The Indie Informer

In my former life, I worked as a restaurant server. The routine of greeting customers, taking orders, and putting up with guests’ weird idiosyncrasies is still ingrained within me. While We Wait Here became an unexpectedly enjoyable exercise in flexing that atrophied muscle by letting me run a small diner frequented by weirdos in the middle of nowhere. Somehow, the fact that the world is seemingly coming apart at the seams is only slightly stranger than the patrons I’m serving.

Developed by Bad Vices Games (Ravenous Devils), this surreal adventure stars a couple running an unassuming diner. A small cast of regular customers and intriguing newcomers shuffle in and out to partake in the usual diner offerings of burgers, pancakes, and milkshakes. There’s a lot of bizarre stuff to unpack, but I found the mundane exercise of preparing and serving dishes most enjoyable. 

The limited menu features items that require two to four ingredients to create. As a fan of Overcooked, I liked the even more simplified assembly process of fetching ingredients, cooking via a deep fryer or a flattop, plating, busing tables, and collecting payment. Limited inventory slots mean you can’t carry everything (and some items must be returned after use e.g. milk cartons), engendering a fun exercise in whipping up multiple dishes as efficiently as possible. 

There’s no penalty for taking too long to cook something. Still, my dormant server instincts inspired me to challenge myself to get dishes out quickly and correctly. This self-imposed challenge added fun stakes to what’s ultimately just the basic gameplay skeleton holding While We Wait Here’s narrative meat. 

The central plot centers around a mysterious murder that unfolds in the diner. Though you switch various viewpoints, the married (?) owners take top billing. The story is told out of sequence (Christopher Nolan is beaming somewhere), making it tricky to determine when something’s happening. Jump cuts are frequent, and the husband’s switch from an Arthur Morgan-lite charmer to a bloodied ominous threat is jarring, likely by design. The outside world shifts from an ordinary desert to a supernatural thunderstorm to even having creepy shadow people roaming about. 

I frequently asked myself “Is this real?”, and I’m still unsure of what’s actually happening. The characters don’t acknowledge the chaos outside as much as I’d expect, so maybe it’s all in the head of the protagonist couple. I have some theories I can’t share as they veer into spoiler territory, but While We Wait Here feels designed to launch a thousand video essays deciphering its true intentions. It does straddle the line of trying to feel profound and rising a little too far up its butt in metaphors and symbolism. 

Interacting with the quirky clientele adds intrigue, even if their anthology-style stories feel inconsequential to the main plot. Having worked in restaurants for a few years, I quickly realized regular customers use the menu as a thinly veiled excuse to regale me with their life stories. An old-timer reminisces about how his abusive father instilled a toxic work ethic. A paranoid teenager shares a wild story about how he was abducted by aliens. The meatiest thread involves a pair of young women coping with a cheating boyfriend and a subsequent road trip that goes awry. 

These playable vignettes occasionally shake up the gameplay. One segment unfolds as a basic first-person shooting gallery. Another offers a brief yet creepy chase sequence. Making dialogue choices vaguely steers their stories and seemingly affects the main narrative, resulting in multiple endings. I must have made some bad decisions because some of the character threads didn’t get a proper resolution. As a result, the ending left me more than a little confused and itching for more answers.

I walked away from While We Wait Here with two frames of mind. As a horror game, the storytelling isn’t wholly satisfying or even coherent. But as experimental restaurant simulator, this adventure offers more appealing dish.