POSTED 27/4/13


THOMAS WAS ALONE

Curve Studios
Vita/PSN + PS3/PSN

You’re a square...

...and various other variations upon staunchly four-cornered shape-like, erm, shapes.

You are Thomas. You are alone. Given closer examination, the title is a tad prophetic though, for the ‘was’ is emphasised quickly upon discovering the presence of such rectangular cohorts as Chris, John, Claire and Laura. You may think they’re just plain old boxy boxlike box thingies, but they’re more – they each have their own personalities.

These are fleshed out by a wonderfully British narration, making sorties into the ins and venturing out of the outs of the situation in which we find ourselves, guiding a selection of coloured boxes throughout varying mazes, using their different abilities – or lacks thereof - to get the hell out and onto the next of 100 puzzletastic puzzly thingummies.

For example, as well as being pink and boxy, Thomas can jump a reasonable distance. Chris, who’s orange and even boxier, is shite at jumping – and has a bit of a complex about it. Then there’s that limey smartarse John, who’s all tall, slender and boingy-boing super-boingy. While varying degrees of jealousy may be hurtling about, ultimately this lot’s a bunch of clever cubist constructs, as they quickly learn to collaborate to solve each challenge. F’rinstance, Chris can hop on Thomas to straddle John, then jump to allow Thomas to jam in-between the two, so suddenly John can reach places that’d otherwise just be tongue-poking and “nyahh-nyahh”ing at him.

Think of this as Breakout: The Movie and you’ll have an idea what’s going on. It’s original, the puzzles are fun without being too taxing, it oozes more charm then Simon the Likeable straight from charm school (it even has a creator’s commentary!), plus it’s also deliciously reminiscent of Peter Saville’s phenomenal New Order artwork around the time of Power, Corruption and Lies.

Amy Was Impressed.

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