Indie Game of the Week 448: To a T

It's a little strange that this year saw a new Katamari game and a new Keita Takahashi game and they're not one and the same. Such is the way of things; I prefer to think of it as a gardener letting his previous efforts continue to blossom as he goes about planting new saplings. To a T is Takahashi's new game via his studio Uvula, and is a partially open-world but mostly linear story-driven affair festooned with contextual QTE mini-games in a similar format to what Quantum Dream's been putting out for several years now, albeit several magnitudes more wholesome and less creepy. It follows a middle-school student, named and customized by the player, who is stuck in a permanent T-pose: as their theme song suggests, this creates issues with quotidian tasks like brushing their teeth and putting on clothes as well as inviting the mocking scorn of bullies at school. Accompanied at all times by their helpful dog (which is also player-named), the player guides the T-shaped teen through a handful of normal days before the second half picks up the pace of the story and it becomes a direct if surreal ride to its destination.

On most days you start with the catchy (and Katamari-reminiscent; wouldn't surprise me to learn the same musicians were involved) opening theme song, framing your adventures like an episodic anime for kids, before you run through the usual chores of putting on a school uniform (the game subtly adjusts the world to reflect your choices so that all your fellow students are wearing the same color scheme), washing your face, eating cereal for breakfast (there's an achievement for pouring the milk first, like an animal), and brushing your teeth before leaving the house. The early game's insistence on this routine (though most of those steps become optional after the first day) creates a deceptive atmosphere of normalcy before they start throwing in more comically bizarre scenarios like outracing a train or spinning around to take off like a helicopter—the latter technique being incredibly useful to hoover up collectibles in the game's open-world aspect.

Eating cereal only means manipulating three buttons, so anyone expecting Octodad levels of mayhem when performing the simplest tasks might be disappointed. Or maybe they'll be happy it doesn't take ten minutes to put their pants on.

Said open world really only unfolds when you have free reign after the story ends, but there are stretches where you can go out and explore a bit before heading to the marked location to move the story along, visiting shops to buy a frankly ridiculous amount of clothing items (including dog hats) or meeting any number of typically eccentric Takahashi creations like a pack of fitness-obsessed animals or a set of soft-voiced giraffes that run every fast food outlet in town, one of which (who prepares sandwiches) providing the ending song that concludes each of the game's eight episodes. It's not quite as chaotically silly as Takahashi's previous works Katamari Damacy or Noby Noby Boy (though pretty similar to Wattam) due in part to its semi-serious messages to kids about treating those different to you with respect and its anti-bullying stance while still exhibiting Takahashi's usual stylistic focus on merging the everyday with the deeply surreal; I personally think the otherwise moderately large open world could've used a bit more of that energy to give you more to see but I suppose a small team needs to have priorities with an ambitious 3D format like this or things will spiral out of manageable control. And not in the fun way, like with the protagonist's helicopter impression.

I've noticed an uptick of late in what I would call open-world games explicitly made for kids. The likes of Lil Gator Story, Little Kitty Big City, Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip, or the Goat Simulator series which feel like they all riff on this universal adoration for Minecraft from the under-13s, at least before they were all inexplicably ensorcelled into working the Roblox content creation mines like they were the child cast from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Maybe that love had more to do with Minecraft's potential for creativity than just having a big open space to run around in with your pals but recreating the latter seems to be the intent with many games of this sort; it's not like they were brought to this genre directly from GTA V hoping for more meth dealer torture simulators. To a T definitely hits you right out the gate with the feeling that you probably need to be much younger to appreciate what it's going for, as it has relatively little to offer more advanced players with its handful of simple QTE mini-games (including one incongruously difficult if optional medley that concludes the game—easily one of the hardest achievements I've earned in the past few months) and a mostly empty open world beyond its many coins and the copious amount of shop items you might purchase with them.

Despite being for kids, the game has a subtlety and depth to its themes.

To a T is helped considerably by Takahashi's unique and charming aesthetic, which honestly was always suited for a younger audience with his fondness for poop jokes and bright colors, but it lacks too much in the way of substance and remains surprisingly buggy even several months after its release—though, as always with these PC Game Pass titles, these issues might be distinct to this particular version since it's usually the last to see any patches given how increasingly checked out of gaming Microsoft has become. It's not going to stand out in this crowded year of deeply layered titles but my hope is that it finds the audience it was shooting for and wins them over, perhaps segueing those same kids towards his earlier output while providing him the financial freedom to create even more. If I had kids I'm sure I'd want them to be playing something flawed but wholesome like this with plenty of heart and a good moral at its core, rather than have them unconsciously contributing to the nightmare "lawsuit of Damocles" that is Roblox's state of affairs right now.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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