Backlog Beatdown: Being alone with Thomas in Thomas Was Alone

What a delightful game this turned out to be! I can’t remember where I first heard about it; most likely TotalBiscuit, but I remember the idea of moving coloured blocks with some amusing narration was intriguing, if nothing else. I didn’t play it for the longest time because I was trying not to buy more games than I could beat, or at all, but then when I bought a Wii U and found it available on its virtual console, I thought I had to give it a go.

So this game shouldn’t be news to anyone really but what Mike Bithell managed to do was create a game with very simple puzzle-based mechanics and use a fantastic musical score (David Housden) and an incredible performance from Danny Wallace as the narrator to maintain engagement. It follows the story of Thomas, a little red rectangle, as he tries to escape the world he is in. On the way, he meets some different coloured rectangles, each with their own shapes, sizes and personalities – which are never heard, only narrated, in a manner similar to a children’s TV show circa 1980s/90s – and they have to use their various shapes and capabilities to help each other through the world. It takes what could have been an abstract and not-very-interesting concept and breathes life into a gaming world which at the time (2010-2012) was sorely missing some colour and wit. And it works. The music offers a sense of peace and calm, and you can’t help but be invested in the story of Thomas and his friends, as it continues to unfold in a manner which leaves just the right amount open to imagination. The game does have a rather convoluted plot, but it’s not pretending to be sensible – and you’re far more interested in the relationships between each of the characters anyway.

Easy to figure out what needs to happen here -
but how do you get them all up there?

With all the gushing people tend to do over the production, it would be easy enough to assume the score and narration carry the whole game. Thankfully, this is not the case: Thomas Was Alone is a very competently-designed game which has a good learning curve that gently introduces the player to the various different mechanics, and moves on when it is ready. The puzzles are rarely complicated, and require but a moment or two of thought. Some of the more challenging levels require some precision over their execution, but this is nothing a little patience doesn’t solve and there is a sense of achievement in completing them.  Sadly the controls weren’t quite as responsive as they needed to be, I don’t know whether that was to do with the Wii U or the game’s design but it hindered me few times.

The game isn’t very long, but it doesn’t need to be: If you blitz through it as a speed run it’ll take no more than a couple of hours, and even though I took my time I don’t think it took me more than four. I was happy just to pick this one up and have a play from time to time; it was a refreshing change to be able to do a bit at a time without having to level up, or follow a contrived plot, or even take it remotely seriously. It knows what it is – a game about moving coloured blocks – and even though the score and narration do a lot to keep the player engaged, the game is not so long that it outstays its welcome. When it ends, you feel it could conceivably keep going for another few levels, and any game that leaves you wanting more is a great game by any stretch of the imagination.

There is longevity there if you look for it. You can time-attack the levels and there is an online ranking system. The Wii U version – and presumably whatever platform you now buy the game on – comes with an option to play the game with a DVD-style commentary; I haven’t looked in to that yet but it’s great that Bithell managed to squeeze even more life out of such a game. I might look into his other game, Volume, in the future. Until then, we’ll see what comes next…

Backlog Beatdown: Catherine. The game to play if you want to spend long portions of your evening going 'What was that all about?'

This is one of the weirdest, yet most enjoyable full-price games I’ve played on the Xbox 360 so far. Given that I own a LOT of games, that’s saying something.

I was inspired to pick up this game from Youtube’s The Completionist. I’d been aware of the game before now on the Xbox Live marketplace, but even though I thought it looked interesting, it was priced at a higher mark than I wanted to spend on a blind buy. Watching Jirard review the game changed that as I had a much better idea of what I was getting myself into, and when I could find a cheap-enough copy on Amazon (it’s not for sale in any of the game shops I usually attend,) I bought it quickly before anybody else did. Finding a physical copy of this game is not easy!

I actually had to click 'gameplay' to get an image off
Google that wasn't fan-art, Cosplay girls, or various
other people called Catherine including Zeta Jones.

The gameplay is divided into two sections, the main one being the Nightmare levels where you have to guide the lead character Vincent through a set of block-shifting wall puzzles to beat the level. It sounds simple, but the genius of this game kicks in when it starts adding variety to the blocks. Regular blocks can be moved and stood on. It’s when the game starts adding blocks that can’t be moved, or trapped blocks that will kill you if you don’t get off them straight away, or ice blocks that you can’t stop on, that things get really interesting. You have to plan your moves or you will box yourself in – but as the floor is always collapsing from underneath you, you can’t take too long about this or you will lose the level by falling off the wall.

I say this a lot but there’s something satisfyingly ‘old-school’ about games like this. Puzzle-action games[1] aren’t common in the triple-A market and you’d only buy a game like this if you knew what you were looking for; as such they’ve had something of a decline in popularity over the last decade. But it is a rare time with the Xbox 360 that I’ve had a genuine sense of satisfaction from finishing a level, as it is down to your skill as a player that you manage it. The game is hard, but not insurmountably so and while you’re essentially doing the same thing all the way through it, there’s always new mechanics to the blocks being introduced.

The other section of the game takes place in a bar, where Vincent hangs out with his friends. This, along with cut-scenes that would give Metal Gear Solid a run for its money in terms of length, is where the story unfolds: Unsure of whether to commit to his long-term girlfriend Katherine, Vincent accidentally cheats on her with a young sexy woman called Catherine. This is a part of the cause of the nightmares, where everybody appears to each other as sheep, and if they fall from the blocks they die in real life. Vincent’s anguish over having cheated on his girlfriend, his deteriorating mental state as he repeatedly gets drunk and loses sleep, and his gradual realisation that some of the people he speaks to in the bar are also having the strange dreams[2] is played out remarkably well. How you speak to and respond to people in the bar, and also text you keep getting from both girls, affects the ending of the game, of which there are a total of nine.

Yes... an Arse monster. Funnily enough not the
freakiest thing in the game...

In all cases, the game does not outstay its welcome. Even with the added block mechanics, solving wall puzzles does get old – but the game ends before that happens. The conversations in the bar happen on a timed basis, so you can’t talk to everyone because at some point, some of them will leave, forcing you to continue with the game. The cut-scenes do an excellent job of moving the story forward; the whole game is paced really well.

I’d more than recommend giving this one a go. I’ve got a lot more to unlock than anyone will manage on one play-through, but like most games, now that I’ve completed it I’m going to put it to bed until I feel like coming back to it.

---

[1] The game is often referred to as a Puzzle Platformer, but as that kind of game almost always includes a jump function and Catherine doesn’t, I’ll call it what I want.

[2] Oh it’s not a spoiler, you’d have figured it out straight away.