Boredom is something of a dying concept. Our phones, filled with games and videos and social feeds, allow us to fill every moment with something, whether we’re on a long flight or in line for 30 seconds waiting for coffee. But the silly and playful While Waiting is a good reminder that that can be a good thing — an opportunity for our minds to wander in unexpected directions.
Possibly the best way to describe While Waiting is that it’s what would happen if WarioWare also tried to tell the story of a human life. Which means that it’s a collection of extremely short, often weird minigames that all fit together to follow the story of a singular character through moments of waiting. It starts right from the beginning: the first thing you’re asked to do is wait to be born.
From there, you jump through time via idle moments. You have to wait for the commercials to end while watching a show with your parents, or wait to fall asleep while lying in bed, or wait for the water to heat up to take a shower. In each instance, you can simply wait and do nothing, and eventually, time will pass and whatever you’re waiting for will happen. But this is a game, after all, so you can also mess about.
There are a handful of stickers to collect in each level that hint at what you can do. While you wait to get your grade on an exam, for instance, you can sneak around the classroom and spy on your friends’ grades. It plays out like a stealth game, as you have to avoid your teacher’s gaze, lest you be forced back to your desk.
The tricky part is figuring out what you’re able to do, and how to do it, in a very limited timeframe. And since almost every level is different, that challenge repeats itself over the 100 or so minigames. This is eased by the incredibly simple controls. You use one stick to move around and one button to interact with things. That’s it, aside from another button that does nothing but let you play with a fidget toy.
For the most part, the minigames are very silly. You have to make sure you remembered to pack underwear for a flight or push through crowds to get a better view of fireworks. One of my favorite stages involved making up constellations to impress a date. It’s all very charming and goofy, often using wonky physics to add some slapstick comedy. Some of the stages can be melancholy as well; one involves simply waiting to grow up.
But each one shows that, in those brief moments of idling around that we’re so eager to fill with distractions, something surprising can happen — if only you’re bored enough to pay attention.
While Waiting is available now on the Nintendo Switch and PC.
