Thomas Was Alone

Platform: PC (Mouse and Keyboard)

Time to Completion: 2.5 Hours

Date Completed: January 3rd, 2013

Just like while playing a Civilization game where I'm always telling myself "Just one more turn" I was constantly finding myself saying "Just one more mission" while playing this game. It's able to do this with the games combination of simple in the right way puzzles, charming cast, and a story that kept me wanting to start the next mission just to get the next drip of story progression or character revelation.

One aspect of the gameplay that was done very well for pretty much the entire run was always keeping the gameplay interesting and fresh. It would constantly introduce new gameplay elements just long enough to teach me the ins and outs of how it works only to go right into throwing it into the mix with all the other things it had taught me previously as it would mix and match each one over the course of the game. Normally I hate puzzle games, but this one is one of the rare exceptions for me. It never felt frustrating and I never found myself getting annoyed at trying to solve a puzzle. The only bad time I had with this game was at a few points where I had annoyingly solved the puzzle and knew how to do it, but I found myself needing to jump through repetitious platforming elements to reach the missions end goal to get to the next mission.

The game also did a great job of making me care about the little solid coloured shapes jumping around the screen with use of narration. The voice acting of the narrator was top notch and there were several points in the story where I got a little lump in the throat as the nature of the world and characters were revealed. Normally I'm not able to keep track of who's who in games outside of the 1-2 main cast characters, but each one of the little shapes really felt like it had its own personality. By the time I was done with each shapes little introduction I found myself able to remember their names, what they looked like, what their motivations were, and what their unique abilities were at the drop of a hat. Which for me is a sign of good character development because as I said above, I'm lucky if I can remember anyone outside of the main character in most games let alone their names and their motivations. It really says something when I felt like I knew and cared for the cast of this game better than most games made these days when the cast is nothing but a handful of brightly coloured blocks of varying shape.

So if you see Thomas Was Alone on sale and want to spend a few hours with a fun little game it's a great choice. Even if you don't traditionally enjoy puzzle games it's worth a go as none of the puzzles are all that brain busting and the games charming story and character development will suck you in and keep you wanting to play more.