Platforms:
PC, Nintendo Switch
Released:
February 6, 2025
Publisher:
Optillusion
Developer:
Optillusion
While Waiting is a wonderful game about doing nothing, and waiting for things to happen. It is also a game about doing something, and making things happen! The game is brought to us by Optillusion, and is a short but sweet title described on Steam as ‘a transformative adventure exploring the art of waiting’ and boy there sure is a lot of waiting involved. I did nothing for nearly four hours!
Well, for my first ‘playthrough’ anyway. You can complete the game in its entirety by doing absolutely nothing, and that’s not a negative thing. Sitting back and watching the 100 levels play out by themselves is enjoyable on its own as they’re each standalone entertaining segments, but if you take the time to pay attention you’ll find they’re telling a much bigger story.
You follow one character through all his formative years during While Waiting. You watch him as a child waiting for class to end, waiting for Santa to come, waiting for his friends to come out and play. You watch him as he grows, waiting for an acceptance letter to college, waiting for classes to begin. As he enters the workforce he waits for meetings to be over, waits for the train, and waits for lunch.
You watch as he meets his future wife. You watch him wait for the birth of his daughter, and the passing of his father. You watch him wait for all the meaningful and important parts of life, parts that we all experience in one way or another. The game advertises itself as “a game for everyone, every being, even a skeleton I guess?” and it truly is a game for everyone. It’s a game about life, and we all experience it right up to the end.
“…it truly is a game for everyone. It’s a game about life, and we all experience it right up to the end…”
But isn’t life more fun when you do something? Sure, you can complete the whole game without doing a single thing, but in each level, there are several different ways that you can intervene and those can branch off into all sorts of crazy and exciting situations.
Car broken down? While waiting for a tow, why not try and change the tyre yourself and end up chasing it as it rolls away down the street? Waiting for your toast to pop? Why not play with your dinosaur-shaped cereal? Waiting for an award to get announced? Why not play a game of Simon Says and unlock the ability to time travel?! I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself if you play the game. The main point is that there are so many ways you can pass the time while waiting for something else to happen, and some of those ways are more exciting than others. You have to wait regardless, so why not make it fun?
Coupled with high-intensity orchestral music in the background, While Waiting makes some of these honestly quite realistic and plausible scenarios feel all the more daring and exciting, almost like a reminder that our day-to-day lives can be all the more interesting if we just take the time to have a little fun with it.
The simplistic art style really lends itself to While Waiting and the gameplay doesn’t try to overcomplicate itself. It’s a simple game about some of the most simple parts of life, and that’s all it needs to be. During my time waiting for things to happen, I had time to think about what was going on in the game and at the same time, in my own life. There was such a strong comparison between myself and the character because I’d done and experienced so many of the things he was experiencing. I’d done the time wasters, holding the fridge open at just the right distance to see the light turn off, making patterns in a dirty phone screen with my finger, and playing a game with the water droplets sliding down a window while it rained. It made me feel very grounded, understood and human and I really appreciated that.
I think there is something so beautiful about the simplicity of being able to enjoy doing nothing. Not in a way that’s just simply wasting time, as the title might have you believe, but in a way where you’re experiencing something. You’re experiencing a story throughout your time playing whether you choose to actively participate in the gameplay or not. Life continues to happen around you even without your interference and that’s true for both the game and in the real world. While Waiting does a fantastic job of taking that concept and expanding upon it.
8
Great
Positive:
- Made me think about life and the passage of time
- Simple gameplay you can pick up in a moment
- Each time-waster is unique and entertaining
Negative:
- Made me think about life and the passage of time
- Can be tedious figuring out how to correctly waste time
While Waiting is a wonderful game about time wasting, and all the fun and creative ways in which you can do that. Sometimes all you can do is sit and wait, and sometimes that gives the most rewarding outcome. Sometimes the most important thing you can do with your time is nothing, as long as it’s with people you care about. Living life, being with the people you love and doing the things that make you happy is never a waste of time.
About the Author
Hayley Louise
she/they
Hayley spends most of her time gaming, but when she's not doing that you can find her doing all kinds of nerd-adjacent things like playing board games, building Lego, reading books and talking nerdy to everyone who will listen.
