With a huge gaming library, I’m bound to forget what I’ve played and haven’t played. So it is rare for me to have an unforgettable gaming experience. I do remember sobbing to Before Your Eyes last year, and grinding Sniper Elite 5 this year, but other than that, I’ve spent countless hours in open-worlds or another generic FPS. So when I wrapped up Tinykin, after not wanting to put it down all weekend, I knew this would be a fond gaming experience I’d cherish for a while. So, what makes it so good?

What’s most apparent about Tinykin is its gameplay mechanic: controlling small, colorific friends with the end goal of building a rocket ship. Sounds eerily like Pikmin, right? With its inspiration on its sleeve, Tinykin manages to utilize this rarely-seen gameplay style and instead of an action-oriented focus, sets its levels on a collect-a-thon landscape, akin to Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. With no combat, it’s a relaxing experience as you tackle the puzzles and platforming at your own pace.

There are five different Tinykin to utilize throughout the game. One with some muscle to move large objects, one that explodes to free trapped Tinykin or open pathways, one that holds a current to create electric gates, one that stacks vertically to help you platform, and one that creates bridges. You can pick them up around the huge maps, and if you’re short a few, you can explore a different area to get however many you’re missing, and then some. It was particularly satisfying soaring to new heights after stacking dozens of green Tinykin. Traversal is a breeze, too, as you can skate on a soap bar and float with a bubble.

Guiding you along and providing some hilarious dialogue are the inhabitants of the house: bugs, from dung beetles to ants to silverfish. There are a lot of themes the game explores, like class divide, blind faith, and more that make it worth talking to all the insects with some real personality to them. The plot twist near the end was also quite unexpected and there’s no way players could see it coming. Without being too serious in tone, everything wraps up so well that it could bring some players to tears.

You’d think with a humongous level, it would be intimidating to take on Tinykin. Nonetheless, thanks to its brilliant, charming presentation and its stress-free approach to let you complete it as quickly or as slowly as you’d like, it makes for a gameplay loop that’s nigh impossible to break. While the game is five hours long, its length matters not when every moment is spent having fun and checking completion boxes that are as rewarding as they are satisfying to achieve.

It’s not often I bring out the 10-rating, but Tinykin deserves every bit of it for its memorable presentation, level design, characters, gameplay, polish, and overall fun factor. It’s a Day One Xbox Game Pass game, and it’s more than worth checking out for all subscribers. Kids will love its cute and wacky design, and adults will be brought back to the N64 collect-a-thon nostalgia days. Go play Tinykin as soon as you can.

A PC key of Tinykin was provided by tinyBuild for the purposes of this review.

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Tinykin

$24.99

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• Tantalizing Gameplay
• Immaculate Charm
• Fantastic Level Design
• Cute As Can Be

Cons

• Small Performance Issues