It may seem trivial, but there's an element of bliss when it comes to organising rooms and items. Finding the perfect place for an object, an efficient way to store items, creating a visual identity and theme with the organisation, it can be very therapeutic. Witch Beam discovered this a few years ago with the delightful Unpacking and now Fat Alien Cat and Nomo Studio is following suit with the equally cosy Momento.
The point of this game is to basically unpack a slate of boxes, finding meaningful ways to place items in a diorama-like level. You could, in theory, phone this in and just place everything on the floor like an uncivilised ape, but if you lean into the premise of the game and attempt to find fitting and practical places to store the various items, you can create lovely rooms that feel as though they are well-lived-in, despite no people ever actually showing up in the game.
So yes, you use a basic grab and drag cursor input system (regardless of whether you play on PC or console), and you have to organise rooms to advance to the next stage. To begin with, you have to interact with key items to understand a bit of backstory and lore, before making a choice about which items you want to introduce to each room, with this being how Momento introduces a branching narrative-like system and player choice dynamic. Essentially, you might be offered a choice of either a microscope or a flower press, perhaps even a dinosaur or a unicorn plush, and the choice you make defines the future of the person whose room you are designing, as the next room will then be somewhat inspired by this. It's a pretty minor mechanic all things considered, but if you lean into picking flowers and herbology items, you may eventually end up designing a greenhouse-like room, whereas those who lean more into science and tech may end up designing a city skyrise apartment with a cyberpunk flair. The interesting part about this design is that when you reach the end of a narrative branch, you can go back, make different choices, and experience the other rooms.
But assuming you've made your choice, you then need to unpack cardboard boxes and chests, placing each item in the way that you feel it best suits. This could be choosing to stack books together on a shelf, decorating a wall with paintings and posters, making sure boots are situated near each other by the door, even stacking wooden building blocks to suit a young child. There are a variety of items to place and countless ways to situate them, with the cursor system operating quite effectively even on a controller. It is perhaps a bit wonky in places, but the magnet-like mechanic that snaps items in place helps a great deal.
Momento is truly a game where you have to make of it what you can. In a way, it's similar to a life-sim title in this regard, as if you aren't attempting to be creative and to embrace the core design philosophy of the game, leaning into the therapeutic, Feng Shui-esque room decoration systems, you simply will not get much out of Momento in return. It's quite a basic game, one where the narrative is pushed to the wayside and left for you to discover and piece together, and this all means that Momento won't be a game for a lot of players as it may come across as frankly too boring.
That being said, if you are looking for something soothing and calming to play, a game to chip away at for a few evenings throughout a week, then Momento certainly is a solid option. It combines beautiful art and level dioramas, relaxing music, nifty secrets and interactions to discover, and all while built around very straightforward and basic gameplay mechanics. It's a lovely and relaxing indie break away from the hustle and bustle.
