Blue Rider Interactive’s Apartment Story immediately caught my attention due to its unique mix of genres. It’s a life sim, often associated with the cozy genre yet in this instance it’s matched with a thriller story which only takes up to two hours to complete.
We play as Arthur who’s recently become unemployed and is facing having to move out of his apartment which he shares with roommates, the current one of which is on holiday. We wake up one morning to a text message from our roommate letting us know that someone will be dropping by to pick something up. That person turns out to be Diane, an old roommate, who has gotten herself mixed into something bad and desperately needs to get into your roommate’s locked bedroom to collect what she needs.
As Arthur we will pass the time in between story events by simply staying alive. We have several life meters for all the necessary vitals (sleep, mind, toilet, hygiene, and hunger) and must take care not to let our overall life meter reach 0% as that will mean death.
One of the tricky things when approaching shorter games is not judging it by its length but rather how it spends this time. Do we feel fulfilled by the ending and was the story fully wrapped up? Was the shorter gameplay length filled with activity or did it somehow still have filler moments?
I will say that, despite its length, Apartment Story does have a few boring segments where there is nothing to fill the time with inbetween story moments. We can look after ourselves, cook, or tidy up. But aside from that, there’s nothing to entertain the player while we’re waiting for the next thing to happen and I think it could have seriously benefitted from a minigame of sorts. I also found that it wasn’t particuarly difficult to keep Arthur alive and I was able to easily stay on top of his needs for the most part. Having an additional distraction would help to make this more challenging.
I did like some of the gameplay details, such as the cooking mechanic which allows you to combine the ingredients in the fridge together to create meals. The game always knew exactly what I was trying to make based on the ingredients I was using. There’s also a budget managing element but it feels a little bare bones as the only thing you can spend your money on is the electricity metre. It maybe would have been better if we’d had a couple of choices to make, such as paying our water bill or paying our electricity bill. Otherwise this mechanic feels a little pointless.
Apartment Story doesn’t try to overshoot its storyline and I wouldn’t change anything about it; it’s all wrapped up within the game despite its short length, leaving no questions unanswered or the player wanting more. It keeps things simple, yet at the same time intense despite some questionable decisions by the characters.
While the sound effects and soundtrack are quite sparse (though this isn’t really a problem), the visuals are stunning. Apartment Story uses pixelated visuals while still holding a lot of detail. We’re confined to the apartment for the whole game so it needed to be designed well to make for an ideal setting and it does work. The small environment is full of belongings placed in a way that it actually looks lived in. The lighting is also perfect, creating a really relaxing setting when needed and there’s also a day and night cycle.
Overall, Apartment Story is a neat feature-length game that’s designed to be played in one sitting. Despite the flaws in its gameplay which I think just needed a little tweaking to make it worth it, the storyline was pretty interesting and wrapped up nicely where it ended. If you’re looking for a casual game that you can complete in an afternoon, this might be for you.
Jess reviewed Apartment Story on PC with a review code.
