Wilmot's Warehouse

Wilmot’s Warehouse is one of those games that has simple gameplay and graphics but is highly effective at what it does. It is a logistics simulator, where you arrange a warehouse and try to fulfil orders. I imagine it is like working at a company like Argos.

Despite it being a game about manual labour, it is highly addictive, just like games like Papers Please.

The tutorial explains how you pick up and drop items in square areas, then how to give ordered items to the customers. However, it doesn’t explain the way the game flows, so I was really confused when starting the game.

Items are delivered to the back of the warehouse, then you have a limited time to arrange them as you see fit. It’s up to you to spot ways to group items together and place them. For example, early on I had a section for math related items (numbers, charts, symbols), water related items (frog, scuba helmet, water, shell), and explosive related items (cannon, rocket). Maybe you will choose different groupings, you could order them by colour for example. It’s in your best interest to group them in a memorable way, because the next phase is where 3 customers order sets of items, then you have to retrieve them in your warehouse.

By fulfilling these orders, you can achieve stars which can then be used on upgrades. Some orders give bonus stars, and you get more for fulfilling them quicker. Your warehouse has 6 large pillars, and you can remove them to free space. Other upgrades is the ability to rotate, carry more items, dash (when not carrying anything), and there is even a robot that can attempt to carry an item at a time and place it in the correct section.

After a few rounds, you then get unlimited time to arrange your warehouse. New items are added to your catalogue which makes arranging your warehouse more challenging. Near the end of the game, my warehouse was that cluttered - it was really hard to maneuver, and it seemed impossible to fulfil the orders. You have a cone of vision so a cluttered warehouse further limits your vision. Even if you don’t give all the items, you still carry on but you just don’t obtain any reward. The game ends when you complete the catalogue of 100 items which will happen if you keep playing. You could replay the entire game if you wanted and aim to obtain more stars.

I was surprised by how fun this game is. It's a simple concept: you get these tiles with abstract pictures on them, you store them in your little "warehouse" however you see fit, and then you are asked to retrieve specific tiles inside of a time limit. You get more and more tiles, your retrieval tasks get more and more hectic, you organize the many tiles in your warehouse. That's the entire game.

The game's simplicity works to its benefit. It's simple and addicting, similar to Tetris. And it's one of those games that you can play in short bursts. Easily picked up and put down, though it creeps back into your mind after you're finished, and you get the urge to pick it back up again. I can't describe how satisfying I found sorting the tiles in my warehouse and trying to come up with a good layout to optimize my retrieval times.

I do think it's kind of a niche game, but it really worked for me.