What is a mug?
It was a pair of nail clippers that got me.
What surprised me was just how flush the clippers looked - how clear everything looked.
So, how did this mix of aesthetics and realism come about?
I was lucky enough to speak to Angus Doolan, the lead pixel artist on Unpacking.
He lives in Brisbane, Australia.
And he tells me it all started with a mug.
Initially, creative director Wren Brier had created a simple mug.
The entire scale of the game is based on how small she could make the mug.
It’s played on a grid after all - one item can only go in one square.
For Doolan, this meant that things like the nail clippers had to be designed in an abstract way.
“If you really look at the nail clippers, they’re absolutely giant, and very short.
Not the same dimensions as real clippers,” he tells me.
“The first thing is representationally deciding, what is a mug?”
Having a mug with no handle might require you to put in context for people.
“Isometric is non-intuitive for me.
So if things were inaccurate, it would become immediately obvious that the object was wrong.”
It’s done brilliantly.
The amount of effort is astounding, considering just how natural everything looks in the game.
Unpacking looks so simple, with its cute little pixel versions of basic household objects.
