While Waiting review - is it worth the wait?
There’s very little I haven’t seen in cosy indie games. They all tend to take a similar hand drawn art style, and have a beautiful score and an incredible storyline. But, when a cosy game does something unique and different, I’m paying attention.
So, when I saw there was a new game launching which encourages you to sit back and enjoy the game and do nothing let’s say I was pretty intrigued. As a British person who loves an orderly queue, the idea of waiting around and watching the world go by sounds interesting. But is the idea of killing time in a video game really worth it? Is there something exciting at the end of the wait or is it just a complete waste of time? I was about to find out with While Waiting.
What is While Waiting about?
While Waiting is a puzzle game made by Optillusion who are the creators of Moncage. The story is that you are living the life of a man through a series of daily life events which cause you to stand around and watch the passage of time. Think things like waiting for the elevator or waiting for a bus.
Each level presents you with a series of tasks to complete, but you can do as many as you like, or none at all.
It’s a very different style compared to a lot of cosy games, but the presentation of these tasks is a lot like A Little to the Left which has multiple different solutions for completing the level. The choice in how you approach each level in While Waiting is entirely up to you and that is what makes the game very different.
A different sort of cosy game
I was immediately drawn into the art style of While Waiting. It’s a gorgeous hand drawn style with a simple colour palette. Normally there were only a few accent colours placed on key characters or objects which made it easier to interact with the world.
Credit: While Waiting Optillusion
This coupled with the stunning soundtrack had me hooked into the game from the word “go.” A simple lone piano plays for the majority of the game with the end of the levels punctuated by a trombone. It’s a nice change to make sure that you know you are done waiting in one level before you move onto the next.
Each of the levels tell a small part of the story of this man’s life from his birth through to old age so you will encounter all of the major milestones. But, rather than focusing on the milestones and making a celebration out of them, While Waiting wants you to appreciate the small moments by living through the simplistic joy of waiting.
It is a unique concept for a game which for you may feel is a welcome change from the large number of farming simulators we have had in recent years.
It is one which did bring a smile to my face in parts where While Waiting doesn’t take itself too seriously, and with the lack of timers in most levels, you are really left to make your experience feel very different each time you pop into the game.
The Joy of Doing Nothing
My first playthrough of While Waiting was a “do nothing” run. The idea being to just see what happens if you wait as the game recommends. This was fun at the start because I was just watching the story play out and with each wait, I felt increasingly attached to this unnamed character.
Credit: While Waiting Optillusion
While Waiting feels more like an interactive story in some regards than a puzzle game because with a waiting playthrough you do just end up watching and listening to the game rather than actually playing it. For the 2-3 minutes you are in each level, there’s another piece of the story you uncover and it really fleshes out this man’s life and all of his successes and failures.
As seen in other cosy games, there is no dialogue in the game. I felt as I was playing through the levels that there were elements of an Unpacking-like storytelling in that you are piecing together what happens to this man through the different waits that he has in his life. It makes for a really special gaming experience which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Are we there yet?
Despite While Waiting being a beautiful game and one I really enjoyed, it definitely wasn’t without its challenges. The first was in the length of the game itself. You are warned right at the top of the game that While Waiting is about waiting and it may get boring at times and that warning definitely should be heeded!
Credit: While Waiting Optillusion
After thinking the game would only be about 10 levels long, I was surprised to find out there was still lots more levels that I hadn’t seen yet.
This wouldn’t ordinarily be an issue given that I do take into account whether the amount of play time is a good balance to the cost that you pay for a game in how I review cosy games, but with While Waiting, I would argue there is too much gameplay here. At two minutes long per level, I was surprised to learn that on a do nothing run, you would be playing While Waiting for over three hours. That’s a lot of time to sit and do literally nothing other than watching a story play out.
About 40 levels in, I thought about taking a break from the game, only to find that I couldn’t see which button I needed to press to exit the game and I didn’t want to run the risk of losing my save data if I was going to go back and try some of the tasks. That meant I was left glaring at the screen waiting for each level to finish up whilst I worked out what else I could do during the waits, which almost defeats the purpose of playing While Waiting where you are supposed to take a chilled break from a stressful world.
Everyone’s a Bit Busy
The other major problem was in the structure of the levels themselves. Each level starts with presenting you with a series of tasks alongside the option to do nothing. However, what I noticed as I was trying to process these tasks and make notes on how I thought I needed to complete them that the tasks weren’t on the screen for very long.
Credit: While Waiting Optillusion
This may just need to be a small tweak in a patch, but it took me a while to read through each of the cryptic achievements and interpret how you can actually do them and at times, this meant I could only really understand what I needed to do for one task at a time which slowed me down massively in playing through the tasks.
It also doesn’t help that the levels autoplay as you are playing the game. This is fine when you are working on a do nothing run, but if you are looking to complete tasks during the time you spend in the level, it can be frustrating to get everything done in one go.
There is the option to restart a level, but only during the level itself. As soon as that trombone music starts up, you don’t get the option to restart the level or a summary of everything you achieved, it’s straight onto the next one.
This can make While Waiting incredibly frustrating if you are planning on getting every achievement in the game as there’s no easy way to restart at the end of the level. Instead, your only real option is to go back to the title screen, into the level select and pick the right level to try again.
That frustration to get everything done in one go has meant that my overall enjoyment of While Waiting has gone down because there are too many barriers in place for me to want to go back and finish all the achievements like I normally would in a cosy game like this.
Accessibility in While Waiting
I found accessibility to be pretty limited within While Waiting, which makes sense given there is no major dialogue in the game and it’s more of an auditory experience.
Credit: While Waiting Optillusion
There were no button remapping options which I didn’t feel was lacking as there are only two buttons to use along with the normal movement controls. So, it should be playable easily on a controller or on PC with whatever set up you normally use.
I did notice about midway through the game that I was feeling nauseous from looking at the screen. Normally, I don’t feel like that playing a game and it took a while to realise that in some levels there is a swaying animation in the background which, whilst nice to look at, can trigger motion sickness in some.
There isn’t a way to turn down excessive movement and I feel like at times the background animation really wasn’t needed to convey the message from the level itself. This happens infrequently, but it’s one to be aware of if you do struggle with motion sickness.
There are separate sliders for music and sound effects, but the sound effects are too loud against the game music and they can be jarring in some of the levels. If you intend to play While Waiting, I would recommend turning down the sound effects slider a couple of notches before you go in to not have too many issues with the sound effects whilst playing.
There is also no way to turn off the autoplaying of the levels. So, if you need more time to process information on the screen, this may not be the game for you. Otherwise, you may need to take screenshots of the tasks before you attempt the level so that you can play While Waiting more comfortably.
Generally though, the game felt pretty accessible. It just needs a few tweaks here and there to make the game more accessible to those who need more time to process information or need some small adjustments to not be too affected by excessive movement or from sound sensitivities.
Nothing to do but Wait
While Waiting is a really interesting game with a unique gameplay style. It does encourage you to reflect on the passage of time and more than once I did find myself taking a look inwards to how I was using those small moments of time where I was waiting for other things to happen and not enjoying the present moment.
Credit: While Waiting Optillusion
The unique storyline is compelling, but the waiting does make it harder to be engaged with the game if you decide to play in one sitting like I did. As a result of that decision, I am put off going back into complete the achievements and I feel like I got everything from the game that I could just from a do nothing run.
As a result, it’s difficult to really recommend the game at the full price of £17.99/$19.99. Although there is a lot of play time for the cost, I did feel very frustrated with While Waiting that I got the message the game was trying to convey about how we only have a limited amount of time and we need to spend it wisely.
The unique gameplay and storytelling makes for a really special game that I think is worth trying once, but I would suggest either pick doing nothing or working on the tasks quickly so that you get what you need to from the game the first time through. Over 3 hours sitting around watching While Waiting autoplay is a tall ask for anyone particularly for those who really do need to use their time constructively!
Summary
While Waiting is an intriguing game quite unlike anything I’ve ever played. With the simple premise of waiting through the daily events of life, it gives you a unique opportunity to reflect on your own experience.
Whilst I did enjoy the gameplay and felt like the message hit home in not wasting your time, I felt frustrated with how much waiting I was doing and going back to complete the tasks wasn’t a fulfilling experience with a lot of the limitations in the game. It is worth giving it a go if a demo is available to you, but you need to be prepared that it can feel like you are just stuck in an endless cycle of waiting.
