Thomas Was Alone (2012)

This game reminds me of rymdkapsel and Auralux (and Auralux: Constelations). Games that distil their genre to their essence. Just strip all the fancy graphics and extra systems and get to the minimal version of what you need.

Except that Thomas was alone does add a story. A story that it's not too connected to gameplay, but that serves as a good excuse to get a narrator with a soothing voice to speak to us for a couple hours. Just like this review served as a good excuse to mention two extremely obscure RTS games.

Wellllll. I remember feeling much more fond of this game than it left me this time. Where to start.

• the overall art style is quite bland, along with the music. The music is the same annoying loop the entire game, the backgrounds are basically just flat colors (not in a charming way), and the animations should have been so much better
• the puzzles are super boring. They’re all way too easy and not very creative.
• The physics are also quite bad. The character doesn’t jump as expected half the time, and also randomly gets stuck. This game doesn’t feel good to play
• The character switching mechanic is just tedious
• The narration / story is also a snooze. It’s starts off promising and quickly becomes mind-numbing. The narrator’s voice just made me upset lol

It’s so strange how much better I remember this game being. I bailed after the 45th level or so. It has a decent premise, and really could have done so much more with it. It was superrr boring and tedious, don’t recommend.

I liked this small little game. At its heart it's puzzle platformer where you control different shapes that each have distinct advantages and disadvantages that you have to use together. What makes the game special though, is showing how by simply adding narration and a story, just simple shapes can start to take on personalities; where you feel that the shapes you're controlling are not just shapes, but characters.

The only negative I really have is that sometimes its very tedious to switch between multiple shapes to complete the levels, especially when there are more shapes on a level. I also found the LB and RB buttons to change shapes kind of sensitive so I would sometimes skip the shape I was trying to switch to.

A quick, fun puzzler. I had some free time on a weekend, so I sat down and played from start to end in about 3 hours. Aside from the main story mode, it looks like there are some additional puzzle scenario challenges that I didn't tackle.

The controls are those of a basic platformer. You control a varying number of rectangles, each with different abilities. Some are taller than others; some jump higher than others; some can float in water; others can double-jump; etc...

The basic idea is to get each of the rectangles to a specified location in the stage -- usually "up and to the right". To do this, you need to make your rectangles "help" each other get to their spots. Your little square-dude can't jump high enough to get to a ledge? Use one of the other rectangle-dudes as a stair-step. Need to get across a waterhole? Load up on the floaty-rectangle and ride across. You get the idea.

The puzzles are not particularly difficult. Only once did I get "stuck" on a puzzle. When I went online and YouTubed the solution, it turned out that I wasn't actually stumped by a difficult puzzle; but rather, the game encountered a bug (it wouldn't let me jump to hit the switch on the wall that ended the level).

On top of all of the puzzling, each shape has its own name, personality, and motivations; and all of this is narrated by a pleasant British dude. Eventually, you're given a purpose for all of the puzzle-solving, which evolves into a satisfying storyline.

Fun game. Worth the playthrough.

I liked the game. I really liked the characterization in the beginning, but the story got a bit too complex in the latter part. Enjoyed the narration throughout. Would have liked more if the original set of characters would have led the the game in the end more.

The jumping and puzzling was okay for the most of it, at times fun, but at another times frustrating because of sticky walls or timed jumps with lagging. Still everything was manageable even considering this as a breather game in-between bigger games.