ReStory Preview
I don’t know how the old cell phone accumulated dirt and gunk on the inside of its case, but it’s my job to clean it. The guy above my shop just asked me to repair an old Atari controller, and the local cop needs his flashlight fixed. This is my life in ReStory, an upcoming cozy repair sim.
Tinkering Around
ReStory is set in the early 2000s, so you won’t be repairing the latest iPhone or tablet. Instead, the Y2K-era items are sort of on the cusp of an entirely digital world. This means there are lots of things to take apart, wires to fix, screws to unscrew, and bad switches to replace.
You have a little 3D shop on a busy Japanese street. Interactions with customers, the local neighborhood folks, like the landlord, are done via static screens and dialogue trees. At day’s end, you’ll hop on your bike and go home. Pleasant enough. But the repairs pile up, and sometimes, you’re short on cash. Maybe you need to raise your repair costs.
Every repair job has multiple stages, from disassembly to cleaning to repairs. To clean a piece of gear, you simply brush it off, giving you serious Power Wash Simulator vibes. Sometimes you have to reuse parts from one item to the next. ReStory rarely makes you do much thinking, as it gives you a check sheet for almost every task. It won’t let you accidentally skip something or do it out of order.
Ironically, ReStory Needs Some Repairs, Too
I had the opportunity to put an early demo of ReStory on the workbench. Unsurprisingly, it had a few issues with things like disappearing parts. The game’s interface is a little wonky. For example, enlarging a piece of gear to examine it covers other items on the desk. Sometimes the game is clear about where parts go, sometimes not. Options are pretty bare-bones when it comes to visuals, and there’s no controller support.
Still, despite some rough edges, ReStory’s gameplay gives that chill, orderly satisfaction that the genre is known for. The economic sim aspect is pretty basic, and the writing and characters aren’t exactly attention-grabbing. But cleaning something in a game always feels good, and taking things apart and rebuilding them taps into some deep crevice of the brain. From the demo, it’s hard to tell how complex the repair tasks eventually become, or if there’s ever a little more player agency in approaching them.
The cozy cleaning sim niche always has room for another good game. Thanks to its nostalgia for older, classic tech, ReStory claims a unique spot. I’m looking forward to seeing what other dirty, broken, and outdated junk comes over the counter when the game releases.
***PC code provided for preview***
