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Coming of age: How A Space For The Unbound is paying tribute to childhood, nostalgia and Indonesian cultureWe go on a space dive with Mojiken Studios about their upcoming point and click game
We go on a space dive with Mojiken Studios about their upcoming point and click game
When we were putting together ourmost anticipated games of 2022list back in January, there was one game I knew had to be on it: Mojiken Studio’sA Space For The Unbound. It’s a slice of life adventure about two Indonesian high school students set in the late 90s, and the demo (which has recently been expanded to include the first chapter in addition to its short prologue) instantly captivated me when Ifirst played ita couple of years ago. There are some light supernatural elements that will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s watched the films of Japanese anime directors Makoto Shinkai and Mamoru Hosoda (including a giant, ominous Your Name-style comet, no less), but for the most part this is a much more grounded game than Mojiken have made in the past, such as the fantastical point and click puzzlersShe And The Light BearerandWhen The Past Was Around.
Indeed, the only game in their back catalogue that has a recognisable, real-life setting is their short, free browser gameBanyu Lintar Angin. Born out of an internal game jam project in 2017, Banyu Lintar Angin once again draws inspiration from the studio’s home country of Indonesia. It only takes a couple of minutes to play, but speaking with its creator Dimas Novan, it was vital in sowing the seeds for what A Space For The Unbound would eventually become.
A Space for the Unbound - Coming in 2022Watch on YouTube
A Space for the Unbound - Coming in 2022
From the outset, Mojiken have been quite upfront about the themes Unbound will touch on. While its high school romance will sit at the heart of its story, its Steam page description also doesn’t waste any time pointing out that this is a game “about overcoming anxiety and depression.” It’s too early to say exactly how Novan and his team will be handling these sensitive subjects in-game. The demo offers a couple of glimpses (more on that in a minute), but naturally keeps its cards quite close to its chest. Still, I was curious whether the studio felt any additional pressure on this front, having been so open about it ahead of time.
The 90s was a decade of political upheavel for Indonesia, but Novan tells me he was “too young to understand what was happening back then, so I don’t really have any kind of memory or knowledge that I can use to tell a story about the turbulent time to be incorporated in this game. Although there is a tiny bit part in the game that can be viewed as a reference, the bigger themes won’t revolve around [them].”
Even with outside consultation, Novan admits it hasn’t been an easy journey getting the game to where it is today. The team experimented with several prototypes in the early days of development, and “some elements worked and some of them not,” he says. “If we’re talking about games or pop culture media, it needs to have a common ground value that people can relate to. Plus, it has to be entertaining enough to make people willing to experience the story for hours. The early prototypes didn’t really have any of that quality. After doing some study on writing and exploring the genre deeper, finally we found a formula that we think suits the game best and we tried to apply it in the prologue. We realized in order to make the players on board with the overall story we need a tool that makes the story more easily digestible. And that tool is the ‘space dive’.”
The second space dive in the demo’s prologue will require players to hunt down a cassette tape from the real world to help send the chap on the left there off to sleep.
That’s not to say Mojiken will be throwing space dives at you left right and centre, though. In the new version of the demo Atma is dealing with problems much closer to home: making a bucket list with his girlfriend Raya instead of attending careers counselling; avoiding the glare of teachers on the lookout for afternoon class-dodgers; and rescuing a stray (pet-able) cat from a tree. It’s these slice of life segments that I’m looking forward to most in A Space For The Unbound. As I lamented back when I reviewed Japanese indie gameThe Kids We Were, it’s a genre I’m hungry to play more of, but one that few games (on PC at least) seem to cater for. Novan, though, believes the slice of life genre is on the up.
The prologue itself has remained largely unchanged, says Novan. “There are small improvements and polish in the art and programming,” but that’s more or less it. The rest of the game, however, has “shaped up quite differently” to what Mojiken had planned in the beginning.
You’ll be pleased to hear that not only are loads of cats in A Space For The Unbound, but you also can pet and name all of them.
One thing that Novan and his team never lost sight of, though, was the reason why they’re making the game in the first place. “My ultimate ambition for this game is that I’m hoping to preserve my memories as an Indonesian in the game. I want to see the environment I’ve been living in in a new light through game format, and I hope people enjoy the game we made.”
A Space For The Unbound is coming out later this year, and you can try the free prologue and chapter one demo onSteamright now.
