Every time he completes a mission, blurred photos come into focus—photos of past memories that include what look to be members of a family spending time together in a variety of outings. There is something truly melancholic about the whole experience of traveling through side-scrolling environments to recollect pieces of cherished memories. Each memory is special in its own way and will be lost forever if not for Yarny and his duty of being the thread that pulls them together again.
Whether traversing scenic areas in the woods, by the docks, along train tracks, or in a wild snowstorm, Unravel made me feel like something important was at stake: love and the importance of memory. The game reminded me just how important our memories are. Memories shape who we are, who we were, and who we want to be. These memories nourish our identity and define the people that we love. Sometimes this love is broken and we go our separate ways, and the game reminded me of this. Though it is hard to let go, everyone has their own path to take in life—sometimes our paths cross, but in the end, the road we travel is always our own to take.
If it wasn’t for the atmosphere in Unravel—the music, the view point from a diminutive character, and the natural elements—this reflective and mildly depressing mood I speak of would not come to fruition. The violin sounds, the defamiliarizations of everyday objects, and the dangers presented by pools of water or toxic waste led to a certain kind of sadness that can only be explained as nostalgia. Nostalgia best defines what the amalgamation of all these storytelling elements create. Like Yarny’s quest to collect fragments of past memories and bring them to the present moment, nostalgia is simultaneously a happy and sad emotion; nostalgia includes a rush of fond memories experienced in the past, but it also includes a storm of sadness related to feelings of yearning for the past.
Perhaps I have extracted too deep a story from Unravel and its various elements, but I do believe that the emotions I felt while playing were gathered from details that permeated the experience. Aside from the dreary melodies and the didactic quotes, the gameplay in Coldwood’s game also added to the sense that Yarny was suffering through a world that had obscured his beloved past memories. The journey to collect all the memories was a long and arduous one. Like the tricky puzzles and hazardous environments, love is no easy puzzle to solve. It takes time and effort, along with deep thought and an abundance of patience.
So many reviews have claimed that the gameplay in Unravel is frustrating; I say it is just right. For every fumble Yarny made, which led to him drowning in but a small puddle of water, to being frozen alive, or to being consumed by toxins, there was another layer of emotion added to the game. The hazards and troublesome controls gave the game a real sense that there was much to lose and impending failure lurked around every dangerous corner.
I am thankful for such a game like Unravel, as it took me in and wrapped me in its cuddly arms to unravel a dreary yet passionate story. It is a wonderful reminder of the artistic power that games have. No other medium can pull together music, atmosphere, story, and interaction in the same way that a video game can. And that engrossing nature of all these constituents put together makes for a delightful storytelling environment. In the future, I surely won’t forget the effect Unravel has had on me in early 2016. For today, Unravel has left me with inspiration to remain courageous in the face of making or severing relationships, to love no matter the harsh challenges everyday life presents, to always cherish past memories both pleasant and unpleasant, and to live before my memories become nothing but blurred remnants of a past that won’t return.