A Storied Life: Tabitha review – A jumbled mix of ideas

On paper, A Storied Life: Tabitha is a game made just for me. Whether it’s because of Unpacking, House Flipper 2 or A Little to the Left, I have become wholly obsessed with games that centre around packing and organising. And, at a glance, that’s exactly what A Storied Life: Tabitha is. Driven by a narrative, this game posits itself as a cosy puzzle game about packing up belongings in a dead relative’s house.

It sounds a little morbid, but after all, what cosy game doesn’t begin with the death of a relative? Whether you’re inheriting a farm or a house, it’s a tried-and-tested trope that often sets the scene of a relaxing puzzle, narrative or sim game. Here, the departed relative is an old lady called Tabitha, who has led quite the life. By systematically packing up her house, room by room, you’ll learn all about her, secrets and all.

Or at least, that’s what I expected from A Storied Life: Tabitha. What I didn’t expect was that I would be the one to decide on Tabitha’s story, in a roundabout way. You see, the crux here is an unfinished memoir found by Tabitha’s front door, accompanied by a letter from a publisher expressing their interest. The trouble is, the memoir has been damaged, and so it’s down to you, dear remaining relative, to fill in the blanks.

When you’re packing up Tabitha’s house, you can choose one of three things to do with her belongings: keep them, donate them or send them to auction. There’s no limit on the things you donate, and to begin with, you can only auction off one item (so you’ll likely want to choose something that seems valuable). The items you choose to keep are most important, and while the game initially posits that you keep things with implied sentimental value, you can actually keep anything you want. As long as it fits in a box.

You have only one small box for each room of Tabitha’s house, and so if you choose to keep one large item, you’re unlikely to fit much more in. You also have to be aware of the weight of the box, which further limits how much you can pack. Annoyingly, items can’t be stacked, so an A4 piece of paper takes up the same space as, say, a serving dish, and also adds to the weight of a box.

This matters because it’s from the items you pack that you’re able to fill in the blanks of Tabitha’s memoir. You see, every item has four words attached to it. And so, when you’re done packing up a room, you’ll be taken to a chapter of the memoir. The words you’ve gathered from the items you’ve packed can be dragged into gaps to eventually make a complete story.

Except… your story will likely be utter balderdash because there’s absolutely no way of knowing what items you should pack into the box to get the ‘correct’ memoir. There are no wrong answers, but it’s very likely that the selection of items you’ve picked will lead to sentences that don’t fully make sense. You can replay chapters to keep choosing different items, but it quickly becomes tiresome, and by the end of it, you’ll likely just settle for nonsense.

It’s a shame, because A Storied Life: Tabitha clearly does have some very interesting stories to tell. They’re evident from the items you find around Tabitha’s house: photos with faces scratched out, letters from debt collectors, lots of items related to witchcraft, and even a seemingly bloodied hammer (?). I want to know more about all of these items; I’d love to see how they all fit together and understand more of the life that Tabitha has lived.

Some items are obviously linked together: multiple items feature a heart on them, for example, while others may have stars and moon symbols, depicting their witchy nature. If you solely choose items from one category, you’ll likely be able to piece together a much more logical story. But it feels contrived; all of these items exist in Tabitha’s house for a reason, and so not getting a full picture of all areas of her life is a missed opportunity. It removes any sort of emotional punch that A Storied Life: Tabitha seeks to hold.

Forgetting about the story focus of the game for now, let me go back to talk a little more about its gameplay. The puzzle element of packing a box is likely where you’ll spend a significant amount of time with the game, and there’s a fair bit to consider here. As I’ve already mentioned, you’re limited on space and weight, but there are things you can do to help you along. As you go through Tabitha’s cupboards and drawers, you’ll likely find tape, bubble wrap and packing bags – all things that will help you safely and effectively pack a box.

A packing bag can be used to reduce the size of any soft item, while bubble wrap and tape can protect something fragile. Tape can also be used to reinforce a box, allowing you to load it with a little more weight than you could previously. Items can be rotated to allow you to fully optimise the space of your box, and only once you’ve found everything in Tabitha’s house and either packed it, recycled it or sent it to auction, can you tape up the box and progress.

There are some secret items to be found by moving around furniture, so it pays to click around every room in A Storied Life: Tabitha. Looking in the menus of the game will uncover progress trackers, listing how many items you’ve found, the secrets still hiding in each chapter, and every item found that relates to a specific character. These menus are worth looking at as they will likely help you curate a better story if you choose to replay a chapter, but doing so removes any joy of discovery from the game. It soon becomes a drag if you’re simply trying to tick off items on a list.

Outside of the main game, A Storied Life: Tabitha also provides daily puzzles to complete, which simply task you with effectively packing a pile of items in a box. It’s a nice way to provide a bit of extra replayability, particularly if you enjoyed the packing element of the experience, but I’m not sure it’s enough to entice me to loading up the game every day.

I really wanted to like A Storied Life: Tabitha, but ultimately the jumbled nature of Tabitha’s memoir left me feeling cold. This is a game that really deserved a properly curated story – it’s there, I know it is – but digging around for it myself, repacking boxes and trying time and again until I find the right combination of items – is a chore that I know I don’t have the patience for.