Coming from imaginarylab, Whirlight – No Time To Trip invites players on a lighthearted retro point-and-click adventure. Following the story of an eccentric inventor, Hector, the story unravels in the most unexpected ways. Simple passionate scientist troubles turn into world-saving mission, while he just wanted to finish his greatest work.
However, Hector won’t be alone on this journey. Amidst the strange creatures he encountered and places he visited, he meets an eclectic artist, Margaret, who becomes his indispensable traveling companion. Together, the quirky couple might have what it takes to stop the imminent threat that looming over the entire world.
The premise sounds promising and engaging on its own, sparkling the wish to try the game out. And the developers probably predicted this outcome, offering players a free taste of the crazy adventure. Whirlight – No Time To Trip Demo has been available on the Steam for a while, but now it receives an expansion, giving players a chance to look at the game from another angle. Both another world and the far future, the players get a chance to see both key points of the game, before diving deeper into the narrative.
The content of the Demo version is fairly rich for a point-and-click game. The game doesn’t give a short prologue to show off the gameplay, but offers several hours of the unique atmosphere. While the casual adventure style lacks features that hook players in immediately, and offering a free trial might seem risky, Whirlight manages to turn this into an advantage. Operating on a light story and mood, the game is able to charm its audience from the first minutes.
As Whirlight loads, it gives the vibes of 90s – early 00s quest adventures right away. The simple menu screen with flashy art strongly reminds of the old-fashioned games, which became the staple for the genre. This magic persists through the intro videos, blending into the first bits of the story.
From the very beginning, Whirlight feels like home, welcoming the wonder back after the long war trip. The game is light and casual, never trying to force the players into a rush or dropping some tough truth of the world disaster right away.
The simple and carefree characters are lovable from the first introduction, remaining adorable while revealing their quirks and obsessions. They joke and act as they want, never caring of how it might look from the side or what someone could think. However, sometimes their humor hits the edge of ridiculous nonsense, or comments feel completely unnecessary. But this is just a part of who they are, and we can either accept them, or turn the game off at this stage before it’s too late.
Another stand out point of the game is the cartoonish graphics, resembling yet another love letter to the retro games. The art style is simple, and at times, locations might appear messy at first glance. Yet, this perfectly mirrors the delightful creative chaos the game seems to present. However, while the official page refers to the style as 2D graphics, the image on the screen still seems to use 3D one way or another. Maybe at the production stage for the renders or some other way, but nevertheless the final image looks nice and pretty, giving the game its final aesthetics.
When it comes to gameplay, it’s hard to expect anything earth-shattering from a point-and-click quest. However, the fans of the genre don’t look for the cool mechanics, but seek the plot and creative puzzles to tackle. And Whirlight is eager to deliver in those respects.
The game takes players beyond just the casual logical thinking, expecting you to look for unorthodox and maybe even strange solutions. While some chains of actions appear to be overly simple to figure out, some other puzzles can and will stop the player and suggest thinking more carefully before moving on. However, the game stays true to its casual nature, never throwing overcomplicated tasks for no reason.
The technical side of the Whirlight – No Time To Trip is perfect for the Demo stage version. The game runs smoothly, with no memory leaks, crashes or strange framerate drops. Of course, light 2D like game can’t, or rather shouldn’t, be challenging for the modern systems, but everything is possible. Meanwhile, Whirlight doesn’t suffer from major issues, even if a minor bugs can be still possible in rare cases.
Whirlight – No Time To Trip is a great and solid representative of the point-and-click adventure. The game brings back the very roots of the genre, spicing them with modern approaches and humor. It has a potential to find its way to players hears and become a nice heartwarming memory, like its retro game predecessors.
