The Berlin Apartment

Despite all its flaws, “The Berlin Apartment” is a bold game because, upon entering the world of walking simulators, it immediately turns one of the genre’s key concepts on its head. In this game, it’s not the surroundings that change for the player’s character; rather, the character(s) are temporary actors who appear on the “set” only for a specific period of time. What does this mean? Well, the main setting and the unofficial, albeit silent, protagonist - is the game’s location itself, the titular apartment. It is into this space that we step over the years, observing the changes taking place within it and in the world around us – at least the part we can see from the windows of our flat. We notice common threads, constant, unchanging features, as well as shifts in politics, in how the world is perceived, and in the very fabric of the city itself. That said, this narrative device is something of a double-edged sword, because for it to work, every single subplot must maintain the same standard. Unfortunately, that is not the case. We have a whole range of stories here, only one of which is truly moving, while the rest fall somewhere in the middle or at the bottom of the scale. Another problem is that the plot set in the present day should actually tie all these stories together into a coherent whole, but instead it undermines their meaning. Let’s not kid ourselves; the developers didn’t handle this very well. Problem also lies in the gameplay itself. For a walking simulator, it’s mediocre and tedious. Developers really wasted the potential of this unique setting and created a product that’s quickly forgotten, one that forces the player to finish the game rather than providing an enjoyable experience. [b]Would I recommend it? No, unless you buy it on sale.[/b] If we set aside the game’s narrative framework, what remains is a title that can, at best, be described as mediocre. Gameplay itself is rather weak for a walking simulator and includes several sections that are simply boring; meanwhile, the plot is designed in such a way that the player begins to doubt whether any of it actually happened… Which is strange, since it was supposed to be the central part of the game. Game had enormous potential, but it didn’t quite live up to it. ✅[list] [*] Original setting. Instead of visiting various locations, we’re visiting one and the same apartment that changes in the span of the century. We can observe how the world changes around us by clever environmental narration. [*] Game has a colorful, comic-book aesthetics with a detailed 3D environments. [*] Each story has its own, unique mechanics. [*] Music is tailored to the time period in which each story takes place. Also VA fits their characters. [*] It is worth noting that the apartment’s decor and the furniture on display reflect the aesthetic typical of that period and follow the most popular design trends of the time. The varying socioeconomic statuses of the apartment’s owners are also quite well captured. [*] Various accessibility settings. [*] Achievements are easy to obtain and connected to the story. [/list] 😐 Game fictionalized history for narrative purposes. There’s no way any house could have been as close to the Berlin Wall as it’s shown in the game. ❌[list] [*] A specific narrative approach used in the story set in 2020 (the one meant to tie all the others together) undermines the entire point of the story and casts it into doubt. I won’t give away any unnecessary spoilers, but this gameplay choice is strange, to say the least, because it disappoints the player right from the start. [*] Stories vary in quality and design, which results in a rather poor overall impression. On top of that, I get the impression that the writers were genuinely afraid to tackle the subject of the Third Reich’s collapse and life in postwar Berlin. As a result, the story set in 1945 feels really lackluster. Also, one of the dates (1967) doesn’t really make sense in the context of this story. Every other period marks a turning point in the city’s history, but this one refers to a time when absolutely nothing interesting happened. Why didn’t the developers choose 1961 (the start of the Wall’s construction) as the narrative period? It would have made more sense and added more depth to this story. [*] Aside from the apartment itself, it seems to me that there’s no cohesive main storyline here, which makes the whole thing feel chaotic. For this reason, and also because most of the chapter contains no mention of the previous residents, the game feels more like a collection of separate stories than a single, overarching narrative featuring various characters that spans an entire century. [*] Gameplay is both tedious and too basic. Players spend too much time searching for an object that acts as a trigger to move the story forward. Add to that slow animations and drawn-out dialogues, and you end up with gameplay that bores players instead of drawing them in. [*] You can’t skip dialogues. [*] Price/length ratio isn’t well balanced. [/list]