WTF: Work Time Fun

WTF stands for "Work Time Fun," according to the publicity info, but you may well wonder, "WTF?" when considering this game. It's an interesting idea: a collection of mini-games in which the player does odd jobs (strong emphasis on "odd") to make virtual money that can be used in-game to buy prizes and access more games. It's one of those quirky, "only in Japan" type games the seem to become more popular all the time, but it didn't have as much appeal as I'd hoped, at least not for me.

Though each mini-game has different controls, the basic mechanics of the game are simple, making it the perfect pick-up-and-play game. The object is to complete the jobs on the virtual job board and earn money doing so. You don't have to complete a job to get paid, though, and the money you earn can be used in vending machines to buy capsules that contain odd "trinkets" like a bill splitter for when you're at a restaurant with friends and want to know how much each person owes.

Each time you do complete one of the jobs, though, a new job appears to take the place of the completed one. You can, however, play any of the games you unlocked in the vending machines any time you want -- you just don't get paid for them unless you access the through the job board.

As mentioned, all the mini-games are "jobs," but they are definitely odd jobs. They range from putting caps on ballpoint pens, to helping people cross the street, to chopping wood. The advantage of the sheer variety of games is that there's sure to be something to appeal to everyone.

The quirkyness of the different games is reflected in the graphics. For some of the games, the visuals are pure old-school arcade (but much smaller, of course). Others feature photographic backgrounds with simple moving elements.

You won't find any slick, polished graphics like most recent cutting edge games. Heck, you won't even find any blocky 3d like some not-so-cutting-edge games. What you will find are low res games with lots of movement, or higher-res games with very little movement. In other words, these are very basic, simple mini-games, which is both their strength and their weakness.

The simplicity of the games is what allows there to be such a variety of them. It's also what makes them easy to start playing, even for gamers with little or no previous gaming experience. For fans of casual gaming, this kind of thing is appealing.

Unfortunately, the simplicity of the games also means it is easy to lose interest in them, and all too easy to put them down.

A very nice bonus of WTF is that you can play with friends. In fact, when you invite friends to play you're actually "hiring" them and you get to keep some of their earnings. Or you can look for other players to hire you to work for them.

The multiplayer options also let you give away or trade trinkets, in case you get something out of a vending machine that you don't want.

Like that song by They Might Be Giants says, I'd be fired if that were my job. Though quite a few of the mini-games were fun in the short term, there weren't any on the starting job board that I stuck with long enough to complete.

The pen-capping game very quickly stopped being fun, and if I really had to cap as many pens as there were digits in the counter, I'd be there for the rest of my life. Maybe I just missed it, but there didn't seem to be anything to say how many you had to do before the job was complete, and I couldn't be bothered to find out.

I had similar reactions to some of the other games on the job board, while others I just couldn't get the hang of well enough to complete. Maybe I found this game a little tedious simple because I wasn't any good at, and others will have an entirely different experience/

So, overall, I thought WTF was an interesting idea and a quirky little collection of mini-games, but it just isn't appealing enough that I'll go back to it very often.