Often, when I step into an old house or another old building, I find myself wondering what stories these walls and floors could tell if they could talk. Stories about former residents, about hard times, and about happy moments. It seems that the indie studio Blue Backpack from Berlin has had similar thoughts, and the little narrative adventure game The Berlin Apartment revolves around just that.
Craftsman Malik has bought an older flat in Berlin, which he plans to renovate and perhaps sell on. He works hard in the flat and often brings his young daughter Dilara with him. However, it can sometimes be difficult to focus on work, because, as children are, Dilara is both very curious and drawn to adventure.
During the extensive renovation work, Dilara discovers more and more traces of the apartment's previous occupants - for example, behind the old wallpaper in the living room or behind the old tiles in the bathroom. For each thing she finds, her father tells her a little story behind what she has found, and they all take place within the same four walls, in the small, old and charming flat in the middle of Berlin.
The first story takes place in 1989, when the flat was on the East German side of the Berlin Wall and very close to the wall itself. From the apartment window, you could clearly see into the living rooms of the houses on the western side, and by chance, the apartment's resident begins to communicate with a woman on the western side of the wall via paper planes with small messages attached. It's a rather pleasant, yet somewhat sad story about friendship across divides.
Many different people have lived in the old flat. Among others, a Jewish cinema owner lived there in 1933 and a little girl with her mother and little brother in 1945, and when Christmas comes, she decorates the cold flat expectantly, as she is waiting for her father to return from the front. Her mother, however, knows better.
If you know a little about German history, you will see from the dates alone that these were landmark years for the country. These times are depicted through some small, fine, and quite touching stories, and they are typically seen from a different angle than we normally experience these landmark years.
As is typical in this type of game, they are quite simple in terms of gameplay, and this also applies to The Berlin Apartment. You mostly walk around the apartment solving various small puzzles and performing minor tasks, but there are a few quite good mechanics hidden here, such as when you have to fold paper aeroplanes, which helps to keep the game fresh.
The visual style is quite nice and resembles a comic book, and it's fun to see how the same apartment looks in the different stories. The sound is also good, and the voice actors deliver solid performances. I would recommend playing it with German audio, as it just fits the mood of the game better.
The Berlin Apartment is a touching little story and a glimpse into Germany's turbulent history, from the pre-war period to the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Apartment does not try to be more than it is, but if you are the type who enjoys good stories or simply likes to peek through the "virtual keyhole" into other people's lives, then we can easily recommend The Berlin Apartment.