This puzzle game has done the impossible: waiting around for something to happen has never, ever been this fun

While Waiting is a video game you play by and while waiting. That might sound simple and straightforward, but the charming puzzle game from developer Optillusion is only simple and straightforward on the surface. While you absolutely can just… wait, every scene is actually full of delightful secrets and Easter eggs to uncover, which range from simple and straightforward to wildly complex and shockingly convoluted. I should be clear: I mean that as a compliment.

There’s really no easy comparison to better understand the concept of While Waiting, but the closest I’ve come when talking about it with others is taking the general vibe of Untitled Goose Game and applying it to killing time. You don’t really have to do anything, and in fact the game will largely move forward entirely without any input from you at all, and any behavior beyond that is arguably completely unnecessary.

Killing time

Not that I would actually recommend doing nothing at all; it’s merely an option the game technically supports. The real goodness, the nougat at the center of While Waiting, is everything that it technically allows you to do, well, while waiting. The game is mechanically a series of vignettes or scenes with timers that range in length (and generally are not known to the player) with the only stated goal being to wait until something happens. Wait until someone texts back, wait to fall asleep, wait for class to end. But just outside the confines of all of these are a wide variety of shenanigans in which to partake.