The staff at Italian studio Bad Vices Games have an unhealthy interest in combining the culinary simulation and horror genres. Their previous project was Ravenous Devils, a straightforward Sweeney Todd-style body horror about a family of maniacs who sell human meat dishes. Now, the studio has decided to dig deeper with While We Wait Here and make a real psychological horror—but again in the simulator of a catering worker. This is our PC review.
The quirks of provincial fast food
Diners in the United States are a special part of the country’s cultural code. Roadside diners, usually located somewhere in the middle of nowhere, are often the focus of films, books, and even games. Of the latter, the colorful Oh Deer Diner in Alan Wake II, inspired by Twin Peaks, comes to mind. Cozy diners, reminiscent of railway carriages with their long, narrow rooms, have been serving simple, hearty food and cubic meters of coffee since the late 19th century. The inns are always bustling with life – locals plotting and keeping terrible secrets, fugitives seeking refuge. And sometimes terrible crimes are committed in them.
While We Wait Here takes place in just such a diner, located in the heart of the Texas desert. Describing the game’s plot without giving away too many details is a difficult task, because in the local narrative the boundaries between reality and vision are sometimes blurred, making you doubt the truth of what is happening. And the game itself, although positioned by the authors primarily as a simulation of a catering worker, is something deeper and more versatile.
The Long Glass Diner is run by an ordinary couple who want to sell the diner, move to the city, and start a new phase in their lives. The diner has regular customers: an elderly farmer, an aspiring actress and a young man fascinated by theories of government and alien activity. Strangers also visit the cafe – two friends on the run, an aggressive alcoholic redneck, and a couple with a child going through a family crisis. All the while, a devastating storm rages outside, heralding the imminent end of the world.
Very different people, each with their own problems, find refuge from the storm in a cozy diner that seems to be the last corner of calm in a dying world. The story will never fail to surprise with unexpected twists and turns and the complexity of the visitors’ fates. In fact, the game has two full campaigns in the style of Resident Evil 2. As you talk to characters, you make important decisions that affect the plot and the ending.
The atmosphere in While We Wait Here can be described as a cross between von Trier’s Melancholia and Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. On the one hand, the people in the diner humbly and doomedly await the end of the world and talk about their most common worldly problems. On the other hand, the player often finds himself in the characters’ flashbacks, where surrealistic devilry takes place, following the logic of a dream.
Pleasant routine
The basic gameplay of While We Wait Here revolves around the mechanics of cooking and serving in a diner. You take orders, pour coffee for customers, and cook and serve cheeseburgers, pancakes, bacon scrambles, and fries. Then you clean up, wash the dishes, take the money, put it in the till – and start all over again. No one’s stopping you from doing more than one order at a time. You use the contents of the fridge and a small personal inventory of four slots, as well as perform simple actions like flipping cutlets or mixing ingredients in the blender. At the same time, the game doesn’t overload you with excessive mechanics – you don’t have to worry about scrambled eggs burning and butter melting.
The simple but engaging routine works well for immersion. As you serve visitors, you are immersed in the meditative atmosphere of a typical diner. At the same time, the player mostly acts as an outside observer – but at the right moment, they join in the conversation. It’s like the stereotypical bartender from the movies who spends hours silently wiping glasses and polishing the bar but then gives the main character the most valuable advice of his life.
Paradoxically, the protagonist seems to be on the periphery of the action for most of the game, but the key decisions and actions are always behind him. And this unusual approach to integrating gameplay into the narrative is fascinating.
During the flashbacks, the player takes control of almost all of the diner’s customers. As you immerse yourself in the characters’ stories, new mechanics are introduced. You have to destroy a car with a baseball bat, paint a child’s room, and even milk a cow. There are also shooter elements – in some episodes, you will be holding a rifle. And although the reloading and impact animations are reminiscent of the first Call of Duty, these one-off shootouts are a nice change of pace.
Perhaps the creepiest episode was the plunge into the mind of an elderly farmer named Hank. Childhood fears and traumas in his head intertwine to create a creepy monster from which the player must hide, as if in a light version of Amnesia: Rebirth. However, as in the rest of the game, it’s the old man’s personal tragedy and the psychology of the situation that is more frightening than the otherworldly monster.
Artistic choice
Unfortunately, the gameplay is not without its problems and bugs. There are an obscene number of loading screens that sometimes appear too abruptly, breaking the immersion. Sometimes, the main character gets stuck in the environment. Once, I managed to catch a soft lock – a glass of milkshake flatly refused to go into the inventory. However, such problems are solved by reloading the save, and in general, the studio, which consists of two people and a cat, can forgive minor flaws. They are more than compensated for by the interesting story.
Many people will call the graphics in While We Wait Here weak – and they will be right. But this is the author’s idea – a grainy, slightly angular image with a shimmering particle effect that is deliberately reminiscent of games from the PS1 and PS2 era. Due to the stylization, the outdated graphics seem quite appropriate and not overbearing.
The sound is also worthy of praise. The wonderful While We Wait Here soundtrack combines atmospheric ambient music with simple but touching lyrical etudes—amazing and beautiful voice-overs – the highest level for such a modest project. The farmer Hank is particularly successful – he is very convincing when he grunts and complains about life.
