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!

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.

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!

They need to let the devs loose on a full skating game, the movement is the best part of the experience

You can't read a single text box, they won't do you any good, were I to factor them into the score, it'd be hard not to make it lose two stars