Tinykin review: a fun Pikmin-like bursting with humorous surprises

Shrinking to the size of a thimble is your worst nightmare. Think of all the dirt and dust clumps that make you feel bad. A giant scary insect? no thanks. I’m already emotionally scarred by Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’ giant bug puppet.

Thankfully Tiny Kin Take a more capricious approach to this hellish situation. It’s a sci-fi adventure platformer in which you and an army of tiny aliens explore a giant house, and it’s an excellent bite-sized summary. Splashteam created a fun, laid-back Pikmin-like burst with humorous surprises, and I played the game with a silly smile the entire time.

On Tinykin, Earth has long been abandoned and humanity has since moved to another distant planet. However, a young scientist named Milo excitedly rediscovers the great blue planet, teleports to his discovery in a storm of joy, and realizes that yes, it is the Earth, though , he’s now stuck in a human…sized house. You play as Milo and you have to collect spaceship parts scattered in different rooms of the house to get home. To do that, you’ll need the help of Tinykin, tiny, fluffy alien creatures.

After all, a cute Tiny Kin can be very helpful. Hundreds of tiny eggs are scattered around the house, and if you pass them, the Tiny Kin inside hatches and begins chasing you around, joining a growing army of aliens. , with colors matched to special abilities that make it easier to move around the house. The pink Tiny Kin is incredibly buff and perfect for lifting heavy weights. The red Tinykin explodes on impact to clear obstacles, while the green Tinykin can stand on top of each other, creating ladders for Milo to climb. There are other types, but I don’t want to spoil too much because half the fun is discovering new colors and seeing what you can do. I’m going to have a power nap. this is adorable.

You use your small team to solve puzzles and navigate this incredibly large world. Using them is as easy as aiming and lobbing a task. Sometimes you’ll run into obstacles that don’t have enough Tinykins to complete a task – this can be a matchstick gate that needs to be burned, a giant mug that needs to be moved, a dangerous way to cross water, etc. That’s right – now that the sink is full, you’ll need to go find more to add to your army. That means they’re gone forever, so don’t get Trigger happy.

Coming across insurmountable obstacles may seem daunting at first, but at Tinykin it means more exploring and ramming. It’s pretty cool how Splashteam turned the most mundane objects in a cluttered house into climbable structures and walkways. Spin, jump onto the spinning blades of a ceiling fan, or rappel down the side of a cupboard, ready to jump at the perfect moment and discover what’s inside. The platforming is flawless, with very tight controls.

Every room in the house is taken over by a different bug civilization, each owning a spacecraft component. In exchange for each part, you’ll help solve their problems while exploring every corner of this huge world. At the bathroom level, a group of silverfish are having a foam party and are about to send you on a fetch-his quest to get a shopping list of items. In the living room, a Beetle civilian wants to listen to his CD of the songs of their people. This means clearing the way from one end of the room to the other. It’s a very laid-back puzzle-solving, nothing too hard to tickle your brain.

You can also use Milo’s Glide Bubble to float gracefully over large gaps, or make traversing more fun with a soap board that helps you speed across the floor. There is a big focus on exploring the world and encouraging you to roam around.One of my favorite secret finds of him is jumping into the body of a guitar and putting a little bug inside his bars. That’s what I found. You also have the option to collect hundreds of small gold nuggets in each level. They are very shiny and attractive, and if you collect enough of them, you can upgrade your bubble glider.

Tinykin doesn’t have a lot of depth, but it’s actually pretty good. It’s a lot of fun just being the little guy in the big house. With satisfying platforming, cute little critters, and plenty of exploration surprises, it’s the perfect bite-sized adventure.Running time is his 4 hours, played in 2 sittings, but perfect for a leisurely game was. It’s great to see how Splashteam took the core inspiration behind what made Pikmin games so fun and improved them endlessly. Solid recommendation.