While Waiting review for PC, Switch

I’m sure everyone has heard the “factoid” that on average a person spends one third of their life sleeping. I doubt too many of us wonder how much of the rest of that time do we spend…well waiting? I guess someone on the Optillusion team might’ve pondered this and perhaps it was the onus of their latest release While Waiting (I actually never reached out to ask…I guess I should’ve, but I didn’t want to wait for a response.).

While Waiting is a puzzle title where you can complete by doing absolutely nothing (My “do nothing” run clocked in at roughly 3 hours and 22 minutes). However for those that can’t just can’t sit there, nearly all of the game’s 100 scenarios feature other objectives that range to super relatable or humorously outlandish.

The game’s narrative is you’re an observer in the life of a person named Adam. You watch him go through the springtime of his youth, coming into his own as a college student, entering and exiting the corporate grind, finding love, becoming a parent and ultimately the twilight of his existence. Even though there was no visible dialogue, Optillusion created a protagonist that was so relatable that it would be hard to not root for him. I think my only gripe is we didn’t get to know more about him and the people he’s met in life. In fact the only reason I knew the protagonist was named Adam was due to some supplemental information I stumbled upon (I am in fact checking Steam semi-regularly to see when the game’s digital artbook will be released).

Controls for the game are simple(we’re talking cardinal directions, an interaction button, a fidget button, and the menu button), but yet Optillusion manages to get a lot of mileage out of it. I would go about the variety of gameplay experiences you’ll witness in trying to fill out your sticker book, but I want you to experience it first hand, needless to say the devs have had quite the exposure to pop culture from the past 30 years.

For all the charm of the title there are things that irk me. Given the game is practically a test of patience, some of the activities skew a bit too hard or solutions to puzzles can be quite esoteric. Given each stage is on a timer, you’re likely to run out of time and if you’re not quick on the draw to restart a stage, you’ll need to exit out and go to level select to get back to the stage you actually want to focus on (An added option to access the level select in the pause menu can easily alleviate this issue.).

I seldom get emotional when interacting with the media, this isn’t a statement that puts me on a pedestal, but I actually see this as a defect. So it’s always refreshing when I encounter any content that makes me “feel” something. Playing While Waiting made me look back at my own life and reminisce about the good, the bad and the things I’ve yet to or maybe will never accomplish. While the game is accessible for ages I feel like it certainly would help if you’ve got some years in to fully appreciate the game’s message.

While Waiting is available now on the PC and the Nintendo Switch, I’m curious how long we’ll have to wait until the game is available for other platforms (and what sticker we’ll get when it arrives!).

Note: Optillusion provided us with a While Waiting code for review purposes.