I’ve been talking to folks for a while about Idle games. Some folks love them, being able to just play around with them in the background. Other folks, such as Phenixx Gaming’s managing editor Keiran McEwen, don’t really understand them. Unboxathon, developed by Skye <3 (yes, with the emoticon heart), seems to bridge the gap a bit.

Unboxathon is an idle game about opening boxes. No, not loot boxes, moving boxes. Unboxathon is actually a sort of blend between your typical clicker/idle game, and something like Unpacking.

The gameplay is simple, really: Click boxes, open boxes, collect currency, upgrade, rinse and repeat. However, Unboxathon also allows you to archive new items as you find them, instead of selling them. This means that you’ll find normal items such as screwdrivers, as well as more… meaningful items such as lost ID cards and notebooks filled with memories.

The story here isn’t exactly expansive, and the general gameplay loop is fairly similar to that of a typical idle game. However, the injection of this storyline adds a certain sort of magic to the formula that is different from the typical weirdness of games like Cookie Clicker.

The visuals of Unboxathon are cute, with detailed pixel art and lots of ways to engage with the game. As I have said, Unboxathon is an incremental game at heart, but the rabbit hole goes deep, and it is enjoyable all the way down. It also helps that the developers are actively working on updates and bug fixes, which always helps. It is a little slow to start, but aside from that I really enjoyed my time with it.

Unboxathon has a good set of music to go with it, if you’re interested. Though I will say that it is also a fun game to just put music on and vibe. If you are looking for a good incremental idle game to add to your list, you can’t go wrong here. In fact, I’d say it has a lot of heart, even if it doesn’t entirely do much that is new to the genre.

A PC review copy of Unboxathon was provided by Evil Corp Games for the purposes of this review.

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Unboxathon

$6.99

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Has a unique story premise
• Relaxing Idle Gameplay
• Cozy atmosphere

Cons

• Slow to Start
• Isn't too far from typical idle games