Game of the Year 2024: Wilmot Works it Out snapped my soul back together
I know, I know. Every year’s a rough year. But–bloody hell!–2024 was an uncomfortable one.
I’m a software engineering contractor, and the best gig of my career ended early in the year. And the job market is dead. Like dead dead.
I applied for hundreds of jobs. I got a handful of interviews. Only two led somewhere. One was a dud that only lasted a week. The other’s in limbo until after the Christmas break.
Anxiety led to panic led to terror. By the end of autumn, my bank account was empty and my options seemed exhausted. Was I really unemployable? Was there anything more I could do to help myself? I’ll admit it: after a year of retraining and chasing leads, I burned out and shut down.
I spent a couple of weeks just shuffling between my bed and the sofa. Then I picked up the Steam Deck I’d barely touched all year. Then Wilmot Works it Out caught me from falling any further down that dark hole.
So yeah, look: of course this review is super-subjective! Wilmot was exactly what I needed at exactly the moment I needed it. I don’t want to over-egg it, but Wilmot made me feel better when I was feeling hopeless, and that makes it an easy Game of the Year for me.
This ain’t Wilmot’s Warehouse
If you’ve ever played Wilmot’s Warehouse, forget about it for now. Yes, Works it Out is a spiritual sequel to Warehouse, but they’re very different beasts.
Richard Hogg’s iconic geometric art is still here. Eli Rainsberry’s back with another happy little soundtrack. But while Wilmot’s Warehouse is a high-pressure ticking-clock organise-em-up, Wilmot Works it Out is cosy as heck.
There are no timers. There are no deaths. You can save and walk away at any time. You can’t lose. Just solve beautiful jigsaw puzzles until you’ve had your fill or the game runs out.
Sam
Puzzles are delivered to your door by Sam, your friendly local postwoman, and she’s lovely! She has her own story that she shares throughout the game, and it’s up to you how far you want to engage with her. But why wouldn’t you?
A note for any other elder millennials playing this game, though: Sam doesn’t post your puzzles through the letterbox. She knocks. If, like me, you play with headphones, and if your heart, like mine, stops when there’s a pound on the door, then good luck.
I’m not going to spoil the end of the game, but I found it genuinely emotional with a beautiful gameplay twist. You’ll probably only care to the extent of your friendship with Sam, but she’s worth it.
Puzzles
In each delivery, Sam drops off enough pieces to finish one or two puzzles, along with a few pieces of the next two or three. She won’t deliver any more until you’ve completed all the puzzles that you’re able to with what you’ve got, so you won’t get overwhelmed.
It’s up to you how you arrange the pieces on the floor while you’re working. Thankfully, you can zoom in on the details and pull out to get a big-picture view of where everything is.
And there aren’t any interruptions while you work. If Sam starts knocking while you’re busy organising, you can ignore her and she’ll post a redelivery note through the letterbox. She doesn’t mind waiting, and it doesn’t affect the story.
When you complete a puzzle, you hang it on a wall to clear the floor space for the next puzzle. You can also unlock other objects and decorations to place around. Now, honestly, I don’t care much about this. It’s nice to see the completed puzzles around the house, but placing them, and shuffling them around to make room, was more chore than fun for me.
Unlike physical jigsaw puzzles, these pieces are perfect squares. You can’t pick the pieces up, but you can push, pull and grab to lug them into place.
And the grabbing is my biggest criticism. I played on controllers with twin thumbsticks, with the left stick moving Wilmot and the right grabbing adjacent tiles, and–I swear–I never learned an instinctive feel for how to navigate through grabbed groups, nor which button to hit to break groups apart.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s more obvious with a mouse and keyboard. Do I have any better ideas? Nope. But it still wound me up every time I had to snap a puzzle open to get at an empty square in the middle.
Marathon
Completing the game’s beautiful story mode, unlocks its brilliant marathon mode!
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t looking forward to it. I expected a ticking clock or some other mucking around to create an artificial challenge. I’m relieved I was wrong!
The marathon mode creates a new game that sits somewhere between Wilmot Works it Out and Wilmot’s Warehouse. First of all, there’s no Sam; puzzles are just posted through the letterbox. And second, pieces for all the puzzles are drip-fed through at random. It’ll take a few deliveries before you’ve got enough pieces for a single puzzle to complete; and until then, the floor is covered in tiles.
The challenge isn’t to complete puzzles as quickly as possible. The challenge is to group and organise pieces so you can find and complete them as-and-when each puzzle’s pieces arrive. It’s Wilmot’s Warehouse’s organisation challenge, but with all the time in the world. It’s Wilmot Works it Out, but with sixty-plus puzzles on the go rather than just three or four. I loved it!
Easily my Game of the Year
I bought Wilmot Works it Out on Steam, though it’s also available on itch.io, and played on Steam Deck and macOS. All told, it took me about thirty hours to to complete the story mode, marathon and earn all achievements.
If you like jigsaw puzzles and cosy games with a bit of story to ease them along, Wilmot Works it Out is the easiest recommendation in the world.
…and that’s about it for 2024. Good luck with 2025, folks! ❤️