A Space for the Unbound: A narrative-focused indie game from Indonesia

The indie gaming industry has brought up several surprises in recent years and 2023 kicked off with yet another amazing addition to this list: “A Space for the Unbound”. A 2D adventure game of the slice-of-life genre and focused on the narrative and with an aesthetic and design in pixel art.

“A Space for the Unbound” was developed by indie company Mojiken Studio and published by Toge Productions. It was released on January 19, 2023, for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Switch, and PC.

The story takes place in the 1990s in a small rural town in Indonesia, where Atma and Raya live, a couple of young people experiencing their youth, surrounded by several mysteries, including a strange power that each of them seems to have. It is up to Atma to unravel these mysteries while trying to discover the truth.  

A beautiful artistic representation of the 1990s, full of mysteries

“A Space for the Unbound” is a game with a lot of focus on its mysterious narrative, in which you’ll have control over Atma to discover the reasons for the different events happening around you.

You will be able to explore the city and listen to what worries its residents, while you use a special book called the Magic Red Book. It is with him that you will have the ability to “Space Dive” in which you can enter a dimension that represents the “inner self” of a person. There you will find out a little about what ails him, and you can also try to help him through a variety of small puzzles and/or minigames. This help also affects the real world, so you’ll discover more ways to progress the story.

What makes Space Dive engaging is the fact that the different characters we have to help are very interesting; they contain varied stories, many of which are realistic; we witness different memories; and some are quite heavy, so much so that the game warns at the beginning that it touches on subjects that can trigger some people. Such as depression, anxiety, family problems, and difficulty with social relationships.

Fortunately, the game does not abuse these issues and approaches them seriously without trivializing them, but even so, be sure to warn your audience about this before playing.

In addition to Space Dive, you will also be able to perform some extra tasks, such as petting and naming the different kittens that live around the city, putting together a collection of bottle caps, playing a 1990s fighting arcade, and completing bubblegum stickers. All these extra activities reward us with a small scene related to the protagonist’s past, adding a lot to the narrative.

While the story is captivating, what makes it unique is the incredible artwork behind the beautiful pixel art and beautiful soundtrack of “A Space for the Unbound”. The city settings, the characters, and the various narrative scenes were very beautiful. The ambient sound and its soundtrack are not far behind either; everything is of high quality.

“A Space for the Unbound” is perfect for live streaming and even more to watch

“A Space for the Unbound” is a low-spec game, and like many indie games, it doesn’t require very advanced hardware, so it’s pretty easy to live stream it, regardless of the version you have access to.

It is a game that is not very long, which adds a lot to the live stream, as it is possible to complete the main story and its extra content with 9 to 12 hours of gameplay.

As the story is very intriguing, this will naturally be one of the strongest points when performing a live stream, as the game has a good rhythm when revealing mysteries and sharpening our curiosity about what lies ahead. You can take advantage of these moments when new questions arise to try to theorize with your audience about what is actually happening in the history and what could be the origin of these mysteries. You can also try to solve the various puzzles with the assistance of the audience.

“A Space for the Unbound” is localized into some languages: Indonesian, English, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Alexandre Gaara

Anime lover, Specialized Reviewer and Game Platinator