Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
A critique of Thomas Was Alone - or in other words, here's 45 minutes of me ranting about why I love this game so much and how it's so much more ingenious than might first appear.
SOCIAL MEDIA: twitter.com/MontyZander
PATREON: patreon.com/montyzander
Here I review and walk through an analysis of everything from the gameplay, the music, the sound design, the story, the characters, the visuals... name it and we explore it!
Praise Rectangle Jesus. Praise his gifts!
Indie games like Thomas Was Alone are important. I first found it when I started getting into indie video games that I kept hearing about – the age of Journey, Braid, Gone Home, games which to this day I still love. I enjoyed the focus on storytelling over all else, being an avid devourer of affecting narratives in my day-to-day life, and despite Mike Bithell claiming he was just trying to make a silly platformer, he’s become really quite an adept writer. Whenever I revisit these games I find something new, something clever, something… dare I say, inspirational?
And as with all things – a feeling like that has to start somewhere. For me, I think that officially began with Thomas Was Alone - so here's a retrospective on it.
Thanks again to Mike Bithell for answering my questions when I reached out to him. That's still awesome.
Music Used: Thomas Was Alone OST - David Housden
Footage/References Used
ZackScottGames - youtube.com/watch?v=GqTtAeobu0k
VisIntGames - youtube.com/watch?v=fK2Mbk8wlrI
BAFTA Guru - youtube.com/watch?v=Y2JZQjUNIgo
Superbunnyhop - youtube.com/watch?v=rqj6WluiZ44
Unity - youtube.com/watch?v=h136fhC1HIA
A critique of Thomas Was Alone - or in other words, here's 45 minutes of me ranting about why I love this game so much and how it's so much more ingenious than might first appear.
SOCIAL MEDIA: twitter.com/MontyZander
PATREON: patreon.com/montyzander
Here I review and walk through an analysis of everything from the gameplay, the music, the sound design, the story, the characters, the visuals... name it and we explore it!
Praise Rectangle Jesus. Praise his gifts!
Indie games like Thomas Was Alone are important. I first found it when I started getting into indie video games that I kept hearing about – the age of Journey, Braid, Gone Home, games which to this day I still love. I enjoyed the focus on storytelling over all else, being an avid devourer of affecting narratives in my day-to-day life, and despite Mike Bithell claiming he was just trying to make a silly platformer, he’s become really quite an adept writer. Whenever I revisit these games I find something new, something clever, something… dare I say, inspirational?
And as with all things – a feeling like that has to start somewhere. For me, I think that officially began with Thomas Was Alone - so here's a retrospective on it.
Thanks again to Mike Bithell for answering my questions when I reached out to him. That's still awesome.
Music Used: Thomas Was Alone OST - David Housden
Footage/References Used
ZackScottGames - youtube.com/watch?v=GqTtAeobu0k
VisIntGames - youtube.com/watch?v=fK2Mbk8wlrI
BAFTA Guru - youtube.com/watch?v=Y2JZQjUNIgo
Superbunnyhop - youtube.com/watch?v=rqj6WluiZ44
Unity - youtube.com/watch?v=h136fhC1HIA
