Mike Bithell’s Thomas Was Alone was released on the App Store today. The game originally began as a PC exclusive before it was ported to PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. Thomas Was Alone is available on iPad for $9.00.
How the iOS port came about is rather interesting. According to Polygon, Mike had originally tried porting Thomas Was Alone to the iPad when he was developing it in Unity. He thought the results were less than spectacular.
“You know, from a technical point of view, it did the job,” said Bithell. “You could load it up, you could jump, and it was working. But it was awful.”
That changed when Bithell partnered up with Bossa studios. The two collaborated for months until they created a port with refined touchscreen controls.
“On either side of the screen, we have these color balls that you put your thumb on in order to select which character you want to use,” said Bithell. “It’s a really intuitive, easy thing that you can basically play the entire game without moving your hands.”
Mike Bithell is currently developing Volume .
Source: Polygon