A Virus Named TOM is a cleverly written, charmingly animated, and unfortunately unenjoyable puzzle game in which you control a mad scientist's computer virus, released upon the glorious future city he built and was eventually betrayed by. Gameplay feels like a strange variation on Pipedreams; in order to fully infect each level, you must manipulate a grid of "circuit …
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A Virus Named TOM is a cleverly written, charmingly animated, and unfortunately unenjoyable puzzle game in which you control a mad scientist's computer virus, released upon the glorious future city he built and was eventually betrayed by. Gameplay feels like a strange variation on Pipedreams; in order to fully infect each level, you must manipulate a grid of "circuit board" to create connections across every inch of wiring, all the while avoiding or sabotaging anti-virus programs and other obstacles before your power source runs out. Every few stages would introduce new elements to vary the gameplay. It wasn't anything terribly novel, and the controls were a little murky, but the goofy storyline kept me moving forward.
The part of the game that really killed the experience for me, however, was the addition of "encrypted" levels. In these, you are unable to see what any individual piece of circuit board is until you've successfully launched the virus through it, and even then it would only be revealed for a few moments. Forcing you to rapidly memorize dozens of grid-pieces while simultaneously dodging attackers and spinning tiles just proved too unenjoyable to justify the stress involved. Sorry TOM, but I just can't recommend playing you.
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