Synopsis: A coming-of-age adventure where you follow two high school sweethearts on a journey of self-discovery at the end of their high school years while facing the end of the world. Explore 90s Indonesian town, uncover its secrets, use supernatural powers to dive into people’s hearts, and pet cats.
Music Composer: Masdito “ittou” Bachtiar, Christabel Annora, Bambang Iswanto
Publisher: Toge Productions
Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch
Also available for: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Developer: Mojiken Studio
Director: Dimas Novan Delfiano
Producer: Eka Pramudita M
Narrative Designer: Elwin Lysander, Brigitta Rena
Writer: Brigitta Rena, Galuh Elsa A. N.
The first charming surprise for 2023 is the Indonesian indie game A Space for the Unbound. Its slice-of-life anime-inspired narrative and visuals will make fans of Your Name director/writer Makoto Shinkai. There are the same cornerstones here: a romance, mundane normality like problems at school, and then turning everything on its head with a twist of supernatural powers.
You play Atma, a school kid who gets his hands on a red book that allows him to “Space Dive” into people’s minds and push them to overcome a fear or even, in one case, make a child want to eat something other than chocolates. Raya has her own set of powers that goes beyond what Atma can play with, and the true extent of them is something you’ll discover as you play through the game. The two of them discover a rift that’s beginning to tear in the sky and set out to figure out how to close it while dealing with their relationship issues, bullies at school and more. It’s hard to say too much without spoiling the way in which the narrative beats of A Space for the Unbound unfold, but the game builds upon its supernatural powers at a good pace, and the game will head in directions you couldn’t have predicted.
Most of the game is spent exploring the small Indonesian town where the game is set and talking to its citizens. It’s a unique and vibrant location, and the developer, Mojiken, has included a bunch of Indonesian history and culture touch-points. You can even come across this group of students that’ll ask you a bunch of trivia questions, the answers to which I only knew a little as they revolved around Indonesian history. I had to Google them, but I at least learnt a few things.
Not an inch of the town doesn’t feel lovingly crafted from each character standing apart from the beautiful backdrops. A Space for the Unbound is one of the most gorgeous pixel-art games I can remember playing in recent memory. You’ll spend a lot of the game wandering back and forth around the town looking to solve puzzles, and there’s bound to be at least a few times you’re mindlessly looking around trying to solve a mystery; thankfully, it doesn’t grow tiresome when the world is this well drawn.
Although you’ll spend the first few chapters of A Space for the Unbound talking to characters around town and looking to solve typical adventure-game puzzles, you’ll also be diving into the minds of the citizens, which adds a twist to the formula. At one stage, you need a Chef to return to work, and to get her to do so; you must find three ingredients in the real world and then “Space Dive” and use them to almost push a nightmare on them about their cooking going wrong for spending time slacking-off. As the game progresses, you’ll even enter levels where you’re “Space Diving” inside someone while you’re already in their mind to truly add an extra layer of Inception to the whole thing. It’s not as complicated as it sounds when you’re playing the game yourself, but with that said, I did find some of the puzzles in the second half of the game to be, at times, slightly obtuse. One involved using a lot of maths — which I admit I’m already bad at — but it was also not fun to solve and will grind some player’s gears, and not in the right way.
What I haven’t touched on, and it’s hard to without spoilers, is how serious the tone and themes and A Space for the Unbound get, especially in the game’s last two chapters. When you start the game, you’re presented with a warning about themes involving depression and mental health. Bullying is a big part of the game’s themes and how that can affect someone not only in the moment but for years to come. Toxic masculinity is also at the forefront of the themes of the game and the trauma of an abusive parent. How the game handles all these themes is tremendous, and the final act will have you wiping a tear or two from your eye.
There’s a bunch of seemingly random things that are thrown into A Space for the Unbound, collecting bottle caps, each of which I believe to be from real Indonesian drinks, and then there’s the abundance of cats in this game. They’re all over town, but thankfully you can not only pet every single one of them. You can also name them all. By the end of the game, Atma would have named well over twenty cats.
A Space For the Unbound is a slice-of-life adventure with a supernatural twist. The deep mental health themes feel like they come from a place of experience; they’re heartfelt and relatable. With seven years of development, Mojiken Studio has put much of themselves into this game, and you feel it. Even amidst the deep themes, this is a charming game that has you exploring a unique Indonesian town, participating in cultural events I know I’d never heard of before and appreciating the gorgeous pixel art. I was surprised at just how tightly the narrative in A Space for the Unbound grabbed me, and it’s sure to be either one of the indie hits of 2023 or one of the most under-played gems.
(A Space for the Unbound code provided for review)
