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Comic for: May 31st, 2013
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Thomas Was Alone: "Grafting"
Posted: Friday May 31st, 2013 by

I admit, I bought Humble Indie Bundle 8 for 'Awesomenauts', but the second I played 'Thomas Was Alone' I knew the money had been well spent. It's a platformer featuring colored rectangles of differing shape, size, ability, and character. As you navigate through the challenges a narrator gives you insight as to what is going on including the rectangles' inner monologue. This, for me, is the selling point of the entire game, as the gameplay is as about as basic as you can imagine a game about rectangles could be. But the narration give's them personality and purpose. The end result is that they become identifiable, even endearing. You stop thinking of them as "the tall, yellow one", "the large blue one", and actually think of them by the names the developer has given them. If you're like me you even start to graft your own story lines onto them as you jump ceaselessly from one blacked out square to another.

'Thomas Was Alone' is brilliant. That's as plain an assessment as I can offer you. Now I'm certain other people aren't going to "get it". And that's okay. But from my gaming perspective this is absolute proof of my decade old assertion that high end graphics are not necessary to make great games. Though, at the same time, the simplicity is elegant. It's not like the game it horribly rendered. It's just narrow in scope, intentionally so.

tl;dr: Woody recommendation? Buy it.

Humble Indie Bundle 8

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