Thomas Was Alone
Thomas Was Alone is an indie game. The title itself is achingly twee. The simplistic graphical style, though based on the earlier Flash game, is a product of design rather than necessity. David Housden’s soundtrack is too cool for school, an assimilation of Sigur Rós filtered through a Commodore 64 SID chip. Then there’s comedian Danny Wallace’s narration, all very clever, post-modern and self-referential. All in, Thomas Was Alone could only be more indie if Natalie Portman were to hand you her Wii U pad and say: “This’ll change your life.”
All of which may make it sound like we want to take Thomas round the back of a hedge and give him a good kicking. Yet somehow we don’t, to the point that the opportunity to play TWA again on current-gen consoles was greeted keenly. To be clear, this is the same game you may have played last year on PS3 or even earlier this year on smartphones. Thomas is not averse to doing the rounds it seems, but as a first outing for Xbox and Nintendo machines, we can forgive such ubiquity.
TWA is essentially a fairly simple yet clever puzzle-platformer, bolstered somewhat by elevated production values. There’s top-notch writing from developer Mike Bithell and subsequent delivery from Wallace, doing a sort of Douglas Adams take as the game’s narrator. Housden’s soundtrack meanwhile is all sorts of melancholic, and whilst bringing the game’s obtuse characters to life, it’s a work that has ample charm of its own. Headphones are recommended for this particular score.
Underneath it all though is, as said, a rather simple and sedate platform experience. Initially you’ll control Thomas, a self-aware piece of programming code represented as a small rectangle with a moderate jump. Other characters of different shapes, colours and abilities soon join, requiring players to toggle around and combine the new friends to overcome hurdles. Boiled down, you have to get your ever-increasing clan from A to B.
There are some great moments in TWA, moments that can stump you then present you with a revelation. Not least is James, a green square-shaped AI with a “unique disregard for Newtonian laws” who really starts to bend the concepts at play here. But at over 120 levels, these are few and far between and though that number may sound arduous, most players will be able to cap TWA off in a handful of hours. It may be an unfair comparison, but next to similar indie puzzle games like Braid, Thomas Was Alone is a bit of a cakewalk.
Yet it’s a stroll worth taking because of the concept, because of the production and because of the experience. Puzzle purists may not get loads of mileage from it, but with just about enough head-scratching to warrant entry, the package as a whole picks up much of the slack. So, Natalie Portman can keep her hypothetically proffered joypad. Thomas Was Alone won’t change your life, but it’ll certainly brighten it up some.