Here’s To A New Home And A Broken Back
I have recently been through a move – this time a little bigger than what I have done before – but i swear, whether you move to another country or to a bigger apartment down the road, (which does not smell like burnt chicken from the restaurant below, who’s only song is Carley Rae “call me maybe” (sorry for the link, but i cannot suffer alone here), and btw does not give you discount) – it is to my opinion, an equally horrible experience and I would rather be forced to guide Link through The Water Temple (in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) repeatedly for a week. However, let us be honest, moving and the concept of moving have never been fun, even when you would do it for a friend, from the 5th to the 5th, without an elevator in sight, just for a few beers and a piece of pizza – it was not exactly a five star experience – despite you getting a few laughs out of it, it just did not cover the broken back!
During this move, I even managed to question myself about some serious life decisions throughout this move, which was highly misplaced – I mean, when i got out of breath from lifting one box i started questioning my shape, when i packed down my clothes, i started questioning my style, and when the apartment was empty, i questioned my freaking career and if it could weigh up the downsides of moving – not to mention my increased awareness of a potential hoarding problem, when it comes to old electronics and that one box filled with a random collection of cables – even for products i no longer own! I literally throw out the phone, before I get rid of the charger!
Now, I did my fair share of biased googling and can state that many like minded individuals are out there! Yet, completely ignoring my arguments, for some magically illogical reason, there is a game available called: Moving Out.
As such, today’s topic will be discussing the realizations that have been made through moving and to whether they are realistically portrayed in Moving out – while highlighting a few, probably well known, moving tips i have made throughout time.
Moving Out
Moving Out was released in 2020, as a cooperative moving simulation game developed by Swedish Studio DevM Games and Australian developer SMG Studio. The idea allegedly came from Jan Rigerl, when helping a friend move.
Rigerl noted he became fascinated with the process and the strategies involved in such things as “moving the couch through narrow spaces” – but I still firmly believe that the idea came from a dark sadistic place, of wanting to cause suffering to others, who finally got five minutes to relax on the couch.
The Plot
So the plot – You’ve seen video games where you can be a cook, a doctor, a mercenary, and even a drunk. Now, you can add being a F.A.R.T. to the list. In Moving Out, you are a Furniture Arrangement & Relocation Technician, or F.A.R.T. for short.
You take on the role of a newbie mover, as you work your way through the town of Packmore, where everyone, for some reason, just wants to have their furniture moved elsewhere. You will be going to different locations, where you will have to move a set number of items from a client’s location to your moving truck, and you will have to do so in record time.
By the first sound of things, this sounds no less disturbing than an actual move – except for the little added note of how you can move these things
How Is This Relevant?
Personally I find that the point of games is that they should either be fun, entertaining, exciting or relaxing – and the concept of moving is neither of those things! However, in Moving out, your job is to move your client’s furniture… by any means possible.
So the twist comes from one quote, provided in the different loading screens, which states that “your customers signed a waiver so you, as someone who represents the Smooth Moves company, must move furniture as fast as possible even if it means breaking a few windows here and there”. You don’t even need to get that TV into the moving truck in one piece, that’s just how it is!
NOW THIS is where moving peaks my interest!
Gameplay
With that in mind – Moving furniture will require some degree of strategy and planning, as you will need to study routes and consider that furniture pieces are bound by the laws of physics (urgh already sounds troublesome right!?). Smaller items like chairs and lamps can be moved without any hassle. Heck, you can even throw them into the truck from the 1st floor to save some time! The challenge will be the heavier furniture like sofas and beds that will require you to drag them.
However, luckily, controls won’t be much of a problem as they are simple and easy to get used to. You move your avatar around with the analog stick and you use the one button to grab and hold onto furniture to move them. Whereas another button is provided for throwing the smaller furniture around.
BUT THE BEST TWO PARTS ARE: 1. There is a dedicated function in the game for slapping. Yup, the best action in the game bar none. 2. The reason why you have a slap button is so to act against stage hazards like FREAKING ghosts OR if you want to knock some sense into your teammates. Point 1 “Moving Out” vs Point 0 actual moving – I cannot remember the last time I slapped a ghost (as in ever) or one of my friends without dire consequences.
An Added bonus is that this game supports Co-Op, so feel free to move stuff around with your friends and slap them, when they do not cooperate accordingly!
Debate Of The Day
This brings us to today’s discussion – Moving in reality vs Moving out. First some expectation management – Now moving out already starts with a different representation, as here we are working as a F.A.R.T, meaning it is not our responsibility to pack stuff into boxes or struggle with the whole “should i keep or toss this shirt” topic – I cannot even start discussing the realizations you make, when you find your old high school photos and question whether your mom know how badly she lied, when she called you a handsome boy.
Not to mention that Moving out is to be completed in a “short” time frame – so you do not have time to reminisce about every single memory you stumble upon and neither do you have the time to look over your old Pokemon collection and google whether some might contain any value – despite doing the exact same, the last time you moved.
Finally, that means we will be looking more in detail to the move itself – and will be struggling with angling the couch, to the right amount of where Ross from Friends, would stop shouting PIVOT.
Moving As A First Date
Now from experience, I would like to announce that moving alone, is the absolute worst, and here Moving Out did make that a whole lot more fun – but even when moving with a partner, despite being much better – it has occurred that less fun moments have been experienced, and lifting a box could lead to a screaming match, because apparently you “do not lift it right”.
However, I have never gotten to know a person as well, as when moving! It is like a gateway to Narnia, where you get to explore the most hidden personality traits – for example, it opens for the learning of whether your life partner is patient? structured? tempered? or likes to get a 15kg bookshelf dropped on their foot? I would actually recommend “moving” as a great first date, if you want to scope out your match on tinder – but then i probably cannot guarantee a second date.
So why not meet in the middle? Moving out’s co-op function offers similar stressful moments and even though you might lose your cool for a moment, both of you can always excuse it by being “very competitive in games’.
As such, from a partner perspective, in real life you can plan ahead a bit and try to nip any discussion upfront, meaning the beer at the end of the move, will be well deserved and rather good terms – This is not possible in Moving out, since you are just thrown into the move with a tight deadline, but you are here given the slap function, so if things are about to get heated, just fire of a slap in your partners direction and i dare you not to laugh! – again cannot be recommended in reality…
Lego’s Evil Cousin
…and while you are not slapping your partner, you can prepare a big fat slap to your past-self, if you 6 years ago decided that moving in on the 5th floor, without an elevator was a good idea! Here Moving out has a great solution – just throw whatever you can, out of the window! let it all rip! and if you can throw it straight into the moving van and scream “Koby” doin it – then there is no better feeling!
In reality, life is not that sweet though, so without an elevator, the amount of angling and suffering you have to go through is unspeakable – even with one, it is the rarest of elevators that can contain an L shaped sofa or a king sized bed. Again, in moving out that is not a problem = just whip that son of a gun out the window, but for you in reality it means dismantling and reassembling your furniture, and not in the fun-kind-of-lego-way, but in the way of Lego’s evil grown up cousin, IKEA, where they provide you with all you need, except for the materials everyone has at home, such as a screwdriver, hacksaw, power drill and a carpenter to make all of it for you.
To that end, if you care for your stuff or your deposit, measure what you can actually transport through the x amount of exits you have and pray to god that you do not lose an important component in the disassembling process – OR you can try and hoist it down from your balcony, if you have one – i did that ones, which led to my dresser being stuck in my balcony door and when i finally got it free, i pushed it so hard that torpedoed out of the exit and crash landed on the ground in a thousand pieces, leaving a KULLEN shaped hole in my lawn.
Pizza & Binding Contracts
By the end of the day, all your stuff is hopefully located safely in a moving van and you can now celebrate that half of your nightmare is over, without focusing on the aspect of now having to do it all over again, when unloading your stuff into the new location which you have decided to call home… or you could just drive it all to the dumpster and take it as an initiative to start living less materialistically, but most likely that won’t happen and we do not want to hurt capitalism to much in this post.
This celebration often occurred in my younger days, by offering pizza and beer to the poor individuals who offered to help – this approach still sticks, but the quantity of beer has increased and pizza just doesn’t cut it anymore, but a roast might – also do remember that by engaging in this pact with a third party of assisting in the move, you are now bound by a morality contract to assist them in a given move in the future – and this contract will be handed down to your children and then their children until completion – only to be canceled by completion or death of said party.
Here moving out makes it a bit simpler, with rewards consisting of Gold Coins and the Pocket Watches, the latter of which will depend on how fast you are – so you got either Gold, Silver or Bronze watches to earn. Plus, you do not have to consider the dreaded hangover the following day – and if you play with a friend, you do not even lose out on the social activity.
I Like To Move It, Move It!!
Now as we are reaching the end of our move, so we are, on me unloading my sorrows on you guys – and what more can i say than moving in Moving Out has provided more fun points than an actual move – it is rare you have both, slapping, ghosts and window smashing in one activity – the only downside with the game, is that when you are done with one move, you have to initiate the next right after – but without this aspect, the game would not be much of a game right.
So I would surely recommend moving in reality, if your life is leading up to it – but for goodness sake, do not do it just for fun, unless for a first date – whereas, Moving out is recommendable for both a solo move and definitely for a co-op slap fest!
How Do You Move?
With that said, I would find it awesome to hear some more about your moving tips and tricks – maybe it could come in handy! Add to the comments if you got some Share memorable / funny moving stories or use the pole to share your biggest moving challenge.
All right, I guess that is all I got in me for today – Thank you for reading this far and feel free to provide any feedback you may have – We would like for you to keep leveling up with us! Feel free to contribute your own content, such as fan art, game reviews, or personal gaming stories, to be featured as Pixelated Wisdom.
On that note I can only say – Dont be a hero, be a F.A.R.T!
Sources
Thank you to the sources providing me with cool inspiration:
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