A Space For The Unbound, A Beautiful Journey

 *Note: I received a game code for the Nintendo Switch for my honest review of the game. Thank you to Toge Productions and Mojiken Studio for the game code and thank you for creating such a powerful and beautiful game. 

*Trigger warning: A Space for the Unbound shows and discusses mental health: depression, anxiety, and suicide. These are very serious and heavy topics in the game and we will be going over it in this review with some spoilers. 

A Space for the Unbound is a slice of life adventure story set in Indonesia in the nineties that talks about depression and anxiety. The game starts with introducing the main character of Atma who seems to be having a dream about chatting with a young girl named Nirmala about her story she's writing. Immediately I noticed the beautiful pixel art of the game. The colors are vibrant which work really well with the art. I liked the interaction between Atma and Nirmala because you could really see how close they are as friends. 

Atma and Nirmala in their basecamp. 

Atma wakes up in a classroom with his girlfriend Raya who is very sweet. I found myself smiling as Raya talked to Atma about making a bucket list of things they want to do together before graduating. Raya tells Atma they should do all these things right away and suggests skipping the rest of the school day. This starts the game with playing as Atma figuring out how to sneak by the teachers and meet up with Raya. 

Atma and Raya together. 

You can keep track of everything you do in a red book that shows the bucket list and as you complete each thing, it gets checked off. The book also has a map of the town as well as a list of all the collectibles Atma can find.

Keeping track of the bucket list. 

There's another cute feature in the game which is all the cats in town. You can pet the cats and you can choose among a list of three names to give them which is adorable and I made sure I named and petted every single cat. It's a lovely thing that brought so much joy just being able to hang out with all the cats. 

Atma pets a cute kitty. 

Atma and Raya wander around town doing different things and meeting up with all the various supporting characters in the story. They're having fun together and Atma starts to notice some things about Raya and around town that don't seem right. Raya has a supernatural power she can use and she does show Atma with the adorably named Cat Island who is surprised, but takes it in stride. 

Raya and Atma on Cat Island. 

The red book Atma carries with him is special because it is magical and allows Atma to have the ability to space dive which means he can go into someone's mind and see their memories when certain conditions are met. It's a specific memory that shows something the person is struggling with or trying to overcome. It's up to Atma to solve a unique puzzle in these memories that helps the person by changing something in the real world or gives a clue about the person so that Atma can help them. Each inner mind world looks pretty cool and interesting with the art style showing that character's personality. That's another thing I love about the game too. The music throughout the game is beautiful and captures the mood of each chapter and scene perfectly. 

Atma in someone's memory. 

Besides the main story, there are side quests you can do as well such as beating the high score in Future Fighter which is Atma's favorite game or collecting bottlecaps around town. Future Fighter is a lot of fun and brought up nostalgic memories for me of playing games in the arcade with my friends when I was a kid. It's a nice break from the main story and while it took me quite a few tries, I did beat the high score eventually; a fun thing to cross off the bucket list. 

Future Fighter is so much fun. 

Atma is really likeable and I appreciated his kind heart and concern for Raya especially as he navigated through the fact that he wasn't sure which things were dreams or memories as they blurred together. The more Raya uses her power, the more unstable things around town become. Each chapter reveals a bit more in the story as Atma tries to figure out what is going on and finds out the truth about terrible things Raya went through. 

I'm grateful that the developers of the game had a warning about the heavy topics discussing mental health with depression, anxiety, and suicide because the story in A Space for the Unbound while beautiful is also heartbreaking in places. Atma seeing Raya's memories of being bullied and struggling with feeling like she was enough, feeling like everything was just a pointless endeavor, absolutely resonated with me. It moved me to tears because I have been where Raya is; on the edge of the abyss wondering if it's all worth it and fighting to go on. The earnestness with which this game discusses these things made me feel seen in such a thoughtful and gentle way. That means everything to me because so many times we're told not to talk about mental health and here in A Space for the Unbound it's talked about in such a beautiful open and honest way showing that it is okay to talk about it and that it's important because we need that love and support in order to move forward.

By the end of the story I was sobbing because it wrecked me in the best way. The gentleness of Atma really shines through as he tells Raya how much he loves her and supports her. It perfectly showed all it takes is just one person to care and be there when we need it most. One of my favorite lines in the game is something Atma says, "Don't worry, in the storm you'll find your sunrise." because it shows that even in our darkest moments of despair there is always a little bit of hope and light. In a way, A Space for the Unbound is a love story. It's a story about loving ourselves, even the parts of us that we feel are hard to love and that the people who truly care about us love all of us too and will be there with us every step of the way with patience, love, and kindness. It's a beautiful journey and I'm so grateful I got a chance to play it. It's a wonderful indie gem and I loved all of it.

Beautiful words of wisdom from Atma. 

*A Space for the Unbound is available on: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Playstation 5

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer