The narration is interesting, but doesn't hide the fact the game is simplistic and bland
User Rating: 4 | Thomas Was Alone PC
Thomas Was Alone is a puzzle platformer involving a group of various quadrilaterals each with different properties and jumping ability. The graphics are simplistic, the game-play can vary and the story is definitely interesting. In terms of story, the squares and rectangles are supposed to be AI that have developed awareness and personalities. The game is narrated, and as you progress, you learn more about the individuals. You start out as Thomas, a small red rectangle who is initially alone, but obviously finds other A.I.'s and they assist each other through the levels. Next comes Chris, who is a small orange square with weak jumping ability but he can fit through small holes. Laura the pink rectangle can be used as a bouncy platform. Tall yellow rectangle, John has a superior jumping ability. Green rectangle James uses inverse gravity and walks on ceilings. Large blue square Claire can float in water. Sarah is a tiny purple square that can double jump. You control one character at a time and can switch between them at will. The puzzle element usually comes in the form of re-arranging your party to form stairs for characters with weak jumping ability to climb up. Later on, other obstacles such as water, spikes, and switches which transform levels are all introduced, and a bit of planning is needed. The aim of each level is to guide each character to their designated marked location. A small amount of levels are very clever, but often the difficulty completely drops and you are presented with extremely simplistic levels which don't require much thought. This can happen quite randomly but is often done to introduce new characters, but it takes a bit too long for the difficulty to get back up to what it was. Therefore, the majority of levels end up being very bland and some are just plain insulting. It becomes a chore when you see the solution almost instantly, or there is a solution repeated several times such as stairs (small character jumps on larger character then jumps onto platform, repeat 5 times). It is easy to plough through the game and it only lasts a meagre 3 hours and doesn't really offer replay value. Despite the characters being shapes, their personality is well developed, and the narration adds a lot of charm but sadly, the ending is a huge anti-climax and features a extremely bland level rather than an epic challenge. It's not a completely terrible game, but it's definitely not good enough to rave about.
