The key word in the Thomas Was Alone for me is "was." I really hope more people find and download this gem, because it's totally worth the effort. In many ways it's a lot like a good book, where when you're done, you feel slightly alone having experienced it.
Thomas Was Alone is beautiful. Plain and simple. Beautiful visuals, beautiful characters, beautiful levels, beautiful music, beautiful narration, beautiful... well... everything!
The music in particular is downright incredible. David Housden is a f*cking musical genius. The last track of the game, known as "Freedom" is my favourite videogame song of all time. Give it a listen on Spotify, you'll love it.
The gameplay is great, the jumping is amazingly fluid, and if you miss a jump, it's your own fault. Never the games fault.
True, this isn't a game for everyone. If you play games for gameplay, you won't find much here. This is not your typical "game". This is the proof that videogames CAN be art, if you try to make it art.
Thomas Was Alone is a game I hope that everyone will get to play at least once in their life, just to think about what friendship mean, and what it feels like to be alone.
(Oh, and that music! Holy god, THAT. MUSIC! David Housden is amazing.)
This is one of the best puzzle games that I have ever played, defiantly on a par with Portal. The graphics in the game are so simple but yet so detailed and beautiful as you look closer, squares are good in Minecraft and squares are also very good here. The game play is perfect the controls are brilliant and the levels are really fun and rewarding. The characters are great they almost have personalities even though they are squares. It is just great I could go on for a lot longer but you don't want to read it and I don't want to write it. Just buy it now.
This puzzle platformer may sport some the most dull looking characters we have ever seen in a videogame. But you just can not help but care for these small little blocks because of the game's very well designed mechanics and great storytelling. [June 2013, p.90]
Admittedly, the platforming mechanics occasionally feel too simple for their own good, but the narrative and gameplay weave together so seamlessly that the game becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Its little blocks have heart, and that gave me a reason to see things through to the end.
Thomas Was Alone is an engrossing puzzle platformer that introduces some believable and appealing characters, but the experience is disappointingly short-lived and lacks challenge. You will finish the core campaign wanting more, so it's nice that there's an additional DLC expansion available – but it's a shame that the add-on isn't included as part of the primary package.
It may add up to less than the sum of its parts but in terms of storytelling and presentation this indie favourite has much to teach mega budget retail games.
Thomas Was Alone is a must own for PS Vita and PS3 owners. Its price is small and the 100 levels will keep you engaged for about 4-5 hours. Each character gets their moment in the spotlight and I never felt robbed of anyone’s impact on the story. The in-game narrator and soundtrack help flesh out its perfect presentation and other games in this genre could learn a lot from it. Simple platforming and fun puzzles make sure you're never going to rage quit the game and miss something important to the story. This is the type of game that makes me proud to be a gamer. It makes me feel good that I can connect with a red rectangle named Thomas and cringe and cheer as his hopes and fears come true. Thomas Was Alone is a story about friendship and adversity but I got something much deeper from it about human self-reflection and how people can connect with anything. I realize now that Thomas was not alone, Thomas was with me.
A rather basic and simple 2D platformer that is made enjoyable thanks to it's fantastic characters and story. The game just has a way of pulling you into it's world thanks to the excellent atmosphere, charming narration, and humorous writing. It did not take me long to find out that the game was making me care for these characters.
The presentation is minimalistic to a fault. While it's true the game doesn't need fancy graphics to **** you into it's story, the basic presentation combined with the short and simplistic gameplay end up making this feel like it could have been a free flash game on a website like Kongregate or something, and not necessarily one you should be paying for. You can beat the experience in a few hours, and it never offers any real challenge in it's puzzles or platforming. Still, I in no way regretted spending time with the game at all, and it's still an incredibly enjoyable experience.
Truthfully the strength of this game is not necessarily in it's gameplay or presentation. It is in it's ability to make you care about the characters and their fates, as well as make you laugh. This one is more about the experience. There's nothing wrong with it outside of some issues with the cross-save system, and the gameplay remains fun throughout, but the real depth here is in the story. So while that does hurt it as a game, it doesn't ruin the overall package. There's a great adventure here, and it's one you won't regret spending a penny on. My total score for the game is a 7.5/10=Good.
In terms of storytelling telling and atmosphere Thomas Was Alone gets everything pretty much spot on, managing to create a memorable cast of characters from little more than squares and rectangles despite its minimalist approach.
Unfortunately the gameplay itself, while competent, can't quite live up to the excellent presentation. I expect many will find it to be a little slow paced and its a shame that the puzzles never evolve to be as difficult, or indeed as clever, as the very best in the genre (such as Braid). It may not be a true classic but I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something a bit different.
*Having played both the PS3 and Vita version I must say it suited the handheld better.
Thomas was alone for many reasons. It may have started from his upbringing. He clearly came from a very poor family. A family that had no artistic ability. A family that was ugly. He grew up in a world that was ugly. Because of this, Thomas never stood a chance.
Thomas was a square. Both literally and figuratively. In Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman sat in the car with John Travolta and said “you can get a steak here daddy-o, don’t be a…” then she proceeded to draw a square with her hands. Thomas was a square.
Thomas starts all alone. You have a few options for him. You can move left and right and you can jump. He will do nothing more than this. To proceed, you move Thomas to a portal. Simple as that. I truly mean, simple as that. The final level was as easy as the first.
During Thomas’s journey a voice over explains his feelings and environment. It tries to be funny, but the long breaks in between sentences and the blaring music over his voice really muddle it and make it difficult to hear. There are subtitles to read along with, but get jumbled around as you move your character making it near impossible to read. The voice over for the first few levels are so long compared to the time that it actually takes to reach the portal and advance, that it cuts off and goes to a loading screen. I realized I had to stop just outside of a portal and wait for the narrator to finish before I could move on. This is only for the first levels where you play as Thomas. Once a new character is involved, this no longer becomes a problem, other than the terrible sound quality and horribly structured subtitles.
More and more squares get involved, each with their own unique color and ability. The big blue one floats, the tall yellow one jumps far, the green one is anti-gravity, etc. This makes for some very fun puzzles time to time. Every chapter introduces new characters. By the end of the chapter, the puzzles are innovative and fun. Once a new chapter begins though, the puzzles are back to square one and become too simple. Which was a shame. I really didn't need an intro to every new ability these squares had. Out of all the levels the game has to offer, only a few of them were worth playing.
This game could have been slightly better if they took the time to create fun characters and worlds to explore. The world was black squares with a fancy lighting effect. I understand if the creators are terrible artists, but that’s when you find someone to draw for you. Squares are a really terrible idea for characters. If you had a dude with springs on his feet, then you would identify that with the long jumper or a fat guy with a flotation device around his waist to identify the water character. I kept thinking to myself, what does the small square do? Oh, that’s right. Nothing. A square was actually the perfect character for him.
I’m disappointed in myself for supporting something that cost more money for me to buy than a cell phone app that was clearly less polished. It’s disappointing to own a Vita and have games like this be featured. I hope Thomas is alone forever.
The only point this game gets from me is for narration; everything else is a bit empty.
Puzzles are trivial and boring. Story is dull.
As a whole, game made me feel like wasting time.
SummaryThomas won't be entirely alone, he'll be joined throughout by the awesome Mr Danny Wallace (XFM, Yes Man and Assassin's Creed) who will be narrating his adventures.