Tinykin (2022)

I never played Pikmin before so I can't really compare the two games, but I had an awesome time with Tinykin!

I loved how each level had an unique personality, they were all so vibrant and colorful. The soundtrack perfectly matched the scenarios, the last tune (attic) being the most beautiful and touching one to me. It has loads of pop, political and philosophical nods and witty chit-chat between the houses' residents.

Tinykin's far from perfect, though... I had some performance issues playing on the Switch, nothing major but it did break the immersion a bit. The camera's all over the place and made it hard to jump from one place to the other without falling. Finally, I wish the ending was more polished, it felt rushed and left some questions unanswered.

Still, totally worth playing!

I loved this game so much. Not often do I "no-life" games anymore, but I couldn't stop playing Tinykin due to the sheer comfort in the moment to moment gameplay. The worlds are lush and filled out, no exploration goes unrewarded, and the movement couldn't possibly be more fluid. Once you get used to the controls (which doesn't take long at all, by the way) you can blast through the map at break-neck speed, and the gameplay loop is highly addictive.

My only complaint is I wish it was 10-15x longer lol, it was just that fun. Finished it 100% in about 6 hours, but my gameplay style usually falls somewhere between "rushing" and "speedrunning". I can't recommend this game enough!

I got this in a wholesome games humblebundle. I did not buy it for this game, and did not even intend to play it. But I tried it out and it turned out to be probably my favourite from the bundle.

Narrative

You are a kid names Milo who crash landed on a mysterious planet that you now need to explore. You meet the scientist Ridmi who has been wanting to make a device all his life, of which he is sure can take Milo back to his home planet. You explore the place you crashed, a house, to find the parts for this device.

Gameplay

As you explore the house you find the Tinykin, little creatures that take a liking to you and start following you around. These creatures all have certain powers that can help you traverse the levels and solve puzzles. For instance, having super strength, or use as bombs. Every level you meet different bug species who built whole cities in the different rooms of the house, and you need to do certain things for them to acquire the parts for the device. Besides that there is other puzzles/challenges you can do and optional stuff to collect.

Setting

It is set in a house, and every room is a level. You yourself are tiny so, more on the level of the bugs. You have to find new ways to climb that bookcase or open that fridge. The levels are very detailed, and very adorable. I loved the art style of the 3D house and the characters as 2D sort of papercraft figures in it. It was fun to explore every nook and cranny, and talk to all the characters, some of which had very funny things to say. Music fit, but was not memorable.

Other

There were a lot of bugs, but not the kind you'd expect I would talk about here.

Conclusion

I finished the story in about 9 hours. I did not collect 100% but probably did get about 80% just by playing the levels and do a decent amount of exploring. I do not have desire to go back, but you can if you want to. I enjoyed my time with the game, more than I was expecting when I started. The levels were cute, gameplay very smooth, and the exploring and collecting satisfying. The game is not at all challenging but I don't mind. Story not that interesting either, but it's not about that for me. It was just a very relaxing game to play. I recommend for people who like cute wholesome games, and some really smooth platforming.

Not much to say about this puzzle-platformer other than I had quite a bit of fun with it! From the art style to the music and dialogue, Tinykin oozes charm and cuteness, and it never gets stuck in a dull moment throughout its short runtime. It never really wastes your time even when you’re striving for level completion, which is one of its greatest strengths. Gameplay is awesome to engage with: there’s a great sense of manoeuvrability, and every single different Tinykin adds a useful, engaging ability throughout your playthrough. The world is pretty engrossing and creative with how it plays with the illusion of size - kind of like Grounded except inside a house. This is fuelled by the level design, which aside from a couple of somewhat confusing areas is mostly impeccable.

I am not, in any way, the target audience for games with this style and look. So the fact that Tinykin managed to grab me as much as it did is a testament to its quality. I had a great time with it, and I have zero doubt that people who do gravitate to games such as these will enjoy it even more. 7.5/10

So, last five minutes of the game aside, I had a ton of fun with this short puzzle platformer.

The mechanics are light, but allow you to explore and build up. The levels are great and themed well and build on the previous ones to the point where you're constantly stretching and learning, but not struggling.

Overall, it didn't overstay it's welcome and was a fun short play (about eight hours). An easy recommendation.

Now, the last five minutes of the game really made me question a lot of what I had done in the game itself, so I'm removing that from judgement. I can't really explain it, nor do I think anyone could....so, just enjoy the game and don't think about it is my theory.

~David.

I haven't played a 3D platformer/collect-a-thon since Mario 64 when I was young. I much much prefer 2D, but I kept hearing about Tinykin as an indie gem and I decided to give it a try.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. The giant house you’re exploring is full of surprises and creative environmental puzzles. The player movement is very smooth and the game feels great. The level design was really solid. I also loved the mixture of 2D sprites in 3D environments.

There’s lots of stuff I had to… tune out. The dialogue was kinda generic and boring, and I couldn’t be bothered to read any of it. The story is fine but I kept wanting to skip any exposition. The tinykins you collect are also just “another” one eyed cute annoying character that you’ve seen a million times before.

I am definitely not sold on the genre, as I find 2D platforming and exploration much more satisfying. But, I definitely blasted through this game within a couple days while bedridden with the flu, and it was a pretty fun experience.

While it feels great to skate around and there's a great pace to the platforming as you noodle through the levels and piece back together your environment of shortcuts, all dialogue varies between sickly and annoying. It also just feels like there's too much stuff in a level. I spent nearly an hour on the first "real" level 100%ing it just on my way to completing the real objective, and by the end of it I was so done with the level I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

It's certainly pretty cute but I think it could have appreciated a bit of modesty with what it was trying to do, both in terms of letting me get out of there a bit faster and also just cutting back severely on your characters and writing if it wasn't going to be good.

My first try at this game was pretty slow, I put it down after about 30 minutes and left it down for a month. Just recently decided to give it another go and ended up spending my entire Friday playing it. A lot of core game mechanics are definitely deserving of the Pikmin comparison, but there's also a healthy dose of 3D platforming/collectathon that I think is also worth mentioning (and done well! I'm by no means a completionist but I found myself completing quite a view extra/unnecessary objective because of how seamlessly they were worked into the main levels). I wasn't personally paying SUPER close attention to the story but there seems to be quite a lot of it in here for those who want it. Really cute and fun idea, executed well! More like a 4.5 if we're splitting hairs.

And no performance issues on Switch! Love to see it!

For me to love Tinykin, there were three significant obstacles:

1. It's frequently compared to Pikmin, a series I find stressful to play.
2. Its characters appear 2-D in a 3-D world, a trend I've found mildly disorienting in games like Here Comes Niko and Demon Turf.
3. You willfully collect pollen. I've spent a lifetime avoiding those godforsaken globs of histamine.

Thankfully, Tinykin had me covered. It turns out that the Pikmin formula is actually pretty relaxing if you remove the combat and time limits entirely. The 2-D characters are fluid and presented in a sort of vaguely 3-D way that did not bother me at all: In fact, it's a wonderful showcase of some really unique character designs (the cut scenes in particular are lovely). And exploring each area is so gosh-darn fun thanks to the tight controls and various Tinykin abilities, I couldn't help going out of my way for every collectable (pollen or otherwise).

Well played, Splashteam!

Took a good 5 hours to get every artifact, every bubble, and most of the pollen.

My thoughts since the demo still remain(except I experienced no microstuttering this time). This is a really fun low stakes Pikmin 3D platformer. Every level is brimming with details and the Tinykin compliment the level design and the many approaches to it. Using the stacking Tinykin to gain enough height to shimmy around or glide high up above and then land into a zipline

If there is one thing I especially don't like, however. It's the pollen. They act as the gems of Sypro or the notes in Banjo-Kazooie. Getting a ton of pollen is a good incentive to get more bubbles to glide more, but since the maps in Tinykin are enormous in scale, finding the last pollen is one of the most annoying needle in a haystack situations I have had in a long time. A solution would be like in Spyro the Dragon: Year of the Dragon or the Reignited Trilogy where if you press an input, Sparx will point to one of the gems that you haven't collected yet. I want to see the last of the missing pollen with the AR instead of rummaging through every room again.