Thomas Was Alone (PC) (2012)

Overview: Thomas Was Alone is a minimalistic puzzle platformer where the player controls various rectangles through a narrated adventure "up, and to the right."

Thomas (red rectangle) - medium jump

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20140511 AM Hours ET / 20140510 Evening PT:
This game has a great story and simple, fun gameplay. Furthermore, the game's lighting is simple, but adds a nice touch to the game's aesthetics.

Occasionally, the game forced me to repeat an action too many times. Whenever this happened, the level felt boring and/or tedious.

With that being said, I kept playing for the story and the game continually introduced new characters and new puzzle elements often enough to keep it from becoming stale.

Chris (orange square) - small jump

After an hour, I made it to the last level of the fourth chapter (completing thirty-nine out of approximately one-hundred levels) and I decided to stop playing.

I will, however, definitely resume Thomas Was Alone.

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2014????:
I absolutely love this game and today I started it over from the beginning to show my sister an example of a fun and deep game.

John (yellow rectangle) - large jump

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20141017:
Today Michael and I were talking about games and eventually it lead to him trying out Thomas Was Alone. It was fun. I enjoyed listening to the story line for a third or fourth time.

While certain levels were straightforward and would exhibit the same solution by every player, other levels were complex enough that Michael would approach them differently than I would - sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. In any case, I enjoyed watching how he tackled them.

Michael played parts 1 and 2.

Claire (blue square) - floats

Steam: 2.0 hours (total game time)

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20151129:
Today I caught up to the progress of my desktop save file (Steam: 0.2 hours) and then I eventually finished the game.

"...He felt that there was a thing called cake, but that it was a lie." (references Portal)

While the story as a whole was top-notch, the middle third of the game's story wasn't as interesting as the first third and the last third wasn't as interesting as the middle third.

Laura (pink rectangle) - bouncy

However, the gameplay was always fresh and was generally not as repetitive towards the end as some of the earlier levels.

Steam: 5.2 hours (total game time)

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Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Great story
+ Great visuals: minimalistic art direction which focuses on shadow and lighting
+ Variety of game mechanics

James (green rectangle) - his gravity is reversed

Neutral:
~ Decent controls

Cons:
- Short game: according to my notes, it took me four hours to the game from start to finish
- Sometimes tedious / repetitive / slow-paced

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Recommendation:
I would highly recommend this game to anybody who values a video game with a good story.

In addition to the story, Thomas Was Alone is aesthetically charming and generally quite fun.

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Sarah (purple rectangle) - double jump

Thomas Was Alone (PC) (2012)

Relevant Links:
Thomas Was Alone Website
Thomas Was Alone (Metacritic.com)
Thomas Was Alone (Wikipedia.org)
Thomas Was Alone (PC) (IGN.com)
Thomas Was Alone (Steam Store Page)