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2 years ago
After telling stories about shapes then even a teenager, the fella behind Thomas Was Alone and Volume has taken another step up the consciousness scale for his next story with a game about robots. Bithell's studio today both announced and launched Subsurface Circular [official site], a short text adventure starring a robot detective investigating missing robots. It's a text-based story-o-puzzler where you gather new words…
4 years ago
Feature: A stealth puzzler with delusions of grandeur.
Volume [official site] is a third-person, sci-fi stealth game, in which you direct a little dude around VR-styled, maze-like levels, dodging guards with wits and with gadgetry, with the aim of grabbing all the loot and getting out again. It's out now. I hope Mike 'Thomas Was Alone' Bithell's new game wasn't hoping to pre-empt any 'turn down the...' gags by hiring a celebrity voice…
Feature: Way beyond rectangles
“It will probably be the only time in my life when I have no responsibilities, didn’t owe anyone any money, didn’t have staff that I had to worry about. Absolute freedom to do what I want. I wasn’t going to use that to make a sequel to a reasonably well-received puzzle-platformer.” I’ve asked Volume lead Mike Bithell if he’s been worried about over-reaching himself. 2012’s…
5 years ago
When I last spoke to Mike Bithell, we were in the café at the National Media Museum in Bradford. He had just delivered a talk about his upcoming Virtual Robin Hood game, Volume, but we found time to discuss Thomas Was Alone as well. Bithell said - and I agree - "I thought I was writing a competent story with an amazing platform game. It…
Feature: The Ethics Of Robin Hood
Mike Bithell's stealth game, Volume, looks like a very different prospect to Thomas Was Alone, even if there might be some similarities in the audio department. A retelling of the Robin Hood story, Volume takes place in a Britain laced with political dissent, rebellion and fancy volumetric display devices. Upon discovering such a device, Robert Locksley sets out to livestream heists and infiltrations, teaching the…
6 years ago
Feature: "New Square Wave of 2012"
"Has this game just come out?" maker of Thomas Was Alone Mike Bithell asks of Pretentious Game 3. "Because I've been getting emails all day, 'They're taking the piss out of you hurr hurr hurr'." Bari of Keybol games has just released the final part of a trilogy of games about a square, and labelled them all emphatically pretentious. Pretentious Game 3 is a game…
You know, I never really thought about it before, but I think Proteus and Hotline Miami are videogame inverses. One's about languidly strolling around a neon-bubblegum dreamscape paradise while the other's about blink-and-you'll-be-on-the-receiving-end-of-it murder in an entirely different kind of neon-bubblegum dreamscape "paradise". They are one anther's bizarro twin, eternally opposed but forever intertwined. Also, they're in the latest Humble Indie Bundle together, which is…
7 years ago
Feature: Stop doubting Thomas
Thomas Was Alone and he was also a Flash game but now he’s grown up and it’s time for him to meet some new friends and set off on a journey that will change them all forever. It’s a tale of friendship, co-operation, sentience and rivalry, but is it possible to care about a gang of abstract shapes and the puzzling environments they traverse? Here’s…
Thomas Was Alone first came to my attention while I was trying not to watch the GTA V trailer six thousand times to work out if one of the character models was a fatter, older version of an important bloke from a previous entry in the series. I wasn't sure whether a platform game about quadrilateral quandaries was all that interesting but David Housden's music…
Phew. I ran here as fast as I could. I know the entire internet is waiting for the hottest new trailer in town but some git thieved my automocar so I've had to come by foot. Here it is then. Thomas Was Alone is an upcoming indie game "about friendship and jumping", with a cast of angular shapes working together to make their way through…
