Context of Practice Indie Research: Thomas Was Alone

A story of friendship and jumping.

This is how this game is described to the world and it is so fantastic. Thomas, a small and lonely rectangle finds himself in a strange but oddly interesting if not very minimalistic. The world is mainly plain and on some levels contains water; which of course is deadly to shapes like rectangles and squares.

The basic aim to the game is to use the skills of the different shapes to be able to get across the different levels. Some shapes like Chris for example is small and cannot jump very high or very far so requires the other shapes to be able to advance in the levels. The game is all about cooperation and using each shapes abilities to your advantage. For instance Sarah can double jump to reach higher places than the others, James can only walk on the ceiling and Claire can float on water. The game is fantastically simple and very easy to get the hang of. The puzzles are not too simple and do require you to think about how to complete them, especially in the later levels, but its never impossible and doesn't ever frustrate you, making it a very relaxing game to play.

Along with the simple mechanics of the game it is also a story which is told by Danny Wallace in a fabulous way. The narration all the way through creates a perfect atmosphere for the game as Wallace will talk about all the shapes as if they have their own personalities which then, like any game, makes you attracted to some characters as they are all very unique. We instantly take a dislike to moody Chris, for example, as we learn he doesn't really like the other in the world, and would prefer to be on his own. We feel connected to the character because they have been given feelings and you get ones that are more annoying as you know they are sullen about working with the others. Its almost as if you want to leave someone behind and go on without them as the characters themselves think they'll be fine even though secretly we know they won't.

The one main thing, and probably the only thing that I didn't like about the game was that when you reach about stage 8 the characters completely change without much explanation and the colourful cast of Thomas and the rest of the characters become replaced with Grey, who ironically is a grey rectangle; accompanied with other grey shapes. This for me took a lot of colour and life out of the game. Halfway through playing as grey shapes we then get abilities in the form of coloured shapes in the background that can be jumped past. It took me a while to work out that the colour of them corresponded to the colours of the old characters. The red one mimicking Thomas'  abilities, the pink one Laura, purple being Sarah and soon for me this just seemed unnecessary and it was almost like Thomas and his friends had been melted in some shape massacre and their blood painted on the walls to enable to grey blocks to have different abilities. The seemed pointless and I would have much rather have played as the nice coloured shapes with positive attitudes until the end; as for me the grey blocks were moody and didn't appear to have emotions but hatred in them.

What is truly fantastic about this game is the story that is told throughout the game, although it is just about different coloured shapes that find there way through a level you become attached to them and want to see how they do in the end as you form such a big connection to them, especially Thomas and his gang as they all have individual personalities and qualities about them. Again like To The Moon, Thomas Was Alone is not necessarily about the environment, as it is fundamentally a platform game, but again like To The Moon, it has a brilliant story to it.