Well, I have one last invention for them. I know they'll LOVE him. I call him... Tom.
A Virus Named TOM is a Action-Puzzle game developed by Misfits Attic, and released for PC on August 1, 2012. It also received a Play Station Vita release on April 5, 2016 as part of the Instant Game Collection for the PlayStation Plus.
The game revolves around the titular TOM, who is a virus created by the nefarious Dr.X to infect various machines.
Tropes present in this game:
- Black Comedy: One good example in this game: In the Teleporter cutscene, a man is seen happily walking out of the teleporter, only to receive a Hollywood Heart Attack... then his heart appears afterwards.
- Cyberspace: Where TOM dwells.
- Fragile Speedster: TOM. Definitely. The little guy's pretty fast but one hit from a drone and he has to respawn, using up 100 energy in the process.
- The Future: The city of tomorrow!
- Holiday Mode: The Winter Wonderland DLC.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. X. He says it best himself in the intro movie:"...Then, I invented Globotron, which would destroy anyone FOUND walking."
- MegaCorp: MegaTech, Dr. X's former employer.
- Naming Conventions: The achievements for getting multiple energy pellets to orbit TOM are named after elements whose rank in the periodic table corresponds to the number of pellets you got. Thus, it's helium (second element) for two pellets, lithium (element 3) for three pellets and beryllium (element 4) for four.
- A weirder convention is used for the achievements regarding the length of Energy Pellet chains. The first achievement for 5 pellets is only Macaroni Chain, but the next rank is Unobtainium (10) and then Adamantium for 20.
- Finally, the names for beating some levels without stealing energy are titled after the progressing measures of religious orthodoxy: firstly Energy Purist, then Energy Fundamentalist and finally the Energy Extremist.
- Puzzle Game: Most strongly present at the beginning, but then action begins to feature prominently as well.
- Shout-Out: Many achievement names are shout-outs of some sort. Besides ones in the Naming Conventions above, there's also the following:
- Et Tu, Brute?: Co-op achievement for blocking escape route of a team-mate and thus getting them killed.
- Beam Me Up for completing the Teleporter chapter.
- Game of Thrones: Ending up with 500 tiles destroyed in 4-player Versus Mode.
- Timed Mission: The energy meter serves as a timer, as well as TOM's health.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Gradually. The game starts off seeming to rely on the puzzle element but quickly shifts into more focused on action and speed for most levels.
- Villain Protagonist: TOM and Dr. X definitely qualify, seeing as they're infecting the city.
