When describing Thomas Was Alone, I feel that I should avoid
tarring it with the ‘indie puzzle platformer’ brush; as those words alone could
easily put someone off one of the best games in the genre. It seems like there’s
a new title in this over saturated genre every other week, popping up in places
like Steam’s Greenlight section. What makes Thomas Was Alone stand out from the
crowd is that its genre merely describes its function, whilst its form offers
so much more. Ostensibly, the game focuses on a curious character called
Thomas, a red rectangle who’s about to have a very inquisitive adventure.
Dropped into a quadrilateral world, Thomas sets off to
discover and observe everything he can. This driving force rather neatly sets
up the structure of each level, as Thomas endeavours to reach the white doorway
at the end. And of course has to overcome a series of ever more complicated
puzzles to reach it.
The game’s story is excellently narrated by Danny Wallace,
who won a BAFTA for his performance. The narration really brings to life the
character of Thomas and the companions he will meet along the way. The first
new face you bump into is Chris, a rather squat little brown square. And as
soon as you meet him, his jealousy of Thomas’ fantastic jumping skills is revealed.
Accordingly, the layout of the levels takes a twist, as now they have to work together
to reach the goal. To begin with, this mostly consists of Thomas giving Chris a
hand reaching the next ledge, and Chris having a good sulk about not feeling
useful.
It seems a little silly to say, but the characters in Thomas
Was Alone are more fleshed out than your average grizzled space marine; despite
only being little coloured quadrilaterals on a journey. And it’s not just the
excellent narration found in every level providing that definition. There are a
number of smaller subtle touches that define Thomas and his friends. Simple
elements such as each character having their own jumping sound effect.
As a puzzle plat-form game, it provides a good and varied
mix of mechanics throughout. Each level is made up of a number hazards or
difficult obstacles which you conquer using Thomas and company. The story does
a good job of keeping things fresh, by providing you with different characters
at different stages. So the game doesn’t rely on simply adding new tricks in a
bid to try and keep the difficulty curve going up.
I never found myself getting particularly stuck on a level, although
there are a few awkward time critical puzzles that can be a bit frustrating
with the control scheme. It’s not complicated by any means; simply move left,
right and jump. Where it falls down is how you select which character you are
currently controlling. You can use the number keys to directly select a
particular quadrilateral, or scroll through them using ‘q’ and ‘e’. This would
be fine, but the characters you have on each level aren’t consistent. So it
becomes difficult to remember the key bindings and select who you want, when
you want them without constantly glancing at the bottom right of the UI. Crucially
there a very few levels where you can actually get stuck, reducing the amount
wearisome restarts.
Backing up the excellent story is an equally fantastic
soundtrack. It provides in interesting mix of chip tunes and minimalist classical
music, which compliments the events and tone of the story as you progress.
What really caught my attention as I was playing where the
extracts from developer diaries that appear at the start of each chapter. These
tell a second parallel story to the narration, a much more subtle tale about AI
that adds an intriguing extra layer of context. However, for all the positive
words I have to say about the story, it also provided my biggest disappointment
by ending rather abruptly. It left me wondering what happened next to everyone
Thomas had met on his three hour adventure. Not a long game by any means, but
equally it won’t over stay its welcome. Worth a purchase for the story alone,
and if you’re looking for a puzzle platformer as well; Thomas Was Alone will be
the perfect title.
