While Waiting in 4Gamer

At Tokyo Game Show 2024, held from September 26 to 29, the indie game corner featured While Waiting, an adventure game that focuses on the act of “waiting.”

Developed by Optillusion, the studio behind the puzzle adventure Moncage (PC/Switch / iOS/Android), the game won the Pocky Award at Sense of Wonder Night 2024, a pitch contest for indie developers held within TGS on September 28.

Proclaimed as a “game where you just wait,” While Waiting, helped by its cute art, might make you think, “Is this a cozy diorama to simply gaze at?” And indeed, you can clear it by merely watching. But there’s more to it than that.

What surprised me when I started the demo was that the very first situation was "wait to be born.”

The game slices out the protagonist Adam’s important “waiting” moments in life. Together with Adam, players spend those stretches of waiting. As a soul, as a child waiting at a school sports day, as an office worker, “waiting” moments pop up again and again from birth to death. The game reportedly includes over 100 such situations.

When a “wait” occurs, time will eventually pass even if you do nothing. But you can choose to do something while you wait. For example, while waiting to receive the relay baton, you can jump in with the cheerleaders outside the track and root for your team or even sabotage runners in other lanes. None of that affects the clear conditions; do it or don’t, it’s up to you. Life moves forward no matter how you spend that time.

For a while after I began, it felt odd that taking proactive actions carried no special value in game terms. But as I played on, sharing a string of comical situations with Adam, I found myself reconsidering not only how to spend one’s life, but also the value of all sorts of things.

At the booth, I spoke with the developer, Hongke Luo. Hearing about how he used to secretly play games on his mother’s PC as a child, and learning the little gags tucked into this game, I felt his worldview, humorous yet always probing the essence of things, shines through in the game’s attitude.

That said, While Waiting never forces the creator’s answers on you, quite theopposite. This eccentric game doesn’t intrude upon the player’s heart; and yet, it gently makes you reconsider how to spend the time of your life. The “answer,” surely, is as numerous as there are people.

As for me, I couldn’t help thinking that TGS 2024 itself was full of “waiting time”: for entry, to try games, and so on.