Yase Plays: Undusted Letters from the Past (Nintendo Switch)
- Yase Fuyunori
- 10 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Hey guys, it's been a while. I am slowly finding my way back to doing what I love and fittingly I am doing so by using today to bring you an amazing indie cozy game called "Undusted Letters from the Past", that I absolutely fell in love with while life was happening.
"Undusted Letters from the Past" is a relaxing, narrative-driven cleaning and restoring puzzle game developed by the amazing people at 5minlab Corp and published by Toge Productions on October 13th, 2025. This review will contain slight but not explicit spoilers about the game's nature, ending and the direction it will take so if you'd rather go in to experience it fully by yourself and without pre-knowledge of what's to come, pease do!
You slip into the role of the protagonist, who returns to her parents’ old, abandoned house, she once called home, looking for the key to one of the house’s locked rooms following a request from her mother.
But your simple search for a key soon turns into an unexpected trip down memory lane that will truly tug at your heartstrings. Finding, dusting and cleaning one item from the past after the other, the protagonist remembers days with her parents, a warm and safe childhood and long-forgotten events that turned the cozy and bright home into a shadow of its former self.
Given the beautiful art in the game, both 2D and 3D, a cute and heartfelt picture book style and the music that softly wraps you into the story, I couldn’t help but instantly fall in love with Undusted. The starting screen alone brought a bit of melancholy and sadness with it and that’s when I knew this experience would be special. And it really was, albeit short, I want to say it took me 12 hours total to finish it, spent over a few days, but I also invested and took my time, observing each item and playing around with it as much as the game allowed. It was worth every single second I put in.
There are16 levels in total and completing each level by fully cleaning whatever item you pick up in search for the basement key, - I always reached 100%, you don’t necessarily have to, I’m just thorough - will unlock more parts of the main characters backstory and tell you what happened to her parents, to herself and her former childhood home.
The game mechanics and controls are simple enough and while you’d think that the process of cleaning up old belongings would get old pretty quick, the variety of things that you do polish is big enough for you to always look forward to the next tidying task. I played the game on my Nintendo Switch 2 docked to the TV and enjoyed it very much.
From cups to cameras, everything is different, everything is interesting and the 3D models are so amazing and fun to turn around, zoom into and look at closely. Upon entering a level you can usually choose between sponges, brushes, cloths and whatever other cleaning device the game might hand you and then clean to your heart’s content while a gentle soundtrack accompanies you and the beautiful background scenery changes and adjusts to wherever in the house you currently are. Seeing each speck of dirt vanish as you carefully wipe, vacuum and sweep is like watching one of those ASMR videos online, the good and immensely satisfying ones that make you feel nice, not gross pimple poppings.
My favorite feature is probably, how the objects that you pick up aren’t just a wipe and clean and done deal, but that there are some items which you can interact with further. For example - and without spoiling too much - the camera, which you could actually open and close in multiple places, accessing its lens and film compartment.
I found myself in stages where I often procrastinated finishing the cleaning of an object because I had gotten so busy playing around with it and discovering what all I could use it for. And I believe that this is very well intended, as when you think about it, in real life when you return to an old place, enter an old room, pull out one of your old and forgotten once treasured items full of memories, you’d also take a second to reminisce, touch, feel and remember what whatever you just picked up had meant to you, no?
As I mentioned before, the process of cleaning leads you through the story of the main character and her parents and this is done very intriguingly, as the pacing and the question of what happened in the past motivates you to keep moving forward with the tidying up while making sure the process doesn't get too repetitive.
The story itself is, without giving away too much, a more simplistic one and one, that a lot of us have probably already heard some people live through or even lived through it ourselves, as it is accompanied by events that sadly could hit every family at any
time.
That said, simplistic by no means indicates bad or boring, it is very heartfelt, realistic and touching and I did find myself tearing up during more than one moment or two.
So as you help the girl collect and fix her family’s old belongings, you also slowly work towards fixing the relationship between her and her past self and strive towards earning forgiveness for things that might not be changeable anymore.
I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, as going through each level and chapter is an amazing experience, so all I will say is, grab a tissue box as you make your way through "Undusted: Letters from the Past" and a big shoutout to everybody who worked on this and contributed to making the game what it is. The ending might not be what everyone would think of as “happy”, but to me it was a very realistic and complex telling of stories in the real world that just don’t always go or conclude like fairy tales. Some things just leave us feeling unresolved, searching or with mixed feelings.
Nevertheless, the reality of it all, is what made it so beautiful to me.
I silently sat on the couch shedding a couple tears by the end of this, appreciating the music, the credits and title screen comforting me in silence.
Thank you so so much for this experience and the Nintendo Switch review code, 5minlab Corp and Toge Productions and I hope that I in return can share it with as many of you out there as possible, please don't miss out on this beautiful adventure during the long, hot and wistful summer.
Undusted: Letters from the Past is available on Nintendo Switch and Steam for only $9.99 and currently on sale with a free demo included as well as a deluxe edition which contains the mesmerizing soundtrack and an artbook.
Support Indie Developers with a big heart and care for the games they make and try it out everyone!
Yase out
Undusted: Letters from the Past on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2891020/Undusted_Letters_from_the_Past/
Undusted: Letters from the Past in the Nintendo Store: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/undusted-letters-from-the-past-switch/
5minlab homepage: https://5minlab.com/en/
Toge Productions homepage: https://www.togeproductions.com/