Wilmot's Warehouse

Lore & Background

The player controls Wilmot, a worker in a two-dimensional warehouse. Each level begins with a delivery of item boxes that the player must store for later retrieval, with the organizational strategy left entirely to the player. This can be ambiguous, as in the tutorial where the player is asked to sort boxes into 'winter' and 'hats' but is presented with a box that appears to be a woolen hat. When the delivery timer expires, customers at a service hatch request specific boxes for the player to retrieve and deliver. Proportionate to the delivery's speed, the player receives Progress Stars that can be redeemed for upgrades such as a 'dash' ability, the ability to carry more boxes at once, expanded warehouse space, and a timelapse view of the player's progress. The variety and quantity of boxes increases with the game's duration—into the hundreds—constricting the player's navigation of the warehouse aisles. After several rounds (months) of deliveries, the player receives an unlimited period to reorganize the warehouse. The game's optional Expert Mode adds challenging modifier rules, and two players can play at once in split-screen co-operative mode. The designers, Richard Hogg and Ricky Haggett, had known each other for a decade before the game's release. They previously collaborated on projects including Hohokum, wherein they would design together and split duties of art (Hogg) and coding (Haggett). Hogg, who had worked in a warehouse and picture archive when he was younger, was interested in the therapeutic act of organizing for pleasure. Hogg's original pitch became a running joke—Haggett said it would only work if all items were for clowns and the game was named 'Clown Warehouse'. Haggett later made a prototype based on Hogg's tile art, which became the full game. The game's design challenges were derived from simulating those of real warehouses. Items have clear themes but some were made to be more memorable, to overlap in category, or to defy categorization, mimicking the complexity of a real warehouse. An early version was released as a Humble Original in 2017, spent six months in development, and was built in the OpenFL framework and Haxe programming language with a soundtrack by Eli Rainsberry. Programmer Ruari O'Sullivan supported the final release.

Reader's Guide

Reviewers praised the game's balance and pleasantness. Even amid its time-restricted segments, the game's pace is peaceful. Paste praised this contrast: the game's soothing repetition of tidying clutter and calm soundtrack against its more frenetic time-based challenges. Nintendo World Report praised the solo game mode's ability to make drudgery interesting, but thought that the Expert Mode's challenging modifiers removed the relaxed atmosphere that made the game successful. Paste enjoyed the game's smart visual communication and its challenge of finding an efficient organizational system. Wilmot's Warehouse was a finalist for 'Excellence in Design' at the 2018 Independent Games Festival Awards. In 2022, board game publisher CMYK announced a board game adaptation of Wilmot's Warehouse, with some of the original developers involved. The board game adapted the spirit of the video game by introducing new challenges such as preventing players from speaking, or forcing them to swap seats with each other. A sequel, titled Wilmot Works It Out, was released on October 23, 2024, for Windows and macOS.

Did You Know?

• The game's designers previously collaborated on Hohokum.
• A board game adaptation was announced in 2022 by publisher CMYK.