Tinykin – little help (pic: tinyBuild)
It may be influenced by Pikmin but this unusual indie game has its own very unique approach to the concept of comfort games.
One of the many problems with reviewing indie games is that because there’s so many – we get half a dozen emails about new ones every day – picking which one to cover ends up being pot luck, unless you’re already familiar with the developer or franchise. Apart from undermining the whole appeal of indie gaming that often means starting a game and then finding out it doesn’t justify the interest or, worse still, that its promising start peters away after extended play.
Tinykin did catch our eye when it came out in August, as it seemed to be a Pikmin clone and its setting of a tiny character in a normal sized world was reminiscent of Micro Machines and all those cool ideas for an Ant-Man game fans have, but which Marvel is probably never going to allow to happen.
In actual fact, the similarities with Pikmin are fairly superficial and while the shrunken setting does have some novelty it’s fairly abstract and rarely feels like you’re exploring a real house at a tiny size. Rather than being a clone, Tinykin isn’t quite like anything else this year, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a wholly successful endeavour.
While Pikmin is Nintendo’s take on real-time strategy games Tinykin is essentially a 3D platformer, with no combat of any kind. There are a number of obvious steals from Pikmin, since you’re able to order around an army of dozens of cute little followers, but apart from the ones that pick up and carry objects none of them work like their equivalents from Nintendo’s games. Despite what you might expect, they have relatively little impact on the gameplay and almost none on the narrative.
The plot behind Tinykin is very confusing and starts off with what is implied to be a human colonist on another planet, setting out to discover Earth and the origins of his species. That all seems fairly straightforward until he arrives on the planet in 1992 and finds out he’s the size of an ant and is stuck inside a single, seemingly deserted house. You soon discover various species of insect have their own intelligent civilisation going on, with many of them worshipping a never seen god called Ardwin.
The dialogue can be occasionally amusing but apart from some minor attempts at class commentary there’s not really anything of interesting going on with the story, as you’re talked into collecting the parts for a device of mysterious purpose, but which mirrors collecting the parts of your rocket in Pikmin.
Your little helpers are the titular tinykin, whose origins are not explained but look like little one-eyed bacteria. They can’t be farmed like pikmin and instead can only be found in egg form, dotted around the house. They follow you around wherever you go, although out of sight enough that it’s easy to forget they’re even there.
At first you only have access to the ones that carry, but with each new area you discover new types that can act as bombs, impromptu ladders and bridges, or conduct electricity. These abilities are used to solve what can generously be described as puzzles, although they’re all so clearly spelt out – either literally by insects or via unambiguous visual clues – that you’re really only going through the motions, as you move boxes out of the way and switch on electrical devices.
Rather than tinykin husbandry or puzzle-solving the real meat of the game is platforming. This is the closest the game ever comes to being difficult, in that occasionally you will fall off (and be immediately placed back where you came from), but it’s still extremely easy stuff, with the only real challenge coming from parsing the layout of each area, in order to work out what you can jump on or climb up.
All of this must sound terribly negative but while Tinykin is lightweight and repetitive it’s also strangely relaxing and relatively charming. The term comfort game has become popular recently, to describe non-violent games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, and Tinykin feels like the platform equivalent of that.
They might not be very difficult to get around, but the large open-ended levels are well designed and while it soon becomes clear there aren’t going to be any interesting story revelations (there’s an exposition dump at the end and that’s it) or unusual collectibles, the urge to explore every nook and cranny remains.
There is at least the reward of ‘pollen’ to look for, where getting enough in each level allows you to increase the length of time you can glide in a bubble – apart from a bar of soap, that works a little like a skateboard, the only intrinsic ability your character possesses.
Tinykin – a surprisingly good looking game (pic: tinyBuild)
The stages are not just well designed and surprisingly large, but the graphics are impressively good for an indie game. There’s a greenhouse filled with plants to climb, a bathroom inhabited by dung beetles, and a kitchen where you have to collect ingredients for a cake. They all not only look good but they’re also surprisingly vertical, with many collectibles hiding in the rafters.
The only thing we weren’t sold on visually was your main character, who is a 3D model but is used like a 2D sprite, a little like Paper Mario. This just about works for the tinykin, who are portrayed in the same way, but since the protagonist can’t do anything but point left or right it just looks weird.
Given the genuine craft that’s gone into it, we can’t help but be disappointed that there’s not more to Tinykin – and yet we don’t get the impression it’s failing at anything developer Splashteam was trying to do.
It’s just a very mellow game that eschews violence and challenge in favour of exploration and whimsy. It’s all extremely slight and yet we were never bored, even as we wished there was more to it all. Despite how it seems at first glance, Tinykin is nothing if not unique and that always counts for a lot.
Tinykin review summary
In Short: A purposefully under-designed platformer that takes several cues from Pikmin but forges ahead with its own distinctive take on a platforming comfort game.
Pros: Mellow gameplay all knits together well, with some excellent level design. Exploration is strangely compelling, even if there’s not really much of interest to find.
Cons: The lack of violence is one thing but there’s nothing resembling a difficult puzzle and even the platforming is very simple. Obscure plot and only occasionally amusing dialogue.
Score: 6/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £19.99*
Publisher: tinyBuild
Developer: Splashteam
Release Date: 30th August 2022
Age Rating: 7
*£13.99 until 21/12/22 on PlayStation
It may be influenced by Pikmin but this unusual indie game has its own very unique approach to the concept of comfort games.
