While Waiting might just be the easiest game ever made. Every one of its 100+ puzzle sandboxes has the same solution: boot it up, hit play, and then unplug your keyboard and mouse. Each scenario will play out with absolutely no input from you. Do this, though, and a creeping curiosity starts to take hold. That poster over there, what does it say? What happens if I kick that can on the ground? Can I land it in the trash can? And just like that, While Waiting has its hooks in.
It doesn't sound particularly thinky, but stick with me here. Billed as “a long story about waiting,” I’ve found endless delight and plenty of meditative moments in my time with the demo, and now the wait is over to explore the rest. Be warned that this is the kind of game that benefits from your whole attention, even—and especially—at its slowest. It has no pulse-pounding action, momentous narrative choices, or intense brain twisters. Instead, it has a love of those little moments in life when nothing seems to happen, and a love of games and puzzles in general, that it’s more than happy to share.
Following its unnamed protagonist from birth to death, each level of While Waiting opens on one of these moments. Waiting for a rainstorm to pass, waiting for the elevator, waiting for luggage, waiting for traffic. I look around my environment (what else is there to do?) and notice it’s teeming with little details. Take the rainstorm, for instance. There are a couple of potted plants, a heat lamp, and a pug. Cars splash through a huge puddle when they pass. Through the open door of a cafe, there’s an arcade machine. It’s out of order.
But, if I focus in on the window, the rain reminds me of one of those bullet hell games. I trace my finger through the falling raindrops, and after a short moment, they actually do transform into falling missiles. I weave through them in my little spaceship, collecting coins as I go… and then, the rain stops. I get back to whatever I was doing, and it’s on to the next level.
Waiting patiently will solve every situation in While Waiting, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The meta-puzzle of searching a scene, finding interactable elements, and imagining what small feats you can accomplish is what ultimately snowballs into a celebration of passing time.
I wouldn’t exactly call it an “art game” in the same way as something like The Longing. Collectable trophy stickers introduce plenty of gaminess by hinting at the challenges to be discovered in each level. But it’s While Waiting’s exceptional comedic sense that does most of the heavy lifting to keep me engaged.
One level about waiting for the toilet unravels into a full point-and-click adventure that had me searching for secret codes and hidden rooms to open an out-of-order stall. Every action I took advanced a timer depicting an upturned can of Spam with its contents slowly threatening to pop free (not every joke is as puerile as that one, but I can’t resist a bit of sensible toilet humor).
Other jokes riff on the history and culture of games as a whole. There’s a level about waiting for your stamina to recover in one of those pay-to-win mobile games, and another about waiting for a game to download. In that one, the only other game on your PC is Desert Bus, Penn & Teller’s legendary game about driving down a straight, empty road in a bus that lists to the right.
To get the sticker for that one, I had to drive for eight minutes—nowhere near the eight hours it takes to complete your drive in the original game, but still a treacherous pursuit for someone who grew up with an iPhone. But having permission to do absolutely nothing makes the game feel bigger than it is. A bug hits my windshield several minutes in, and the thrill of even this small change exceeds the dopamine I’ve extracted from any number of triple-A boss rushes I’ve endured with my eyes glazed over.
It strikes an oddly hopeful note. As puzzle gamers, why do we complicate things for ourselves? Wouldn’t it be easier if the red key was always in front of the red door? If Animal Well just told you what every item did, or if Henry Evans simply recounted, to the best of his ability, the events that transpired on the Obra Dinn?
While Waiting elicits meditations like these. It’s a love letter to waiting, but its heart-stamped envelope is made from the irrepressible desire to create obstacles where none exist.
If you embark on this journey of deliberate boredom, I have one additional challenge. Think of it like a sticker from me to you. When you find yourself stuck on a puzzle or unsure what to click on next, I want you to keep While Waiting on your screen with both hands on the controls. Put your phone far away if you have to, and pop the Alt-Tab keys from your keyboard. I promise that you’ll find something one-of-a-kind in the slow moments this game creates.
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