Mike Bithell of Thomas Was Alone fame has already been pretty busy on Twitter with Shuhei Yoshida this week, but in real life, he was able to talk to Joystiq about how PlayStation Plus positively influenced his “rectangle game.”
Selling “really well” overall, Bithell says of Thomas Was Alone that the PlayStation Plus downloads have been “amazing,” with PS+ helping the PlayStation version sell more already than TWA has already done on PC. This is great news, “because that’s a whole bunch of cool players who are really into their games – that’s why they have PS Plus – who know who the hell I am now.”
Going into Project 2, Mike says, “I need as many people onside, and knowing what Thomas Was Alone is, and maybe even knowing who I am, so it means something when the trailer comes out and it says ‘From the creator of Thomas Was Alone.’ And that’s what PS Plus was awesome for. It just massively inflated my audience beyond what a normal esoteric indie platformer would have, which is great.”
We can expect to hear firm details about Project 2 in the coming months, including what systems it might be on (PlayStation is pretty much a Shu-hei-in at this point), with the game currently slated to release in 2014. He did, however, drop a few teasers as to what he wants to do with the game:
There’s going to be a very strong authored story by me, I’m going to take my time and make that as good as I can get it. And then at the same time, the other big issue with Thomas was players couldn’t make their own stories in the game. There was no room for players to choose how they played on that level, but even actually on the greater level of editability. It’s one of the most requested features on Thomas: ‘Can I have a level editor? Can I have a story editor so I can tell my own stories with this engine?’ So I want to do that as well, I want to make a game that allows people to tell their own stories as well.
What did you think of Thomas Was Alone? Did you buy it solely because of the PlayStation Plus discount at launch? Let us know in the comments below.
