The Berlin Apartment is Full of Heart but Impeded By Flaws

Screenshot: The Berlin Apartment

I love narrative games. I’ve been a sucker for them since I was a little kid. They were, at the time, a novel departure from the slew of side-scrolling action and platforming fare that littered most of the gaming landscape when I was a wee lad. Now, saying something is a “narrative” game can mean a lot of things these days, as even the term can arguably fit a few different genres/subgenres.

Either way, experiencing a story–especially a poignant one–can have a huge impact when you’re actually living that experience through a game. I can tell that’s what the developers were going for with The Berlin Apartment; it just never really worked that way for me.

You might be thinking, “oh here he goes, he’s going to shit on what’s obviously an indie darling with lots of love put into it.” But I have that context, and I was rooting for The Berlin Apartment the whole way. It just never really clicked with me, which is a travesty, really. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Screenshot: The Berlin Apartment

The Berlin Apartment is a first-person narrative game that focuses on a single apartment in Berlin and the changes it has gone through over the decades–but also, and more importantly, it tells the story of those who resided within its walls. It’s a sort of If These Walls Could Talk but as a video game. It’s all held together by a narrative framework, set during COVID times, of a little girl “helping” her dad renovate the titular apartment. The little girl finds clues from the apartment’s past as renovation commences, and the father tells a story about each discovery, painting a rich picture of the apartment’s storied and emotional history.

This game falls solidly into the “walking simulator” brand of first-person narrative games–but I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. In fact, some of my favorite games that delivered the most poignant of messages have been deemed “walking simulators.” But here I am getting bogged down in genre discussions when I should be talking about The Berlin Apartment specifically. You can see I’m avoiding it. I feel like I’m going to beat up a cute little puppy that really doesn’t deserve it. I won’t be that harsh, but there’s a part of me that really wants to be.

I have to admit: some of the problems I had with The Berlin Apartment were with how I chose to play it. I mostly played it on my Steam Deck using an Xbox Controller. Why? Well, I don’t tell you how to play games, so don’t judge me. I’m kidding–it’s really just a convenience/preference thing.

Screenshot: The Berlin Apartment

As I mentioned before, in The Berlin Apartment you play through different eras of the apartment’s existence. In each of these different eras, there is a new task you have to complete that acts like a sort of minigame.

In the ‘89 story, you have to master the art of throwing paper airplanes, while there’s a Tetris-ish minigame in the ‘33 story as you pack a suitcase. But most of the time, you’ll be performing tasks that have a tactile bent, presumably in an effort to connect you to these stories. By performing the actions the characters would have to perform, it puts you in their shoes. And sure, there’s a tug at my heartstrings as I play a little girl trying her best to decorate for the bleakest Christmas ever. But these tasks felt more like a hindrance than a connection.

Instead of feeling like I was sharing the plight of these moments from these characters' lives, I felt like I was doing useless busy work, pixel hunting, and other faux pas that have existed since “Doom clones” were dinged for their key hunting.

Screenshot: The Berlin Apartment

And for such a short game as The Berlin Apartment to have its “gameplay” padded by hunting for the right place to put X item while struggling with the controls just isn’t fun. Not only that, but characters move frustratingly slowly. I don’t need them running around at Doom-guy speeds, but seriously, when I got to the ‘33 story and discovered I was playing as an EVEN SLOWER old man, I wanted to quit right there. Especially because you have to find a long list of items to pack, and I just did not have a good time.

I’d argue that games like The Berlin Apartment are important. But why not overlap important with fun? It’s hard to show video games as art to people when some of the very best examples of that concept are hindered by unfun design and bad controls. Okay, I’ll put down the rolled-up newspaper. I mean, The Berlin Apartment is actually a good boy.

Sorry about hammering this puppy metaphor, but look at him! The Berlin Apartment is adorable! Seriously, though, it has a great art style. And while I heard the German dub (the native dub) is superior, I actually thought the English voice acting was superb.

Screenshot: The Berlin Apartment

And like I said, I can’t overstate the importance of games like The Berlin Apartment and other “slice of life” style titles that put us into the shoes of cultures, characters, and situations we’d normally never find ourselves in. And the framing conceit is genius: I’ve worked construction and renovation projects before and it’s always fun finding stuff the previous owners left behind.

I did run into a few bugs that were frustrating, and one that even impeded my progress. At one point my character kept getting focused on a point on the ceiling during a story beat, and wouldn’t stop staring at that spot. But I only had that problem on my Steam Deck, despite its “Verified” status.

If you think The Berlin Apartment is just fine and I’m a huge jerk, you’re entitled to your opinion. But I was rooting for The Berlin Apartment; I just couldn’t get past its design foibles. Compounding that with the issues I had on Steam Deck, I ended up having a not-great experience with the game. Hopefully, you loved it, because I can tell that developer btf put a lot of heart into this one.