Wilmot's Warehouse - Review

No matter how many games I play, or how many I add to my 'to playlist', I am always open to adding another game to my pile.  This is exactly what happened when I came across Wilmot's Warehouse by games studio Finji.  The studio has released a number of games including; Night In The Woods,
Overland, Feist, Canabalt (one of my favorite mobile games).


There is almost nothing more wholesome than boiled bacon, cabbage, mash potatoes, and white onion sauce.  It is one of those meals where I always leave the table satisfied.  There are many variations of the meal but I like to keep mine simple as it was intended.  Playing Wilmot's Warehouse I found myself asking was this the simple, wholesome meal I needed?

Story


The story is quite straight forward, you control Wilmot, a new warehouse employee.  His mission is to organize the warehouse, take in deliveries, and deliver orders (it's more interesting than it sounds). The goal is to stock two hundred different items and once that happens it's game over.  It might sound simple but it will take you some time.


Overall yes there isn't much of a story but it isn't needed, that being said I felt connected to Wilmot and wanted to help him achieve his destiny.

Visuals


The visuals are soothing, simple and pleasurable to look at, but don't mistake that for being boring.  The warehouse is a large square with six-columns spaced out within it, it is simply black and white visuals at the beginning.  Then each new item you take in has different designs, symbols, and colours, this brightens up the warehouse and only as you approach items will they be revealed (see the image above).


Overall I feel the visuals really help offset the poor pressure that Wilmot is under and helps create a feeling of calm.



Music 


The music is amazingly calming and helped make me feel cozy, it was never invasive and I found myself bobbing along with it on occasion. The composer, musician, and sound designer is Eli Rainsberry who also created the soundtracks for Sure Footing and Jet Stream.


The soundtrack runs a little over thirty minutes and has many tranquil tracks, my favorites being;
'It's Him...Wilmot', 'Going Through The Ropes', 'Customer Service' and 'Tea Break'.


Overall the soundtrack is one of the most peaceful and calming I listened to in a while and is the perfect music for the game.

Gameplay


The bare basics of the game are, take in deliveries, organize them and then fetch products for your team and deliver them to the counter.  However, there is much more beyond that, you have to effectively organize the warehouse, sound easy?  It isn't always.  You need to decide on a strategy to organise it in such a way that you remember where everything is and so you can complete your counter deliveries in a short frame of time. There are some products that have pictures of animals on them so you could create an animal section, but what about abstract shapes, goblets or handsoap? Maybe you'd be better ignoring the symbols and grouping by colors. It's an interesting exercise in how we visually group and organize information, and you have to be able to remember where everything is (at least approximately, in its larger group), as items you are not close to are just shown as dark squares.


Probably my favorite part of Wilmot's Warehouse was the Stocktake level, every three levels you get to take your time and make changes as you see fit.  Each level rewards you with stars based on how quickly you get products to deliver to the rest of the team. These can be used to remove the six columns in the warehouse, which is the first thing you should do because you will need the space.  There are items to help you carry more, move faster, and Borky your robot friend who can help you organize everything.


Overall the game started easy but got a lot tougher near the end trying to organize and remember where all the products all gave me anxiety.  In the end though myself, Wilmot and Borky prevailed.




Final Thoughts


So, after nearly twenty hours how did I feel?  Pretty happy and content.  The game pulls you with its calming simple design and music, and this helps you deal with the fast-paced gameplay.  My honest advice is if you haven't played it you should and if you have then make sure to take a well-earned tea break.  This one gets a solid 4 out of 5