Thomas Was Alone: the game where the heroes are rectangles

How do you play Thomas Was Alone?

You control colored rectangles, and each one does something different: one jumps high, another floats on water¹. When there is more than one in a level, you switch between them and combine their abilities, for example using one rectangle as a step so another can reach a higher exit¹.

It is a platform game, the kind where the character walks and jumps between platforms, seen from the side. The levels come in ten sets of ten, and each set usually introduces a new character¹. On Steam, the biggest store for computer games, the official page says there are 120 levels³.

The first one is Thomas, a red rectangle. Then come Chris, John, Claire, Laura and others¹.

Why does a game of rectangles hook you?

Because each rectangle has a personality, and the narration is what gives it to them. A narrator tells what each one thinks and feels while you play¹. In the story, the rectangles are artificial intelligences that have just become self-aware³. That is fiction: the game was made without AI.

The voice belongs to British comedian Danny Wallace, who won the BAFTA, the main British games award, in the performance category for the narration¹³. The game was also nominated for story, and David Housden's music for original score¹.

The art is as minimal as it gets. What makes you care about an orange rectangle is the writing and the voice (our reading).

Who made Thomas Was Alone, and how long did it take?

Mike Bithell, a British game designer, meaning someone whose job is to design a game's rules and levels. The first version was born in a personal 24-hour marathon in October 2010, when he worked at the studio Blitz Games, and came out for free as a browser game¹.

The full game started in early 2011. Bithell wanted to learn Unity, a program for making games, and worked in his spare time while he was lead designer at the studio Bossa in London, with the studio's approval¹. GamesIndustry.biz put it this way: he made the game while trying to teach himself Unity and holding down a full-time job².

The game came out for computers on June 30, 2012¹. From the first draft to the release, it took about a year and a half of spare-time work (our math, from the dates).

Did he do it all alone?

No. The code, the art and the levels were his, but he brought in people for what he could not do. In 2013, he told GamesIndustry.biz he was not a musician, so he brought in David Housden for the soundtrack, and that he found his own voice weak, so he hired Danny Wallace².

According to Wikipedia, citing Eurogamer magazine, Bithell estimated the game's cost at about 5,000 pounds, not counting his own wage, and raised 2,000 pounds in an online crowdfunding campaign to pay the narrator¹.

How many copies did Thomas Was Alone sell?

Over 1 million by April 2014, according to Mike Bithell himself. He announced the number on social media on April 25, 2014⁴. The number does not include free PlayStation Plus downloads¹, and the game had been part of discounted bundles such as the Humble Bundle⁴.

Before that, the success had already changed his life: in February 2013, Bithell left his job to make games on his own².

By the numbers

What does the story show, and what doesn't it?

It shows that a game does not need polished art to be remembered. Thomas Was Alone uses rectangles, and players remember them by name.

The other side

Mike Bithell was not a beginner: he was a professional game designer, already worked at a studio and knew how to design levels. He paid a musician and a narrator, and what carries the game is good writing, which is also hard. The game took about a year and a half of spare time and was made without AI. It is one of the cases that worked out among many small games that almost nobody played, and the million copies include discounted bundle sales.

And what has changed since then?

This part is not about Thomas Was Alone, which was made without AI. It is about the work.

Bithell coded the game while learning the program for making games. Today, that part can be handled by AI: you describe what you want, and it writes the code. What AI does not do for you is what carried this game: deciding what each character does, designing levels that call for cooperation and writing words that make someone care about a rectangle (our reading).

If your fear is not knowing how to draw, read whether you need to know how to draw to make a game. If time is short, see how to make a game in your spare time, with a day job. And there are other famous games that started small.