[Analysis] This Bed We Made turned me into a nosy maid, and I don't regret it

Reading time: 8 minutes

Release date

01/11/2023

Developer

Lowbirth Games

Gender

Graphic adventure, Mystery

Platforms

PC, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4/5

Our score

8.5

Are you interested?

Here you have it on Steam

Table of Contents

A maid with curiosity as an undeclared profession
Cleaning rooms has never been so suspicious
Beth or Andrew: the choice that changes everything else
Montreal, 1958: a time that does not disguise itself as a postcard
A story that sticks, with some technical stumbles

I never thought I would enjoy making virtual beds so much, but here I am, still thinking about Sophie Roy after finishing This Bed We Made. The game from Lowbirth Games, a Montreal studio, starts in a rather disconcerting way: in a police station, with a police officer interrogating Sophie about something we still don't know what it is. From there we jump back a week, to the beginning of her shift as a maid at the Clarington Hotel, and that little narrative trick, as simple as it is effective, is enough to leave a question floating that accompanies you for the next five or six hours: what did this girl do to end up in there?

A maid with curiosity as an undeclared profession

Sophie is an efficient employee on the fifth floor of the Clarington, an elegant hotel in Montreal in 1958, but she has a very particular flaw for her position: she can't resist browsing through the guests' belongings. That habit, which in any real job would have left her fired in a matter of days, is precisely the driving force of the entire game. Everything goes off when, checking room 505, Sophie finds some developed photographs in the bathroom, which someone used as a makeshift darkroom. The photos are of herself, snooping through another guest's things. Someone was watching her, and decided they wanted her to know.

From that moment on, what could have been an uncomfortable anecdote becomes an investigation that extends throughout the apartment, connecting a group of guests who, at first glance, seemed to have nothing to do with each other. The beauty of This Bed We Made is in how it reveals those connections without rushing: each room hides its own fragment of history, and as Sophie accumulates clues, the feeling of putting together a puzzle much larger than it first appeared becomes central. It's not exactly a classic-style murder mystery, although it flirts with those codes; It is rather a network of personal secrets, infidelities, family tensions and decisions from the past that end up explaining why Sophie ended up in that interrogation room with which everything starts.

Cleaning rooms has never been so suspicious

On a gameplay level, This Bed We Made combines two layers that feed on each other all the time: the daily tasks of a maid, such as emptying trash cans, making beds or cleaning bathrooms, and the real heart of the game, which is sticking your nose into every drawer, suitcase and pocket that Sophie has at hand. Objects can be rotated and inspected in 360 degrees, and many of them hide small puzzles: coded notes, hidden combinations, objects that must be combined with each other to unlock some information. None of these puzzles are particularly complicated if you pay attention to the environment, but the variety of formats that appear keeps the pace quite fresh throughout the game, without ever falling into repetition.

To avoid getting lost among so many loose threads, Sophie has a personal diary that automatically records each clue found, along with a summary of each character's background and a general snapshot of where the investigation is at. It is a very appreciated tool, especially because the game is not afraid to let you move forward without completely solving each secondary mystery: if you hurry too much or do not investigate enough, the story continues its course anyway, with fewer answers than you would have liked to have. That design decision, not to hold your hand the entire time, is part of what makes the investigation feel genuinely its own rather than a simple succession of objectives marked on the screen.

[Analysis] This Bed We Made turned me into a nosy maid, and I don't regret it

Beth or Andrew: the choice that changes everything else

One of the game's first big decision moments is choosing which of her two co-workers Sophie is going to share her discoveries with: Beth, the outgoing, gossipy receptionist who genuinely enjoys connecting with people, or Andrew, the more reserved, homely lobby employee with a passion for reading. That choice is not cosmetic: it determines much of the dialogue available for the rest of the game, and opens the door to developing an increasingly close bond with whomever one chooses, including the possibility of a romantic relationship if cultivated carefully. Both characters are written with much more depth than one would expect from a secondary role: neither of them is defined solely by not fitting into the rigid molds of the society of the time, although that tension with what is "normal" is always latent in their personal stories.

The decision system extends beyond this initial choice. Each conversation with Sophie has multiple possible answers, and the degree to which the various secondary mysteries are solved, coupled with how much each corner of the hotel is explored, ends up defining which of the game's nine different endings is unlocked. It's an unusual level of variability for a narrative adventure of this length, and it gives This Bed We Made genuine replayability for anyone who wants to see how far the story can go depending on the decisions they make.

Montreal, 1958: a time that does not disguise itself as a postcard

Something I appreciate about This Bed We Made is that it doesn't use the 1950s setting as a simple nostalgic set. The Montreal that the game portrays is a society with very strict rules about what is considered "normal" behavior, and several of the stories that Sophie discovers in the different rooms touch directly on those tensions: relationships that had to be kept secret, racial and gender prejudices, and the real consequences of not fitting into the expected mold at that time. The game treats it with a sober tone, without unnecessary low blows or intention to shock, more concerned with generating reflection than highlighting the obvious, and that makes it much more interesting than a simple mystery story with period costumes.

That said, you have to be honest about some issues that the game itself warns about from the beginning: it directly addresses domestic violence, discrimination, mental health problems, and even mentions of homicides, so it is not a light experience from start to finish, although it never feels gratuitous in the way it presents them.

A story that sticks, with some technical stumbles

If I have to criticize This Bed We Made, it has more to do with the technical execution than with the writing. The character animations, especially in the most everyday gestures, feel quite rigid, and although the voice performances of Sophie and Beth are genuinely solid, some secondary characters fall well below that level, which is even more noticeable in the scenes where they share dialogue with the main protagonists. Sophie's keyboard operation is also not the most comfortable I have tried in the genre, although it ends up being a minor detail compared to everything else. Anyway, as always, I ended up using a gamepad.

Beyond these setbacks, This Bed We Made achieves something that few narrative adventures of this size achieve: that you finish the game and continue thinking about the characters days later, wondering what would have happened if you had chosen differently in this or that conversation. As an intimate mystery experience, with a lovingly written cast of characters and a historical context that provides much more than what it promises at first glance, it is one of those small proposals that end up leaving a much larger footprint than expected.