to a T Review – KaTamari creaTor KeiTa Takahashi delivers a musT-play cuTe indie game of the year
to a T is a quirky, narrative adventure from the creator of Katamari, blending heartfelt storytelling with accessible gameplay. Explore a world full of mini-games, visual styles, and T-pose magic.
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Game: to a T
Studio: Uvula LLC
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Epic Game Store
Completion Time: 8+ Hours
Price: $17.99 on sale until June 11th on Steam
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Exploration, 3D
✅
Steam Deck VerifiedNot yet!
Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Game Lobby Review of to a T, a narrative adventure game and the latest release by Uvula LLC, the studio co-founded by the game director Keita Takahashi of Katamari fame and Ryan Mohler. Katamari has been a huge part of my gaming life since its introduction into the world in 2004. Now with a new game bringing all the years of oddball games and cuteness together for to a T, let’s talk about why I think it's a must-play of the year.
Y-I-B T Shape?
Let’s get into the story. Before I go any farther—yes, you can pet the dog in the game. Okay, I will do my best to keep this as spoiler-free as possible because where things begin for this game and where they end up is a great trip you should take with fresh eyes.
The protagonist is so sweet and adorable and has a charming look. They are in a T-pose, limiting their movement and thus setting the premise for the hijinks to ensue. If you are not aware, a T-pose is the default pose for a 3D skeleton before it becomes animated. This is something you typically do not want to see in your game as a developer, but Keita making the protagonist’s whole identity a T-pose—often seen as a bug in a game—into a feature sums up his stance on creating games.
You live with your mother and cute dog, who I named Prince—a little throwback to Katamari. The world around you is slightly adjusted to your arms not being able to bend. The sink shoots water up at you to easily clean your face, and your spoon is extremely long to better assist your breakfast binge of daily cereal.
The main character has responsibilities of getting dressed for school, washing his face, eating breakfast, brushing his teeth, and getting his lunch all on his own. These are the family-friendly parts of the game that lead his everyday life. Fun fact my son saw me playing the game and a part where I brush my teeth and he realized he didn’t brush his teeth and ran to do so. It was adorable.
The game plays out in episodes like a TV show, with an intro and outro song and video. Early on, when you get to school, you realize that the T-pose is charming to me as the one playing the game. It's only when he arrives at school that insecurities start to play out, with bullies mocking his T-pose and his anxieties playing out.
Let’s Get Ready
The gameplay is simple enough, with most just being the ability to get ready for the day, to walk around with your dog, and just jump on things to collect coins scattered throughout the town—money I recommend collecting a lot of because the game has an outstanding 500+ clothing pieces you can collect. Speaking of which you can even get the hat from Wattam or the antenna from Katamari for your dog. These small touches are the best fan service and I loved it. Aside from the daily tasks, you will encounter new mini challenges at school, like mixing ingredients in science experiments or the small mini-games, with Giraffe who makes all the food around town being the most complex of the gameplay. Early in the first reveal, the trailer mentioned that it was in collaboration with AbleGamers.
If you aren’t familiar, AbleGamers’ mission statement is:
“steadfast in our mission to create opportunities that enable play for people with disabilities and improve their quality of life while prioritizing two core objectives: enabling people with disabilities to access video games with ease and empowering game creators and developers to design games with maximum accessibility.” - Ablegamers
I can’t say exactly what they collaborated on because there is only one accessibility option I can find, and that's to toggle a button instead of using the right thumbstick in a circular motion to get him to fly. Yes, fly. Very early on in the first episode we are introduced to one of the best mechanics, and that is the fact that if you wind him up fast enough, he will launch himself into the air. Controlling it is something learned in a later episode.
The game is pretty simple to handle, aside from maybe one or two mini-games that give a bit of a challenge. Otherwise, I would easily recommend this to kids and families of gamers. It’s cute, easy to play, funny, and packed with a great art style. Speaking of which, let's get into the visuals for the game!
Filtered to a T
If you've been reading this far, you can already see the game is adorable, colorful, and looks downright beautiful. It runs great on decent settings with a few frame drops here and there, but the bokeh effect throughout it truly is one of the best-looking games released this year. I mentioned the TV show episodes for each chapter of the game, and from this style, intro/outro, and the episodes’ unique themes, it feels like you are watching a TV show—like an anime came to life and can now be played.
The design—from the characters, small town you explore, and the UI of menus—looks clean and fun. Pausing the game in certain settings will change the exact menus and how they look.
One of the best features in the game is that you are offered over 20 different ways to experience the visuals. From pixel to sepia to seasonal and more you will definitely find the right style for your experience.
Tuned to Joy
When talking about a Takahashi game, the soundtrack is very important. Right from the start, Katamari has lived on with me over the years in the songs. Now I play them when we are having dance parties at home with my wife and son. This has continued with Wattam, and now is prevalent with to a T. The opening theme song, “Perfect Shape” by Prep, is catchy and mesmerizing. It plays with each start of a new episode, further proving the TV show format. Like any TV show, you also have the ending theme song, which is “Giraffe Song” by none other than Rebecca Sugar of Steven Universe fame. Here it is in the trailer below!
The Wattam soundtrack is a delightful experience, and Sakai Asuka is back once again arranging for Uvula. That’s all I know for now, because my only issue with the game is that the soundtrack is still not out as of the recording of this review—which is wild to me, because the theme song is one of the best songs of the year.
I was provided with a few songs I could share for review purposes and this one titled Walking With Dog was a true delight and gives good context for how the world sounds in to a T. Enjoy!
🎶 to a T - “Walking The Dog”
Also, all around the shops in the little town you can see posters of the album’s by Prep the band that does the intro to the game. Check out the theme song it is SOOO catchy:
A Must-Play Game of the Year
From the second I turned on the game until the ending and the credits rolled, I had a smile on my face. Uvula have set the precedent for a studio made to put a smile on your face in the most odd way possible.
I hate to keep going back to Katamari, but it's Keita’s claim to fame and rightfully so. Noby Noby Boy preceded Katamari and was fun but was missing something in my eyes. Wattam was a great experience filled to the brim with outlandish gameplay mechanics, a stellar cast, and one of the best soundtracks. Then we have Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure for the Playdate, where the colorful world is subtracted and we are left with the great design and silly premise.
Speaking of Crankin, this is the only spoiler I will discuss. He is in the game, and you can buy things from his shop—but when I played the game, he was sleeping and never woke up. I later saw that it was a bug in the game that was already fixed. I will have to go back after this review. They actually have a fantastic, transparent help form to show the most crucial bugs and what they are working on. Transparency is key to a great studio!
Uvula LLC is continuing to feed the silly—and often described by Takahashi as stupid—ideas to life, and what he wanted this time was to make the most easily accessible game of his career, and I believe he's achieved this compared to his previous titles. All of the aforementioned titles he’s released and worked on over the years, the composers creating unique and fun soundscapes, and all the development and artists all bring to a T to a clever place. Without making those games, we wouldn’t be here playing one of the best games of the year.
Another great way to describe the game was actually by Fayer, the co-creator of Arco, who said on Bluesky:
A really great kids show that is spot on in comparison, and him playing the game with his kid is another great thing to hear.
Release Details
to a T took me about 8 hours to play through the main game, where some outlets have shared roughly 5 to complete. I did spend a lot of time on my unicycle collecting coins, playing mini-games, and buying new merch.
It’s on sale right now for $17.99, and with what you get to explore and the true comedic genius of the game, it's well worth it. It’s on sale until June 11th on Steam, so get it while you can. It’s also available on Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X | S, and the Epic Game Store.
Thank you to Popagenda and Annapurna Interactive for the key to the review from Uvula LLC.
Nice review! This game leans a little more towards art than game at times, and the price will be a bit too steep for a lot of people. But it is well-made and incredibly creative.
This game looks and sounds like it would be a delight to play! The part about your son seeing the character brush his teeth and then going to do the same made me go 'Aww!' out loud.
Great review!