In Whimside, Toadzillart and Future Friend Games (Europa, Gourdlets and SUMMERHOUSE) have developed digital crack without it being harmful. It’s a highly addictive dinky lil’ experience that conveniently sits at the bottom of your screen where its inhabitants will go about their lives in real-time, whilst you pretend to complete a spreadsheet or finish that report due tomorrow.
Welcome to the world of breeding, which is basically what this game is all about. Whimlings will roam in the wild, and you will capture them to show off to your mates in a rather large ring binder, and boast how you have the limited edition of Shoe and Penguin. No, this is not a Pokémon or Chinpokémon type game. The only similarities are the cute varieties of Whimlings and that you capture them, but to do that, you simply click on them to ‘earn’ them.
Whimside isn’t about hoarding, as your collection of Whimlings serves a purpose, as you’ll be breeding different Whimlings to create a new one with specific traits. On completion, these new breeds, along with a tribute to the gods, can be used at an altar, which in turn opens up a new biome and series of creatures that all conveniently scroll to the left and right of your screen in a seamless link. Additionally, Whimlings can be made to order in ‘Quests’, which is essentially the same thing, only you’re rewarded with currency in the form of crystals.
Fortunately, the mating process isn’t gratuitous but somewhat random and a little slow (in a good way). Enclosures are placed where you put two Whimlings inside to create a new Whimling. After a little time has passed, an egg will appear, and upon hatching, you can either keep your creation or dispose of it. Presumably releasing it into the wild, as this game’s too cute to kill these blighters off. A total of three enclosures can be placed, and those crystals earned can increase the number of eggs stored, as the whole point of this game is to leave it idle while you do other things, periodically checking in. As if. I was hooked after 10 minutes.
Whimside’s inhabitants are made up of four physical traits and one aesthetic. These include the top of its head for things like ears and antlers, the actual head, tail, body, and colour, and each of them represents characteristics of another animal. For example, my Nugodehe is made up of a unicorn (nu), goat (go), deer (de), hedgehog (he), and is the colour of poison(!). Note all the parentheses as this makes up the default Whimling name: components of others, however, in a truly customisable fashion, you can rename any of them to anything like Steve, Barry and Pete.
While this is all going on in the background, or foreground if you’re me, there are a few other things to do while waiting. A garden allows for one of your Whimlings to run about, and in doing so, they passively drop crystals. As the game progresses, you can increase the size of the garden and drop more Whimlings in, petting them to improve your relationship with them. Rather than a barren garden of dog poo and dried grass patches, you can visit a shop and place all manner of cosmetics in your garden, such as flowers, through to toys and benches. Periodically checking on the world map will also show Whimlings in real-time that might have the desired traits you seek, so it’s worth visiting here and there.
For a game that is intentionally subtle by sitting at the foot of your screen, Whimside is incredibly alluring. Initially booting this up on the Steam Deck wasn’t ideal, so I switched it to my laptop and ‘did some work’ in the background. Early reservations were that you can’t have an additional game playing as it’s through Steam and can only be one at a time, but in hindsight, why would you? In the past, there have been similar games that sit on your desktop as a light bit of distraction; however, I was invested in Whimside from the get-go to the point where it wasn’t a distraction but a focal point.
By default, the game will take up about a fifth of your screen, nestled in with the taskbar, though scrolling with the mouse wheel will increase it past the fold. The latter is a little intrusive, yet ironically, Whimside will dominate your attention irrespective of how large the play area is. An option that says ‘always on top’? Yes, please. That report can wait. Whimside is a lovely title that’ll keep you off the streets for a fair amount of time. I definitely want to see more of this sort of thing. Winner.
