Gamesline (@gamesline.net)

Franny @arealgoldmouth.bsky.social writes about Undusted: Letters from the Past, a short game from 5minlab about unraveling a family’s sad history by cleaning and restoring long-neglected items! Franny meditates on their own relationship to memory and family that Undusted forced them to confront!

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Facing a Bitter Mirror in Undusted: Letters from the Past It’s not often that I’m faced with a reflection of my feelings so poignantly to a point of some kind of ashamed annoyance. I played Undusted: Letters from the Past with a begrudging satisfaction – it’s succinct and sweet, a one-or-so-hour exercise in unraveling a family’s sad history with no particularly happy, fuzzy ending, and it’s meditative in the singular mechanic of cleaning small objects. It goes by quick: the story of an imperfect yet happy family turned into a placid examination of an estranged and resentful relationship that forms between mother and daughter after the passing of their husband and father. The daughter – Adora – is tasked by her aunt to find an old key in her childhood home. During her search, she uncovers old memories by cleaning and restoring certain small objects in the house – like a record player and a typewriter – that each house their own unique anecdote. https://gamesline.net/facing-a-bitter-mirror-in-undusted-letters-from-the-past/