Whirlight: No Time to Trip Review – Clever, Quirky, and Occasionally Maddening

Whirlight: No Time to Trip Review

It must be absolutely exhausting to live in a point-and-click puzzle game like imaginarylabs‘ Whirlight: No Time to Trip. Just going to the bathroom or making coffee would be a multi-part head-scratcher. You’d have to pick up every object and wonder, is this socket wrench important to getting my morning cup-o-joe? It’s why diapers and Starbucks were invented. Nobody’s got that kind of time. Except, of course, people who love point-and-click games with obtuse puzzles.

Stealing from…er, Inspired by the Best

More than anything else, Whirlight: No Time to Trip takes inspiration from classic point-and-click puzzle adventure games from LucasArts and before, which means very little handholding or clue systems. Whirlight: No Time to Trip allows two small concessions: pressing the spacebar highlights interactable objects, and there’s a journal with to-be-completed objectives. That’s about it in terms of help systems.

Aside from that, nearly every puzzle is a multi-stage process of logic, trial-and-error, outside-the-box thinking, and frankly, luck. Sometimes it’s patently obvious what needs to be done.  Equally often, the solutions are frustratingly obtuse. Solutions might not even be in the same area and involve the investigation of other zones in the game.

Although they were certainly common in early puzzle adventures, I’ve grown less patient with arbitrary or unintuitive puzzles. Games have evolved to integrate puzzles more elegantly, without needlessly frustrating the player or killing the momentum. Simply put, some of us need a hint system or difficulty slider, or we bounce off the game.

Saving Graces

Those caveats and gripes aside, however, Whirlight: No Time to Trip does have a larger narrative in which at least some pixel-hunting makes sense. You bounce between two characters. There’s Hector, a somewhat gruff, slacker-ish inventor from the 1960s, and Margaret, an artist from 1990. Time becomes fractured, the world is chaotic, and the pair must bring together their logical and/or creative talents to make things right. The narrative includes lots of time-tripping and slightly askew takes on the “real” world.

It’s not a super original narrative premise, but it provides plenty of opportunities for sight gags, jokes, and gentle cultural satire. Both characters are well defined, and when not repetitively explaining to the player what every object is or does, the dialogue isn’t bad. The voice work is pretty good, too.

Unfortunately, all games in this genre — retro point-and-click puzzle games — have a built-in pacing problem. No matter how engaging the story, it screeches to a halt every few minutes so the player can solve a puzzle. Charmed by the characters, setting, and story, I couldn’t help wishing they were in a different game.

A Reason to Play

I’ve been kind of down on Whirlight: No Time to Trip, but honestly, that’s less about the game than my impatience with its old-school mechanics. One area that I absolutely loved is the game’s art design and graphics. From the opening animation of a glowing butterfly doing a flyby through the world, I was hooked. Slightly stylized, the dozens of environments are detailed, colorful, and full of character. Buildings lean at odd angles. The world is recognizable but slightly off.

While characters often just stand and talk, there are all sorts of effective little animations, too. The production benefits from an intimate, evocative, and varied musical score. Options for sound, visuals, and accessibility are pretty bare bones. But Whirlight: No Time to Trip is not a technically demanding game.

It’s hard to fault Whirlight: No Time to Trip for being what it sets out to be. Don’t let the tone fool you. Whirlight: No Time to Trip is a hardcore homage to point-and-click puzzle adventure games. Delightful visuals, a quirky story, fun characters, and an appealing sense of irony and humor help ease the pain of some frustrating, unintuitive puzzles. Skippable puzzles or at least an optional hint system would go a long way. Figety, impatient, or puzzle-adverse gamers might be put off and miss the charm Whirlight: No Time to Trip has to offer.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***