A Virus Named TOM

I want to be straight with you: the core loop here is not far from a 1989 DOS game called Pipe Dream. You move TOM across a grid, rotate circuit tiles by orbiting them, and complete a connected path before your energy drains to zero. That sounds like shovelware. It is not. The pressure layer on top is what changes the equation entirely. Anti-virus spider programs patrol the board on fixed routes at varying speeds, and a single hit bounces TOM to a random corner and costs precious energy. Later levels introduce encrypted tiles, which hide their orientation until a live current runs through them, forcing you to commit to a layout before you can fully verify it. Glitch bombs let you stun pursuers or destroy current-absorbing blockers, and TOM picks up new abilities over the course of the campaign via in-world email upgrades. The difficulty arc is steep but intentional: the first couple of worlds are practically a tutorial, then the game pivots hard and starts combining every obstacle type at once. The single-player campaign runs across six distinct areas with over fifty levels, and the medal system (Bronze, Silver, Gold based on energy remaining) extends replayability for anyone who wants to optimize. The honest caveat is depth of content. Critics who spent a couple of hours with it described it as shallow once the full trick set is revealed, and that read is not entirely unfair. The game does not have build variety, upgrade trees, or branching paths. What it has is one mechanic tuned carefully across a level set, which is a legitimate design philosophy, but players expecting a sprawling experience should recalibrate expectations accordingly. Where the game punches hardest is couch co-op. Up to four players can tackle a separate set of fifty cooperative levels, dividing the board and coordinating rotations in real time while anti-viruses close in from all sides. The communication chaos is genuinely funny: two TOMs cannot occupy the same space, so accidental blocking or accidentally un-rotating a partner's tile is a constant source of grief and laughter. A Battle Mode adds a competitive layer where players race each other for circuit dominance. None of this is online, though. The multiplayer is strictly local, which is a real limitation in 2024 and was already flagged as a flaw at launch. If your gaming circle is not physically in the same room, roughly half the value proposition disappears. A few other friction points are worth naming. The hold-to-rotate control scheme, where you must hold a button while navigating around a tile to spin it, creates an awkward anchor feeling that crops up badly at higher speeds. The resolution is locked at 1280x720 with no scaling options, which looks soft on modern monitors. The story, a mad scientist revenge-against-the-corporation setup, delivers some genuinely dry humor in its animated cutscenes but would not keep anyone playing if the mechanics did not. The soundtrack, composed by Ian Hicks and leaning into chiptune and electrofunk, is better than the budget implies and helps carry the repetitive sections. Bottom line for the strategy-minded: this is not a game about decision trees or systemic depth. It is a game about reading a spatial puzzle fast, executing under movement pressure, and managing a ticking resource. That is a narrow target audience on paper, but if twitchy puzzle games scratch your itch and you have local co-op partners, the value-to-price ratio at this tier is difficult to argue with. Go in knowing you are buying a focused, finite experience with one very well-executed idea, not a systems-rich sandbox.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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