Whateverland Review

While on a quest to steal a diamond, Vincent, the protagonist of Whateverland, gets sent into another world filled with lowlifes. Accompany him and the friendly ghost Nick on a quest to escape Whateverland from Beatrice.

Whateverland is a short point-and-click adventure where you'll be able to solve numerous puzzles to gather the parts of a spell to summon Beatrice, the woman that brought Vincent to Whateverland, and escape once and for all. This journey will allow you to morph Vincent as you want him to, either by taking the good path and completing requests for those with the seven pieces of the spell or using his unique talents to acquire them through other means.

The game has two runs you can do: being a thief or trying to get all of the pieces by helping the Whateverlanders. Both runs feel drastically different in terms of puzzles — whilst the "good" run feels relatively simple and seldom takes more than one try to complete it, the thief run feels far harder. Some of the safes were very difficult to crack, but they were also some of the most enjoyable puzzles I have played through, too; Whateverland doesn't hold your hand if you go in as a thief, and the puzzles make it well worth it.

Meanwhile, playing as a "good" Vincent, you get straightforward puzzles that are just plain fun: whether it's helping a gorgon-esque creature create an action-packed scene for her book, helping a musician that can only be understood by those with an ear for music on a date, or tattooing a merman, the game doesn't create impossible puzzles that require a keen eye. And truthfully speaking, it doesn't need to.

A large part of Whateverland's charm is in its characters. Whilst most games claim that they have "quirky" personalities, never quite have I met a cast as enjoyable and silly as this one. Whether it's the crow that eerily resembles Edgar Allan Poe, twin sisters with a dog butler that talks, or a half-fish half-human fisherman, most characters are unique and enjoyable to talk to. Both Vincent, the protagonist, and Nick, the deuteragonist, deliver enjoyable lines to each other that make it seem as if they have been friends forever.

Although I loved the story, the characters, and Louis had my wife and me giggling the most we have in a while in gaming, there is a bittersweet feeling to the length and complexity of the puzzles. While I do enjoy the accessibility that the simplicity of these quests offer, oftentimes, it felt too simple and made some of the scenarios disappointingly short. This is a relatively good complaint to have, as I wish I had been able to interact with more of the cast for longer and had more reason to spend time with them, but alas, that isn't the nature of Whateverland.

Despite their simplicity, the puzzles were enjoyable and silly, and their inability to be "failed" was delightful. You really do get a lot of agency when it comes to completing these quests, as letting my imagination run wild on these puzzles was just fun that I hadn't been offered in games that try to provide more challenging gameplay. When it comes to the more complex puzzles for the thief run, they were too difficult at times, but nothing that deterred me — sitting back and trying to think around the puzzle oft led to me finding out how to solve it.

Both runs feel drastically different, giving Whateverland a reasonably lengthy playtime if you wish to go through both, though each separately feels unfortunately short. My favourite part is how different both runs felt, one offering simple and enjoyable puzzles and the other harder ones for those with more attention to detail. Moreover, Vincent and Nick's interactions near the end entirely depend on how you behave throughout your run, with a surprising amount of dialogue changing according to whether you were "good" or "bad". Even some puzzles become optional according to who you help, though I won't mention any more aside from that.

I leave Whateverland with scarcely any complaints — the puzzles are both simple and difficult depending on your run, replaying the game gives you a sizable amount of content that didn't leave me displeased (as opposed to doing only one run), the characters are fun, and nothing feels impossible. Even the in-game mini-game, Bell & Bones, was entirely optional aside from one round (which I won't spoil, as it's end-game content). By going down the thief route, you're given harder puzzles to complete that were very enjoyable, and if you go down the good route, nothing feels restricting or difficult, it offers a playthrough that many games have forsaken as of late — accessibility to all.