Whale To Look

The bay is full of whales and orcas, and every tour company wants to give their guests the best possible view.

In Whale to Look, players take on the role of whale-watching tour companies trying to figure out where the whale and orca will appear. The sea is made up of hidden information, and each player only gets a limited number of chances to investigate. You can gather clues yourself, but you’ll also need to watch where your rivals are sending their boats. Are they onto something, or are they confidently sailing into nonsense?

The whale appears where there are lots of fish, while the orca appears where there are fewer fish, so players are constantly trying to read the board, read each other, and make the best guess before the round ends. It’s part deduction, part timing, part “I sure hope that other player knows what they’re doing.”

This is a compact hidden-information game with a clever whale-watching theme, lots of little wooden pieces, and the classic Oink Games small-box charm. Whale to Look plays 2–5 players, takes about 30 minutes, and is recommended for ages 9+. It was designed by Jun Sasaki and Bruno Faidutti, with artwork by Jun Sasaki and Rie Komatsuzaki.

What We Think

We haven’t played Whale to Look yet, but this one sounds very appealing if you like deduction games that are not just pure logic puzzles. The fun seems to come from the mix of clues, risk, and watching what everyone else is doing.

We especially like the idea that the rival boats become part of the information. Sometimes you investigate for yourself, and sometimes you stare at another player’s boat placement and think, “Do they know something, or are they just making decorative ocean mistakes?”

It also has that Oink Games quality where a tiny box somehow contains a full table presence. In this case, the game includes diamond-shaped cards, boats, investigation markers, whale and orca tokens, and chips, all packed into a small box.

Why You Might Like It

You might like Whale to Look if you enjoy hidden information, deduction, bluffing, reading other players, and games where you have to make a confident decision without knowing everything.

It should be a good fit for fans of compact strategy games, Oink Games, and social deduction-adjacent games that still feel light and approachable. A tiny whale-watching trip where everyone is pretending their boat placement is deeply scientific.