Need to Know
What is it? An adventure about a kid who can’t put his arms down
Expect to pay: $20/£18.76
Developer: Uvula LLC
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Reviewed on: Intel i7 9700K, RTX 4070 Ti, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? No
Link: Official site
In To a T you eventually find out exactly why Teen (the 13-year-old kid you play) is forever stuck in a T-pose, arms protruding stiffly out from their sides at all times. The reveal does not disappoint. When I learned why Teen was T-shaped, I asked a few of my coworkers if I could please spoil it for them just because I desperately needed to talk about it with somebody. Anybody.
Teen’s origin story (I won’t spoil it for you, don’t worry) is just one of the many wonderfully weird things going on in To a T, a short adventure game designed by Katamari Damacy director Keita Takahashi. It’s a world where a ladybug runs the town newspaper, where the two most important events of the story are kicked off by a dog pooping, and where my science teacher, Mr. Mushroom, casually announces one day that my teenage classmate “is an authority on Dark Magic.” Sure. That might as well all happen.
It’s all delightful, absolutely silly stuff, and I wish more games made for kids were filled to the brim not only with wholesomeness but with just plain weirdness like this one. I also wish the same amount of thought put into the story and characters went into the controls and camera of To a T, because while the world is a delight to discover, it can sometimes be a chore to actually play.
T for two
Being T-shaped has its challenges. Getting dressed and using the bathroom requires the help of Teen’s dog, navigating through narrow doorways means carefully turning sideways first, and simple tasks like pouring cereal and milk into a bowl and then eating it means making an occasional mess and using a very long spoon.
Teen’s morning tasks like having breakfast, washing their face, and brushing their teeth are minigames, repeated every new day during the adventure. (You can skip them after the first day, but amusingly Teen will have eyeboogers for the rest of the day if you do.)
Though Teen is cheerful enough about their shape, they’re less enthusiastic about going to school, where bullies routinely mock them. Teen’s sudden mood change from happily performing their morning tasks to absolutely dreading the school day strikes home for me, and I suspect will do the same for anyone who is or was bullied at school.
I won’t describe how Teen eventually turns those bullies into friends, but if I gave you a hundred guesses you’d never come close. More wonderful weirdness.
When Teen isn’t at school to play math and fitness minigames, you’re free to explore the town. There are popcorn and ice-cream stands (all run by singing giraffes) where you can participate in speed-eating challenges, there are coins lining the sidewalks and hovering in hedges to collect so you can buy new outfits for Teen, and there are plenty of oddball characters to meet, like DJ Pigeon (a giant pigeon who is a DJ, of course).
There’s also some pretty strange stuff happening (beyond talking pigeons and singing giraffes, I mean) for Teen to investigate, which slowly takes you deeper into the unusual town and mysterious backstory of Teen, Teen’s mom, and other characters.
To a T’s world is a bright and cheery one, but also packed with butt and poop jokes, plus a few dark turns and surprising twists that add up to more than just a colorful and wholesome game. The real star of To a T is a song with the lyrics “You are the perfect shape,” which not only slaps (thankfully, because you’ll hear it a lot) but is always accompanied by a montage of Teen going about their day in the midst of their current situation.
It doesn’t matter if Teen is having a good day or a bad one, the peppy music kicks in and we see them just sort of dealing with things, maybe even unhappy things, sometimes making the visuals a bleak juxtaposition to the cheerful ditty.
There’s even a point where being “the perfect shape” takes on a downright ominous tone due to events in the story. I’ve never seen a song used this inventively in a game before, and it’s a real treat every time it starts playing. Another song, where the giraffe explains how they make sandwiches, will also stick in your head long after you stop playing.
T-Boned
It’s a shame that To a T can be frustrating to actually play at times. The camera is routinely awkward while getting around, sometimes zoomed in so close to Teen that it’s hard to tell where you are and what direction you’re going without having to repeatedly bring up the map. Objects like cars or and trees—blurred with depth of field that can’t be turned off—frequently obscured my view of Teen, making it tricky to navigate the town.
The camera gets even worse in a segment where you control Teen’s little dog on an investigative adventure through the city: the camera is zoomed in so close that several platforming segments where I had to lead the dog through a maze and jump across gaps were genuinely frustrating.
It’s weird to say, but I wound up looking more forward to the story sections where I could just sit back and watch the strange revelations unfold than I did the parts of the game where I actually, y’know, played it.
It’s still worth struggling through the sometimes-awkward gameplay for the fabulous story contained within its five hour duration. It’s surprising, it’s got a lot of laughs, and there’s a nice message at its core: we’re all different, so let’s stop pretending things would be perfect if we were all the same color and shape. Also, maybe we should stop killing each other just because we don’t look alike? That’s good advice: take it from a T.
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