Late last year I learned that jigsaw puzzles are good, actually. Yes, a COVID quarantine was the impetus, but even after the wife and I weren’t forcing ourselves to stay indoors, we still found time to enjoy a good puzzle every few weeks. So it was perfect timing that Wilmot Works It Out, the sequel to 2019’s best game about organizing, was released this fall, because it’s easily the greatest gaming tribute to jigsaw puzzles I’ve played.
In Wilmot Works It Out, the titular Wilmot no longer spends his time at the warehouse, but instead, his home. He’s subscribed to a puzzle of the week club and needs to complete them in the same way he managed his old warehouse. The music is light and airy, and there’s a charming little story about the postal workers who deliver your puzzles. Unlike the first game there’s no time pressure; just puzzle after puzzle after puzzle.
These puzzles start out as small as 9 pieces and don’t grow far beyond that. The tricky part is that the deliveries often include extra pieces intended for a future or past week’s puzzle, giving you some red herrings to sort out. This elegantly avoids the truly overwhelming start you have to contend with when you begin a jigsaw puzzle, while still letting you work it out on your own. This is critical, because one of the joys of jigsaw puzzles is how self-directed they are: you can gather edge pieces, or organize by color, or just hunt for that one specific piece you need.
Even though these aren’t puzzles you can touch, assembling them in WWIO is still satisfyingly tactile. When you find the correct pieces, they glom together to form a single piece. You have to rely on the art to guide you, since all the pieces, are the same humble square shape as Wilmot himself (which are helpfully oriented the correct way, no rotating required). After a couple puzzle “seasons,” the simpler early game art gives way to intricate, complex designs that will test your pattern matching and even tell little “jokes” via the art.
Which is to say, Wilmot Works It Out captures that same “AHA” moment when you find the piece you were looking for and everything snaps into place.
Wilmot Works It Out is available to play on PC and Mac.
