[Perry] Thomas Was Alone

Have you heard of a game called Thomas Was Alone? Cause I hadn’t really heard of this game. It’s a small indie game, a minimalistic platformer and it completely flew under my radar.

But last night (I’m writing this on Monday), I decided that I deserved a little present for finishing the first draft of a short story.

And yes, for those naysayers who are shaking their heads and tutting at me, I’m totally allowed to do that.

So I played this game.

I never would have believed that I could care SO much for the fate of squares and rectangles if it wasn’t for this game.

I’m serious. I know how it sounds.

The characters you control are a bunch of squares and rectangles with different properties.

Thomas discovers that he’s just a fantastic jumper. And more than that? He also discovers that he’s great at inverted jumping (falling) and he uses those skills to find some friends, because Thomas starts the game alone.

Claire, a big blue square can immerse herself in water without dying like the other boxes and believes that she’s a superhero. She decides that she needs a cape to complete her outfit. Upon first meeting deadly spikes, Claire decides that they’re her nemesis, her own personal kryptonite. And not the cheesy red stuff, but the proper, green radioactive kryptonite.

There are others, a cast of…a bunch of them. All with different strengths and weaknesses.

Christopher who can’t jump that high and is all grumpy, until he meets Laura who can bounce other blocks who jump on her, and he suddenly discovers that he’s in love.

All of these blocks, you control them, switching between them as needed to solve puzzles and jump their way to the exits. Through it all, at the end of each chapter is a brief quote from someone in the real world that sets the stage and actually tells an incredibly compelling story.

An especially compelling story given that there’s only about 15 lines of chapter text.

Here’s the thing.

Thomas Was Alone is a wonderful, shining example that characters don’t NEED complex and tragic backstories to be compelling.

It’s an example that shows that characters don’t need to be beautiful or ugly to engage us.

It shows that all you need is a distinctive voice, a personality that you can identify as that character and a reason to give a damn about them.

The same narrator, the WONDERFUL accented voice of Danny Wallace provides the narration for each character but the personality of each rectangle comes through just so damned clearly. The developers did a wonderful job using the shape of the block, the way they jump and the sound they make while jumping to convey character, in the most bare-bones way possible.

I think the game’s worth a look.

It’s a short game. It took me about an hour and a half to two hours to complete and I’m sure anyone with decent experience with platformers (Mario/Meatboy) can get it done just as fast, if not faster.

If the linked trailer doesn’t tug at you, then maybe the game isn’t quite for you. But if you watch the trailer and feel a bit of a warm and snuggly glow down in the pit of your stomach, give it a try.

Thomas might surprise you.

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