Thomas Was Alone - Game Review

Thomas Was Alone made me feel for quadrilaterals in a way that I did not think was possible. From the straight-forward Thomas to the insecure Laura, the game introduces each character in a way that “shows” the player these traits rather than “tells” them. The way these characters feel is demonstrated in their form and gameplay, and not just from the way they come across through dialogue.

I will now proceed to focus on the gameplay, graphics and story of this game.

For starters, I will get this out of the way. The graphics of this game are not what makes it a popular and novel game. The game is known for having simple squares, rectangles, and trapezoids for its characters and a relatively plain layout for the game’s stages. But somehow, even though the world is broken down to minimalistic polygons, the game still manages to have a distinct feel even with its limited design.

I personally felt bored by this simple game’s graphics and aesthetic, but I can definitely see why a lot of players could like this game for its graphics.

The overall gameplay of Thomas Was Alone is also very simple, but I found it to be much more interesting than the simplicity of its own graphics.

The gameplay involves controlling the different quadrilaterals that represent the characters in the game. As the player progresses through each level, they will journey through different puzzles through the characters’ perspectives voiced by the narrator. With the completion of the final puzzle in the level, the player will unlock a new quadrilateral character that can be used in the upcoming puzzles in the next level.

This makes the completion of a new level an exciting event that naturally makes the player want to keep progressing through the game.

In terms of the puzzles themselves, they are not interesting due to the puzzles and the mechanics that are involved with them. They are actually interesting for how they relate to the emotions of the characters and their dialogue.

My favorite example of gameplay relating to the characters and dialogue is the introduction of Laura. Laura is a long, skinny, red rectangle that can act as a trampoline for other characters to jump on her to get to higher areas for the puzzles. This is portrayed through Laura’s character by her stating that she feels “used” by the other characters, but she makes an exception because she falls in love with the character, Chris. Her original fear of other characters leaving her causes her early levels to be separate from the other characters due to her being more reclusive so she won’t be given the chance to be abandoned anymore. But after becoming closer to Chris, her levels intersect with Chris so that she can allow him to use her to jump higher, showing a growth in character where Laura does not feel used anymore. Laura actually chooses to let Chris use her ability to get to higher places and no longer feels insecure, resulting in a change in gameplay for the puzzles.

Upon closer research, I realized that I did not know the plot fully to my understanding. I learned that this game is actually about self-aware AI and NOT quadrilaterals. These AI believe their world to be a 2D space (these levels and puzzles) and their form to be quadrilaterals. Apparently, at the end of the game, these AI escape the mainframe of the computer in which they used to exist.

I say apparently, because I did not actually finish the game. I personally play games for narrative or gameplay. Not novelty. I found the game to actually be contrived because it was trying too hard to be something new. I felt that as an indie game with simple graphics, it was biting off more than the players could chew to take the plot seriously. My brain refused to accept

that the quadrilaterals were actually self-aware AI to the point where I forgot the dialogue that stated this at the beginning.

Instead of finding the characters' relationships and dialogue to be imaginative and unique, I viewed it as “cute.” And no, I do not mean the type of cute like Hello Kitty. I mean cute because it was trying to be something that it was not ever going to be in my mind. I mean the type of cute that you feel bad for the subject you are looking down on because you can tell that it means well and is doing its best - but it’s not enough.

I obviously am not the majority in opinion for this game. This game has very high scores across multiple gaming review channels and sites. For me personally, a good game is driven by its world, story, characters, and gameplay. I like being told what the characters are without much room for imagination - that’s what books are for. Instead, this game forces the player to make the jump from being told about self-aware AI to connecting the descriptions to… squares. It just seems ridiculous to me. I, in my mind, feel that I deserve better from video games than a game that seems too lazy to give me a proper setting or characters. I do not come to a game to imagine my own version of characters in a world that I do not see as tangible.

Because this game is not a bad game, I would not give it a bad score. But I also would not give it a good score because I do not like this type of game. I do not think it is fair to judge a game that I feel is so incompatible with my preference for video games. Which is why I will simply not give it a score.

Even though I did not like this game, I did give it a chance at first. I played it for a good hour and a half (I got through 30% of the game), but I did not feel any enjoyment from it. I just was thinking about how it felt like a chore and how I could be playing any other video game on my list than Thomas Was Alone. So, I exited the game and popped open my ds to play Phoenix Wright - a game that is a clear favorite of mine for its vivid characters and amazing storyline that shines through its court cases. I think it is important to play video games that make us feel good, because in the end, the only person that changes after you play a video game is yourself. So, why would I ever choose to feel bad over a game instead of feeling good after playing a game? I literally play games to experience lives that I can’t experience in real life, so I feel that if I do not like the game because it is more boring than real life, then that is a game worth putting down.