"Vital signs okay, equipment damaged, origin uncertain and age undefinable." With these cryptic sentence blocks, the puzzle platformer Tinykin welcomes you and gives the starting signal for an insanely sweet adventure.
While narrative has never really been a focus in a platformer, Tinykin has a premise that is interesting enough to get players invested right away. When they take on the role of Milodane, an explorer who comes to earth in search of discoveries, things take a eerie turn when there are no humans left and time hasn't passed since 1991, but the feeling that someone or something is watching his every move remains.
To get home, with the help of the funny creatures known as Tinykin and other colorful characters, you'll have to build a special machine in a sprawling ant-sized metropolis full of bugs and other insects to make things even more fun.
As if this wasn't strange enough, the friendly Ridmi – a strange, white-bearded creature that appears out of nowhere – offers you his help and explains the simple of the game in a short tutorial. Thus, you'll jump over gigantic records, float through the air for a short time thanks to your bubble backpack, and get to know your first little helpers – the droll Tinykin.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2857550396
These lively henchmen all have special abilities that you can take advantage of during your adventure. For example, purple Tinykins are extremely strong and can combine forces to move heavy objects or transport them around to open up new paths, while green Tinykins can stack on top of each other and serve as useful ladders. Blue gnomes are excellent conductors of electricity, red bombers blow up obstacles, and yellow acrobats quickly build a staircase out of nothing to reach unimagined heights with ease.
Of course, not all types of Tinykins are available to you at the beginning. However, in the course of your adventure, you'll gradually meet new ones, so your gaming experience will always be motivating, and each new level will bring a breath of fresh air into the game. The music also underlines the whole experience. The melodies in every part of the house never become an annoyance, and the various tunes fit the ambience of the area Milo is currently in.
Nevertheless, the game takes you firmly by the hand at all times and literally "asks" you to use the required Tinykins in explicit places. In addition, all objects that can be interacted with flash in the respective color of the needed Tinykins, so you don't have to experiment wildly to finally make progress. However, even though the objects literally jump out at you, you still need the required number of Tinykins to solve the task or puzzle. For example, a door will only open when enough purple helpers join forces.
If you are still lacking energetic support, you may have to take a different path first. This makes the levels a bit more complex and extensive, but with a bit of patience and perseverance you will inevitably reach your goal. This also forces you to remember the exact path you took because if you can't solve a puzzle, you should know later on where you left off. Furthermore, collected Tinykins are only available in the level in which you collected them – simply taking a whole motley crew with you to the next doesn't work.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2858982555
Your main task will be to restore your aircraft, which has been damaged, so that you can leave this strange place. For this, however, you'll need some objects that are hidden in the different rooms of the house. You'll travel through the fragrant kitchen, the untidy children's room or the foaming bathroom and complete various tasks and solve one or the other puzzle.
The Chrysal workshop is your base, from which all future operations start. Here you return the found objects from the levels and start new missions to other rooms. Unfortunately, there is no quick travel function in Tinykin, so if you want to restart a level, to find all the pollen or to finish optional missions, you'll have to take the sometimes tedious path that often leads you back to the workshop – fortunately, a smooth soap board is already at your disposal at the beginning, with which you can slide through the levels quite quickly.
In the varied levels, you'll find countless details and lovely cuteness that will undoubtedly enhance your entertaining adventure. The creative level design is really impressive and offers plenty of space for extensive explorations through the insects' cities inside the house. Everywhere you can uncover exciting secrets, discover hidden passages and solve puzzling tasks.
You'll also encounter chatty cockroaches, buzzing dragonflies and other creepy-crawlies everywhere, which will not only make you smile with humorous pop culture references, but also have optional missions up their sleeves.
For example, in each level, you can find a certain amount of golden pollen, which your friend Sikaru will use to brew delicious concoctions and also reward you with an extra bubble to float in. Thus, meticulous treasure hunters – in this case, eager pollen hunters – will sooner or later have advantages in fun exploring the exciting environments, as each new bubble will allow you to travel longer distances and thus reach new areas.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2858017696
With the help of a striking overview via spyglass you can see new and undiscovered missions at any time. If you want to collect every pollen, successfully complete all the main missions and finish all the side quests, you'll certainly be busy for around ten hours plus.
Especially the concise 2D representations of the protagonists, who otherwise cavort in a three-dimensional world, are a nice eye-catcher. In addition, the positively playful melodies will surely animate you to sway along happily once in a while, and thus ensure a good mood.
My Specs:
CPU: i9 9900k @3,60Ghz (STOCK)
GPU: RTX 2080 Ti MSI
RAM: DDR4 32 GB RAM @2667MHz
OS: Win10
Resolution: 1440p 32" 144hz/fps
Conclusion
At first glance, Tinykin may seem overwhelming with its various mechanics and collectibles to find, but somehow the game keeps you moving at a steady, yet entertaining pace. As a bare minimum, you'll still have at least six hours of fun trying to get Milo home. However, opt. to complete in full, and you'll be able to extend the total game time by a few hours, or more, of satisfaction by solving increasingly difficult puzzles. And although it doesn't necessarily have that strategic component of Pikmin, Tinykin makes the most of its interpretation of the genre, while adding its own adorable mascots for one of the best 3D platformers of recent years, especially on Gamepass. This is hands down my personal GOTY 2022 and childhood dream wrapped in a superb collect-a-thon platforming experience.
Final Verdict: 10/10 Superb!
