If you know of Unleaving, a new 2D puzzle platformer from indie developer Orangutan Matter, it’s likely because the art style caught your eye. Unleaving is entirely hand-painted, and the passion of this artwork is reflected in the beauty of the world in motion. The heart and soul that went into the thousands of frames of painstakingly drawn artwork is powerful, and that’s why it pains me to say that the game is extraordinarily boring, pretentious, and tedious at best.
Unleaving is a short adventure, but it is artificially lengthened by difficulty. It took me over three hours to complete; however, over an hour was spent on a single physics puzzle involving a wooden duck on wheels and a seesaw. I spent another half hour on a similarly poorly designed puzzle involving a bull and a hamster wheel. There’s always a fine line to walk for puzzles, finding a balance between testing the players ability to figure out what they need to do, and then testing their ability to do it. Unleaving does both of these things poorly.
The rules of the world of Unleaving are not clear, and they never stay consistent for long – the entire journey changes constantly. Ordinarily this would be a good thing, but the frustrating part is that the platforming and controls are inconsistent too. The player character never seems to jump the exact same distance, and inputs on the D-Pad while jumping don’t seem to register the same way half the time. It’s never clear what is interactable and what is not. The physics of world objects don’t work consistently either, and the hitboxes for grabbing onto objects are inscrutable. When you add in gravity changes, upside down controls, and precision platforming to all this… well, you’re in for a bad time.
The world of Unleaving is gorgeous. I loved watching the painted skies and creatures, the haunting monoliths and abstract faces. The music is also lovely, and the pleasant sound design works nicely with the calming atmosphere of the artwork. In fact, it’s a pretty lovely world to inhabit – I’d love exploring it if the game were not dependent on precision while lacking the mechanics to support it. I must also stress that Unleaving is my absolute least favorite kind of game; it forces you to kill creatures you encounter in order to progress, then shames you for killing. It is infuriating every time. There is not a pacifist route.
Unleaving is another one of those games that attempts to shame the player for living in a capitalist society where they are forced to consume unethically to survive. I have played more of them than I can count, and I am tired of being blamed for personally destroying the planet by going to Starbucks. I know there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. I don’t need three hours of miserable platforming to convince me. Unleaving is full of itself, using pretentious words and poetic nonsense to cover that it has no real narrative. Perhaps I was incapable of understanding the poetic stanzas’ true, hidden meanings as they appeared on screen; I did not major in poetry, so who knows.
I played Unleaving on my Steam Deck where it ran very well, although I believe the game has capped its own frame rate at 30 FPS even on PC to make the hand-painted art work. That didn’t bother me, it still looks beautiful in motion. I love how a lot of the strange imagery stuck with me after I was finished, such as the raven in the broken mirror and the elephant reaching enlightenment.
Mechanically, however, this game fails on every level. It is at no point fun to play, the puzzles are confusing due to the inconsistency of the world’s rules, and the precision platforming required is near impossible with lack of responsiveness in the controls. The gameplay is as abstract as the artwork, and it ensures there is no fun to be found here. If you are one of those people who genuinely will suffer through miserable gameplay for beautiful art and vibes, you might enjoy Unleaving. Anyone else should avoid this game.
Nirav played Unleaving on Steam Deck with a review code.
