Blog Post

~ Estimated Reading Time: 5 min ~

'Game's for kids. Most of my thoughts on this game hinge on this, thankfully including the kind ones. Its words are kept simple; its narrative is written like it's trying to teach you something. And I like its lessons - plenty of stories working with the same themes have greatly spoken to me. This isn't quite my reading age, but I still find it easy to appreciate execution with this much creativity. The lines of logic it follows to tell that simple message are also universally adorable, I think. rly liked my time with it.

Its best ideas come when its quirkiness work in tandem with enforcing the narrative - when it is really about the awkwardness of Being A T. Loved the detail where at home, entering doors is the usual "press a to enter", but at school it's this obtuse "shift your arms to the side while moving forward" input. That ease in the comfort of your room, contrasting the discomfort of architecture beyond there does a great job at selling the disinterest public spaces have for us. 20th Century architecture do be fascist as hell, and common designs do a great job of reminding us we are different. I loved every little artistic decision that lends itself to expressing that - it's funny how the protagonist can only eat footlong sandwiches, since they naturally lean on their arm. But also sharp that the cook is described as a specialist, the single person in the area who can provide for their distinct needs. But there were areas that lacked consistent creativity; there are a lot of mini-games in this, but very few of them actually interact with the core gimmick. So many of them could've been in any game, no t-shaped gimmick in consideration. And that's fine - I just had to accept To a T wasn't really going for "QWOP if it was art" - it's just a vibes-based exploration game at the end of the day.

The early-game is evident of the for-kids mindset behind this - you're walking from sidewalk to sidewalk as the illusion of 2D is imposed by a fixed-camera angle. The world around you is actually non-linear, but you're always being told where to go by your pet dog through these corridors. Now if you ask me, I am a huge fixed-camera defender - I love the way it creates these very intentional aesthetic pockets around its world. But there's definitely some awkward dissonance early on, particularly when you start spotting coins scattered around. They are always there, respawn, always guiding you to go off-path, and disrupt the pace of its world's paths. They even show up during cutscenes, distracting me as my dopamine receptors start controlling my brain to think about nothing but Shiny Thing. There's an amateurism to its light-interactivity in comparison to something like a Millennium Kitchen cut.

And uhh...I don't know how the pc users are fairing, but on my playstation, i was nearly never hitting that 60fps cap. This is in tandem with the constant microstutters, watching textures load-in late, and poor cutscene timing i've come to expect from the rushed game 🤝unreal 5 combo. But it's gameplay-unintensive enough for it to never matter; I rarely felt these tradeoffs weren't worth still appreciating a sometimes beautiful looking game made by a studio punching above its weight. Especially when its world opens up - giving you these wide panning shots of its vistas - I was actually impressed by its minimalist prettiness! It's defo milking those familiar presets (i have no technical way to explain this but sometimes it reminds me of my time with foamstars lol), ever so slightly homogenized in that unfortunately familiar way for mid budget games these days. But it still has a nice fluffiness to its warmly-coloured foliage that left me wanting to run around in it. That T-shaped protagonist always correctly conveyed the motion of wanting to wave your arms through the warm air. This is all heightened by the legendary Asuka Sakai lending her usual heart-rending energy in a way that just completes the package.

it's kiiiinda deadly premonition for little infants type beat, but i feel like if you're the type buying advertisedly Weird Games, you should be able to stomach that. this did make me feel like an early adopter to one of those "this WEIRD GAME YOUVE NEVER HEARD OF" releases that'll go crazy fake-obscure in a few years. and if that pretentious feeling is enough to convince you to step outta the kiddie pool, and into your first frame-drop, then might as well revel in it.

lost it when I saw who the giraffe song was sung by tho

It does feel like the type of game that'll struggle to find an exact audience. Me and my girlfriend kept arguing about the exact age bracket; she was convinced that the guidedog is not good enough to prevent young kids from getting frustrated. We did both agree that the end-game where you can freely run around the whole island without worry would be super cool for them, though. I find meaning in the repetitions of day to day life, but will a 6-year old like playing the toothbrush game a bunch of times? This game can be pretty funny, but I wonder if kids would even get its humour - not to say it's too mature, it just literally requires life experience. One of my favourite sections hinges on referencing pulpy detective and noir lit. All of this made me think that it must be incredibly difficult to truly make art for someone that isn't at least a bit exactly like you. I think that's okay by me; it's easy to appreciate Keita Takahashi's genuine enthusiasm for providing paternally. I kinda sat here thanking him that anyone is even trying to make genuinely good things for children anymore. Being a child sucks! Being different as a child sucks even more! Just a lot to thank, and as I kept thanking it, I thought that To a T had made me genuinely happy. In the spirit of the game's own subject matter on Anomaly - just keep making what feels right, and it'll be perfect for at least someone.