Tinykin begins with a textless animated opening showing the nameless main character performing a highlight of experiments. Eventually, he warps himself to a new planet, but blacks out. He wakes up as a miniature version of himself and finds himself living among insects like Ridmi who want to help restore some artifacts.
There are also the titular Tinykin creatures which are like the Pikmin from that series. That’s the basic premise behind Tinykin and it doesn’t go much beyond that. Can the main character get home? What is this game all about? Most importantly, is it any good? All of those questions and more are soon to be addressed.
8 Best: The Art Style
The art is one of the most striking things about Tinykin. The main character, NPCs, and little critters are all 2D hand-drawn animated models. This makes them pop across the more realistically rendered environments. It is reminiscent of seeing Roger Rabbit walk around LA in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
The environments are not that realistically detailed in the game but that example still fits. Cel-shading is a great art style for games, especially anime titles, but Tinykin is a category all its own and is easily something that will attract players to it.
7 Worst: The Story
The art style is charming and colorful but it is a shame the writing is not as strong. Falling into a foreign environment is a great setup for a story but it goes nowhere. A colorful platformer like this does not need an epic tale to entice players. That’s not the issue here.
What the game could have used is some humor through a cast of oddball characters to liven things up. Each area presents players with a new type of NPC from beetles to ants. Unfortunately, they are 99% the same types of models without much flair to them.
6 Best: All About Exploring, No Action
One of the best things about Tinykin is that it doesn’t waste the time of players. They will be able to explore the richly diverse open environments within ten minutes of starting. It may play like a Pikmin game but it is also a callback to platformers from the 90s.
This was the collectible platformer era with Banjo-Kazooie being one of the biggest. It should be a nice surprise for players who have been longing for this sub-genre to return. There’s a lot to see and do in Tinykin and the experience is only a few clicks away.
5 Worst: The Jump Physics
The jump physics has to be the best mechanics in a platformer like this. Unfortunately, they are not as tight as they could be. Jumps can sometimes need to be pixel perfect or else players will drop to their doom. This is true even for the tutorial area of the game which starts things off poorly.
They are not floaty like LittleBigPlanet’s which was one of the largest complaints of that series. Still, the physics could be tweaked in Tinykin to get it from good to great.
4 Best: The Tinykins
Like the Pikmin in that titular series, Tinykin is the name of the tiny critters in the game. Players will begin with a set that can be tossed at vases or other objects to move them around. The next environment will have explodable Tinykin that can be used in a variety of ways from blowing up cages to smashing through hardened pollen.
The third area has a set of ladder Tinykin that change the whole experience. They make exploring a lot easier with them around. Those are only a few examples of the cute critters players will use in the game which helps it create a fun experimental experience.
3 Worst: No Map
As great as these open environments are, they can be confusing to navigate. There is no map in the game, meaning that players essentially have to keep track of where they have gone on their own.
There is also no way to fast travel in Tinykin. There is a bar of soap players can ride which speeds up travel but that is not enough. Also, like the jump physics, this soap mechanic feels a bit loose too. The absence of a map and fast travel system is odd to see in a 2022 released game.
2 Best: No HUD Needed
There is no HUD in the game which helps it pop more. There is no need to have one since there is no health system or map to guide players to an objective. There are ways to check progress by going into the menu which is standardized in most games.
It would have been nice if there was an option to turn some kind of a HUD on as much as it would have been nice to get a map. However, unlike the loss of a map, there not being a HUD equals a more immersive experience thus making it a positive.
1 Worst: Sleepy Music
Some of the best platformers have equally good music. The aforementioned Banjo-Kazooie series comes to mind along with the platforming king of video games, Mario. Tinykin does not have a killer soundtrack which is heartbreaking.
The music changes between environments and cutscenes, so there is a lot here. Unfortunately, it has a sleepy vibe to it almost like the background music to a mobile gacha game’s menu. A lack of a bombastic soundtrack can lull the players to sleep thus creating a lackluster will to explore.
Tinykin was released on August 30, 2022, and is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.