Xboxaddict.com Article
Tinykin - You Can Always Rely On A Little Help From Your Friends
by Peggy Doyle
Tinykin is a 3D puzzle platformer developed by Splashteam. This studio was set up by developers who formerly worked on Rayman and Rabbids games at Ubisoft Montpellier. Tinykin was announced during the Future Games show and has a release date of August 30th, 2022. I love cute puzzle platformer games and I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek and check out the demo early. There is currently a free demo for anyone to enjoy on your platform of choice and this preview is based the demo played on an Xbox Series X.
In Tinykin you play as Milo, an alien who has arrived on earth in 1991 and must strategically toss cute little creatures around this home to execute tasks. I loved the little guys who followed along behind you. If you stopped for a moment and just looked at them, some would even fall asleep standing in place. There were a few different personality types on display for sure. During gameplay I have watched online, I could see quite a range of the Tinykin to eventually be able to use, but in the demo I only came across two.
The pink which can move things (pick up or push) and the red which are explosive. You will eventually have Tinykin that can create ladders and bridges too. When using your new friends, they come out of your inventory and therefore your number of followers will fluctuate, and you have to make sure you have enough of them to execute any task in front of you. You find them throughout the world in little pods that you simply break open and they join your crew. Each task you need to do requires a specific number of them as well. This could be as few as one to break a crate, or as many as 25 to move a polaroid camera across the room in the sections I had access to.
Besides using your new friends to complete tasks, Milo also has a bar of soap that he can use as a skateboard or to traverse ziplines, and a bubble maneuver to help float across zones. I am sure there will also be additional skills in the full game.
The main plot seems to be finding all the components, which appears to have one in each level, to create a something and secure your freedom. The demo was small so I'm not entirely sure of the whole story yet. Each level also has a bunch of smaller tasks that you need to accomplish. I had to find and repair a record player, use the polaroid I mentioned before to take a picture, and get inside a piano to rescue someone for example. Using your skills and Tinykin friends in combination was the key to doing this.
I did have some issues with motion sickness when playing Tinykin though and once I adjusted some of the camera options, it was easier. I am looking forward to seeing what other accessibility options this game will have, especially since it relies a lot on colours to see items that can be interacted with and which Tinykin you use for an item. Although the little guys auto selected when using them, but I could see the highlights perhaps being an issue with finding out what needed to be interacted with in the first place.
Tinykin was really charming in its short demo and I am really looking forward to playing the whole game when it launches later this Summer on Auguest 30th, 2022.
