Tinykin Preview

It's not often that I launch a preview copy of a game and soon forget that it's just that: a preview. Yet, that is exactly what happened once I saw — and heard — Tinykin's title screen.

The main title theme immediately stood out upon launching the game, giving me certainty in my gut that this game was ready to launch if not for the letters on the bottom right working as a cruel reminder that my time with Tinykin would be limited.

The preview starts with a black screen slowly fading out into a reminder for one of the core points of the game as you look up towards a staircase; from the perspective of Milodane (the protagonist), these stairs looked gargantuan. Immediately, the graphics caught my eye: popping over with gorgeous colours and a beautiful hand-drawn style. Even the attention to detail was astounding, such as Milodane affecting the tufts of the rug where he walks — something that caught me off guard.

The graphics have a nice style, although Milodane sticks out because he is a fully two-dimensional being that moves as the camera does. This makes him glitch through some objects in some camera angles, although this wasn't immediately obvious unless you were doing it on purpose. One thing I did appreciate, however, was the way the world was set up. Although the tutorial showcases some of the giant objects placed in a jarring way — such as discs that would certainly not work any longer if you placed them like that — the game soon explains that (from what I understood) the bugs have overtaken the house and everything is set up to make individual cities among the rooms. One of my favourite places was a concert hall inside of a guitar.

The first level in the preview works as a tutorial meant to teach the player how to control Milodane and his many abilities, including instructing players on how to jump over the discs, how to use the criminally short glide bubble, and how to hatch and use the tinykin; the controls are incredibly simple and shockingly easy to understand. Although the preview for the game advised me to use a controller, the controls are so intuitively built that I figured them out through logic while not clicking every button present on my keyboard.

The tutorial swiftly ends after finding around 30 tinykin in the first area. Then I was introduced to the goal of the game: I had to complete a device for the character I'd been interacting with throughout the tutorial. At this point, I received a bar of soap that works suspiciously like a skateboard and was introduced to some other characters and a brand new collectable: pollen.

It was at this point that I was informed to go to the new "city" (it's a room), Sanctar. I strolled happily on my merry path towards the brand-new lands as I reached the door and I was informed that my lovely companions would not follow me through every room: they aren't brave enough. Dejected, I bid farewell to my tinykin and delved into the lands of Sanctar, companionless and heartbroken.

Each new area offers the player a brand-new group of hidden tinykin to collect in the vast room. Although initially the decision to leave behind my tinykin was met with resistance, I soon came to be fond of the idea of searching for another dozen to complete each of the quests present in the room. Each subsequent level henceforth would promise an expansive world to explore with tons of things hidden in nooks and crannies that suddenly felt important for me to look for. I couldn't simply find all of the tinykin in one area and be set for the rest of the game; instead, I'd have to find all of them in each room that offered me a level of exploration I was fond of — especially due to the game's overall fun platforming experience.

The platforming is by no means challenging. Each jump in the preview was easily accomplished, and those not possible with a jump alone required a quick use of the glide bubble that allowed me to close the remaining gap. Although Tinykin's platforming is fun, it isn't so much because of any difficulty present throughout the preview, but rather because of how every piece of the map feels so inviting to arrive to. If not because of the numerous sidequests present, then certainly for the collectables that were scattered, meaning that if I fell from a high place and survived with a well-timed bubble, I'd probably land on something new entirely that I'd possibly missed.

That said, I did have one quarrel with Tinykin's platforming. Most platformers allow the player to jump immediately after stepping off the ledge, something that isn't present in this game. This decision meant that whenever I stepped off the ledge expecting to be able to jump last second, I'd fall; which — as a platformer enthusiast — I found it impossible to get rid of the habit, leading to falling quite often. An inconsequential gripe in contrast to how fun Tinykin can be.

As far as the preview goes, I found Tinykin to be an exceptional platformer that offers a lot of exploration, which should have you running around rampantly in search of the hidden items in every nook and cranny. Hopefully, the game will continue down a favourable development path. 

Players will be able to get their hands on Tinykin come its release in the summer of 2022 for PC.