Adventures and puzzles go hand in hand with any video game genre, perhaps making a puzzle adventure game one of the most classic forms of gaming out there. It's a genre that's going nowhere, that's for certain. Tin Hearts is a new puzzle adventure game, set to release on all major platforms including VR, later this year.
It tells the story of an inventor, Albert Butterworth, through the guise of his toy soldiers. Tin Hearts' developer, Rogue Sun, is composed of former Lionhead devs who worked on Fable, and alongside the new trailer as seen below, fans can check out a demo of the game as part of Steam Next Fest.
Game Rant was recently able to speak with creative director Kostas Zarifis, who discussed a few elements seen in the trailer, Rogue Sun's approach to gameplay, narrative, and more. The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: What can you tell me about this trailer? What was the major idea going into it?
One thing with Tin Hearts is how incredibly varied it is. Throughout the experience, there’s a huge variety in settings, mechanics, emotional tone, story, and character development… At first glance it’s easy to miss this about the game – it is very easy to think of the game as a Lemmings clone. So we wanted to put a trailer together that subverts expectations and attempts to communicate this huge variety. Moreover, as the previous trailer focuses more on the handcrafted / woodwork theme, we wanted to tease a bit more of the industrial / steampunk chapter in the game. It was out of these ideas this new trailer was born.
Q: Are there any secrets hidden in the trailer or something players may not fully understand until they play the game?
100%! We do really love a bit of mystery and igniting our audience’s sense of curiosity, whether it is with our games themselves or the promotional materials for them. We loved reading all the theories that circulated around the first trailer, with regards to what the game might be or where the story will go, and we can’t wait to do the same again with this trailer, especially given it's even more dynamic and intriguing nature!
Q: What are your favorite parts of this new trailer?
Oh, I love so many things about it, I am super proud of what the team managed to do with this, as this is something we actually created entirely in house using content from the game. It really services the original vision perfectly. If I had to choose one scene though, it would have to be the outro shot, the spider confrontation.
Q: What should players know about Albert J. Butterworth heading into the game?
I am extremely spoiler averse, so the less the better as far as I am concerned, haha! With all our characters more than anything we try to capture their humanity… the spark that makes them tick, their passion, their drive, but also their flaws. The best stories are the ones where we can see some of ourselves in the characters we journey with and none of us is perfect, but all of us have traits to celebrate and be proud about. Albert is no different and even though his tale takes place in an alternative Victorian universe we tried to hide a relatable and contemporary allegory in there. One that will hopefully stay with you long after you’ve completed the game.
Q: How do the toy soldiers factor into Butterworth and his family story-wise?
Again, without delving into too many spoilers, what’s interesting and possibly somewhat surprising about the soldiers is that they are not particularly special. There’s a ton of symbolism in the game, the toys, the world. The same is true for the soldiers, so if they are special in some way is that the concept they symbolize is potentially somewhat more ubiquitous in Albert’s story and personality than some of the other themes that feature. But they, much like most mechanics in the game, are a gameplay vehicle first and foremost. As much as we love storytelling, our mantra is that gameplay is king. Luckily, our team is very skilled at weaving a world and narrative one can lose themselves in, while experiencing a game that is fun to play.
Q: Why set Tin Hearts in a magical, alternate timeline Victorian universe?
As I said we start all of our projects by trying to answer the question “what would be a fun game to play?”. And of course, we might have a rough theme to explore this question within, but first and foremost, we look at the gameplay and the fun aspect in and of itself. As part of exploring that a theme sometimes organically emerges. As soon as we have a fun prototype with a loose theme we then try to answer the question “Why?”. Why is it toy soldiers that you’re guiding around? Why is it a nostalgic workshop they exist in? Who is their creator? What are his or her drives/aspirations/imperfections?
We find, more often than not, that with a strong prototype, a strong high concept, and a set of guiding principles, it’s almost impossible to not come up with good answers to such questions when you get a bunch of creative people in a room together throwing ideas at a whiteboard.
Q: There is said to be 40+ levels. I was curious if you could generally describe how many environments players may encounter? Or is it largely set within Butterworth’s house? If so, did Rogue Sun set out to make sure the levels were distinct?
We are a very small team (15 people), but we do aspire to create ambitious, rich, and memorable experiences. With Tin Hearts we wanted it to feel vast in terms of scope, but we had to do this within our means. As such there are 3 main settings the game takes place in: the Attic Workshop, characterized by warm tones and wooden textures, the Butterworth’s House a fully fleshed out Victorian house with multiple interior rooms and a grand garden and lastly the colder, more industrial, Basement Workshop, full of strange machines and lurking dangers. We believe each level will feel unique and memorable as pretty much every level introduces something new to the player, whether it’s mechanically or narratively, even the levels that share a visual style.
Q: There are a ton of puzzle-solving toy mechanics in the game, like toy cannons, trampoline drums, and balloon inflating machines. What are some of your favorite toy-inspired mechanics in the game?
Again, it’s hard to pinpoint a single mechanic, rather what I am personally most excited about is the progressive variety the game features, the way all these mechanics gradually interweave in interesting and unexpected ways, and how the game keeps surprising the player all the way to the final level. We’ve also tried to do this in a way where no one would feel overwhelmed, whether puzzle game veteran or newcomer alike. By the later stages where all mechanics are unlocked, you’re solving some pretty elaborate puzzles. But hopefully, we’ve equipped everyone with the confidence to take on this challenge and feel good about their superior toy soldier routing skills!
Q: How do the time manipulation mechanics tie into the toy soldiers’ journey?
Time controls are something we introduced largely as a convenience feature. We never want the game to feel hard because the player made an unrecoverable mistake. So, with the ability to rewind time, recovery is always a button press away. But as puzzle designers with access to time manipulation mechanics, it’s hard to not incorporate at least some time-bending puzzles in the game. So, while the game is not exactly Braid, there are some time-based puzzles interspersed throughout the experience.
Q: Beyond the obvious, what are some of the biggest differences in working on a game like Fable and a game like Tin Hearts?
In all honesty, carrying a heritage of the sort of Lionhead caliber can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, we worked alongside some of the best talent in the industry there and learned pretty much everything we know about making games with the potential to be enjoyed by millions. And while the collaboration with Microsoft wasn’t always smooth, the studio did receive vast amounts of support and, for the most part, was empowered to execute at the highest levels of ambition.
As a small indie team, we can’t dream of operating at such a capacity. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We’re able to make and act on decisions much faster and all of us are also responsible for much larger parts of the project, which is extremely rewarding and satisfying on a daily basis. And while our publisher, Wired Productions, is a much smaller organization compared to Microsoft (I am sure they won’t mind me saying that!), they do share our passion about making memorable indie games and have been extremely supportive of our vision and our operations. We couldn’t hope for a better partner on our mission to bring Tin Hearts to gamers around the world.
Q: How fundamentally different are the VR versions of the game from the PC/console versions of the game?
It purely comes down to how you’d like to experience the game. Tin Hearts is a narrative puzzler so we wanted to approach the crafting of the different versions such that if you played it in VR and I played it on console or PC, a year or so after completing it we’d both have pretty much the exact same memory of the experience. We both solved the same puzzles and we both experienced the same story. The difference is really whether you’d like to be immersed inside the environments with a more tactile way of manipulating the various mechanics, or whether you’d prefer to sit back in your sofa or gaming chair and explore the world of Tin Hearts in 4K visuals and high res textures.
Our team is very diverse in how we consume our games, so we wanted to ensure we offer the same plethora of choices that we like to have when booting up a new game to lose ourselves in. The only requirement we enforced on ourselves was that, regardless of the platform you choose to experience Tin Hearts on, you’ll always have a perfect experience when it comes to performance and controls. It’s not a trivial requirement to adhere to when building a game for so many different platforms, but I feel we’ve done a great job at it.
Q: Anything you’d like to add?
Thank you for your interest in Tin Hearts, we truly hope the final game matches or exceeds your expectations! 😊
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Tin Hearts releases on PC, PS4, PS5, PSVR, Switch, Quest, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S later this year.