Momento is a cozy room-decorating game with environmental storytelling and a beautiful illustrated art style and a straightforward premise: place objects in a room and, in so doing, live a full life. The objects people have in their rooms tell a lot about their personality, and this game builds on that idea. Is Sam, the named protagonist, a girlie girl or a tomboy? Bookworm nerd or anime geek? She’s clearly taking anatomy classes, but is it to become a doctor or an artist? Every so often, you, the player, are presented with a choice that changes the trajectory of Sam’s life: do you keep the soccer ball and get into sports, or do you keep the ant farm and get into biology? Do you put up a poster about the northern lights or a cool museum, and what happens next based on that choice?
Depending on your choice, the next objects you pull from a box will follow suit, and the next scene you enter reflects this turning point in your life. Did you join the soccer team and play in the state championship, or did you get really into school and build an amazing science project? Did you go to college, and if so, did you major in biology or art? There are several life paths and endings, and the game teases all of them by showing bits of the spiderwebbing pictures as you branch out from childhood.
Some placeable items are consistent throughout the different storylines. It makes sense; after all, no matter what, your dad was always going to send you a postcard from Japan, or your best friend was always destined to send you a kitschy flowerpot as a gift. Sometimes, nothing changes. This was one of my favorite details, and it’s only noticeable on repeat playthroughs. It definitely gave me the warm fuzzies, and in fact, the whole game is designed to give warm fuzzies, even in scenes where something has gone badly. (Spoilers: you always heal, and your friends and family always support you. Ah, even my spoilers are sappy!)
There are also optional puzzles you can embrace or ignore while decorating the room. They’re very straightforward but rewarding nonetheless. Each puzzle simply entails putting like with like or telling a funny side story, such as putting your D&D miniatures together on the table or placing your houseplant on the windowsill to catch some sun rather than sitting in a dark corner. Some puzzles are choice-locked, meaning you can only solve them if you make a certain choice previously in the scene. If you’re a completionist, well, it’s a good thing this game is designed with replayability!
The puzzle portion is simple enough to figure out without any tooltip prompting—just click and go! The decorating requires a little bit more input, but the controls are nice and pared down to just the basics: add, delete, rotate, and change form. I personally chose to focus on the optional puzzles and the story, and I didn’t tarry in the rooms to dig into the fiddly decorating, but that option absolutely exists for anyone interested.
Each storyline takes around an hour to play (without stopping to decorate beyond placing mandatory items from boxes). There’s lots of replay value if you want to get all the endings, which you can do by restarting from scratch or by choosing a scene to return to, and there’s yet more replayability if you want to complete all the optional puzzles. My hot take here is that this is Unpacking: The Roguelike, though I don’t know if that sells it or not. As I said before, too, some puzzles are locked behind choices. To get not only the full story but also every story, you need to play multiple times.
I’ve spent most of this review discussing the story mode, which is what excited me about the game, but I would be remiss not to discuss the creative mode. In said mode, the player can make a room from scratch exactly the way they want it. Change the lighting, the angle of the sun, the color of anything, and choose from a huge catalog of items to fill it up. This is where the game definitely encroaches on all those diorama games, and it does it well!
Here’s the downside: Momento feels like it wants to be distinct from Unpacking, but it doesn’t quite pull away from Unpacking’s shadow. Its style of environmental storytelling is just like that of Unpacking, and while the art is drawn rather than pixelated, it’s a very similar vibe. If you are unbothered by Unpacking’s shadow, then this won’t affect you too much.
But the biggie is the sound. I’ve absolutely been spoiled by Unpacking, and now I demand that every room organization game have literally thousands of unique sound effects, which this one does not. The music is good but not great; I got annoyed by it and turned it down a few times, which is not what a developer ever wants to hear from a player (I’m so sorry, Fat Alien Cat 😭). BUT, in its defense, I know that a lot of these cozy, at-your-own-pace games often aim to be playable while muted. Players can turn on their own music or podcast or play this game while multitasking (or multi-relaxing?). So, I think that’s the option here. The audio isn’t winning any awards, but that also means you’re not missing out when you put on your own soundtrack. Get creative and have fun with that!
The final section to talk about is controls and accessibility. I played this with my mouse, but Steam says the game is Steam Deck verified. This is very much a point-and-click game, so I would recommend a mouse or the touchscreen on the Steam Deck, as I imagine a controller would be incredibly sluggish and finicky. When you pick up objects, you can change their form (meaning rotate, fold, crumble, open, or close) in one of two ways: click the right mouse button so it cycles through its options, or use the mouse scroll wheel to cycle in either direction. Most objects just have two options (e.g., a box is open or closed), but many have several options. As an example, every book can be open or closed and also rotated in many directions, so it can stand or lie down. For this reason, I really recommend a mouse for the whole game! Steam lists a “mouse-only option” as an accessibility option, but truly, I would say do not play it any other way (though maybe the touchscreen would be a good option).
