Preview | A Space For The Unbound

LifeisXbox’s A Space For The Unbound preview | A Space For The Unbound is an upcoming slice-of-life adventure game set in the late 90s rural Indonesia. It tells a story about overcoming anxiety, depression, and the relationship between a boy and a girl with supernatural powers. A demo (the prologue) is available on Steam, and since this game is featured during LudoNarraCon, I had to give it a try. A Space For The Unbound is being developed by Mojiken and published by Toge Productions. I hope you are as excited about this one as I am!

Short gameplay

Let me tell you right now that the demo leaves you wanting more. I spent about half an hour getting familiar with A Space For The Unbound and my interest was definitely piqued. By playing the demo, you can already tell that emotions are a big theme, and I’m excited to see what the future gameplay holds regarding this. Apparently, one of the design pillars for this game is understanding and communicating about mental health. I really love this, since I do feel like talking about mental health issues remains taboo to this day. I’m glad to see more and more developers making an effort to really bring this issue into their games.

So far the supernatural elements that are promised have not come into play that much yet in the demo. You have the Red Book which seems to be quite important, and frankly, quite magical, but it’s all still a bit unclear and mysterious. In a good way, meaning it makes me want to discover more about A Space For The Unbound!

You can pet the cats!

I walked past a few cats, and I’m glad to report that you can pet each and every one of them! I just could not walk past any cat without petting them. And here comes the best part: when you actually do give them a cuddle, they will start purring. How adorable is that!!

Art and sound

A Space For The Unbound uses beautiful pixelated graphics. Even though it’s a completely different story and theme, the art style reminded me of old school games, and I can dig that. The speech balloons are so 90s, they’re to die for. I got flashbacks to playing Pokémon on my Gameboy and I’m definitely not mad about that! Both the soundtrack and sound effects were a job well done as well, for the most part. I liked hearing the raindrops and hearing the cat’s meow, but sometimes during conversations, the soundtrack cut out. When this happened, the only sound you’d hear was the sound of text appearing on the screen, and this felt a bit dull. I don’t know if this was a bug in the demo, but I really hope this won’t happen in the full game.

The end

I like the idea, the graphics, the sound, the themes; A Space For The Unbound seems to have it all. A few minor issues still remain, like my character walking faster than a car driving. I know this might be something insignificant and small, but it’s ‘details’ like this that make the experience less real and distract from the gameplay. All in all, I enjoyed the prologue very much and the ending definitely left me confused and curious. And boy, do I love this combination because it ensures that I’ll be back for more!