Tinykin PC Review

Tinykin is the new game from Splashteam and tinyBuild, out now on multiple platforms. For my Tinykin review, I played the PC version both on my laptop and my Steam Deck. It’s not officially Steam Deck certified, but let me tell you straight off – it should be. It possibly will be soon. There are no problems playing this on the Steam Deck, and I actually played it more on that than on my laptop. It probably elevated my fun up another level.

With Tinykin, it’s the far future, and Milo has re-discovered Earth! He’d go down in history, but as he lands on the planet, he encounters a problem… He’s as small as a penny. And everybody’s gone.

Follow Milo as he masters backwards walking in Tinykin.

Milo isn’t rude. He’ll never turn his back on you. Literally, he is always facing the screen, bouncing along as he runs backwards at all times. Not even mad about it.

As a tiny astronaut, you get to explore a house infested with insects that have created their own city in different rooms. There’s a stadium in the bath, a nightclub inside the couch, and a casino under the bed! All run by a variety of insects that sometimes want your help.

Playing as Milo, you can jump, hover and skateboard on some soap to get around. But the true hook is the mysterious Tinykin! Hundreds of alien creatures with special powers to become ladders, build bridges, carry large objects, activate machines and explode!

The Game

Your goal is a simple one. Use the Tinykin to gather six components from the House’s bug societies to reassemble a machine to teleport home. Not the usual kinds of parts you’d need. No, this needs things like some scissors and knobs. Not sure how they make a functioning machine, but who really cares? The problem is that the bugs in the house don’t just want to give you the times you need. To get them, you need to complete some tasks. That’s where the tinykin comes in.

Things start simple. You start with just the purple ones, which can push or lift items either out of the way or to where they’re meant to be. As you progress to different rooms, you unlock different Tinykin. Green ones that act as ladders, red ones that blow up, blue ones that carry electricity and yellow that build bridges. The yellow ones require some careful planning. You might need to build a bridge that requires 50 Tinykin, but you’ve used 30 elsewhere and only have 22 left – not a problem though, as you can reclaim them from the other bridge. You just need to build and unbuild the bridges as you go to keep up with the number you need. I’m not too ashamed to say I spent ages looking for more before I realised I could break a bridge to reclaim some.

What’s really enjoyable is the cut scenes when you find a new type of Tinykin. Little cartoon segments that show you what they do. They look stunning and elevate the game that little bit further.

You also need to claim a load of golden pollen, which becomes essential in purchasing air bubbles to float. The more you have, the further you can float. There are a few areas where you can only get to if you have enough to float that far. There are handy little helpers along the way, especially near areas where you need to float a certain distance, that let you know how many bubbles you need to have any chance of reaching that far. Green tinykin are also your friends here as you can give yourself an even higher platform to jump from just to be sure.

Milo is super responsive, which is great, except for when you have to walk along a beam somewhere up high. But it comes in handy a lot, as even if you fall, you can quickly bubble up just before you hit the ground and be fine.

Whilst in the house, you meet a variety of bugs that give you jobs to do. Either collecting some items or blowing some stuff up to clear some room for whatever they want. There’s a whole ecosystem in a place where certain bugs do certain things. Some are nice, others are aggressive. But none can hurt you. No matter what their attitude, they just want you to do something.

Look & Sound

The look of the game is incredible. Milo is always looking at the screen, and initially, I thought that would bother me. As the game progresses, though, it just becomes part of the charm of this wonderfully fun game. You can feel the love that has gone into it, and some of the details are incredible. Random household bits are used to make each room unique, and there’s so much to explore and do. Parts of it look childish and cute, but make no mistake, this is a game that adults will have fun completing. The cute look just matches the silliness of some parts, which adds so much character and charm to the game.

Sound-wise, the music is what you’d expect to go with the look. A nice little tune that slightly gets in your head without getting annoying. You don’t need the sound on though as there’s very little speaking involved. For the most part, the language is complete gibberish. It all sounds funny and further adds to the overall charm of the game. But it came as quite a shock at the end when you’re spoken to in English. There is someone that can speak to you properly. It was a bit of a surprise.

Length & Replayability

It took me just over 7 hours to complete Tinykin. There’s more game time there if I want it too, with a decent amount of achievements to get. If you don’t complete every area completely, you can go back and collect the remaining pollen or tasks. I made it my mission to complete all the tasks before moving on, but I’m sure I missed out on some of the pollen available. I know I didn’t get all the achievements, even though I did get a lot. So there’s room to go back and replay some levels. You can get to any level from the room you’re fixing up your teleporter in, so there’s no selecting a specific level or starting again. Just walk into whatever room it is you want to go back to.

“Replaying” is probably the wrong word, as it’s more revisiting. What you’ve done has already been done. You just go back and do whatever you haven’t done yet.

Being able to go back and revisit rooms is a nice touch, though. It means you can progress the story a bit and go back, later on, to get the rest if you want. Some might not want to, but the completists in you can go and get everything. No need to just hang about and complete a level before moving on. You do, however, have to complete certain tasks before you can progress. At any stage, though, you can go backwards.

Conclusions

Tinykin might just be one of my surprise games of the year. It’s not super long, but for a good 7-8 hours, it’s jolly good fun. And if you talk to everyone you come across and read what they say, then you could probably add another hour to that. I didn’t talk to everyone, but the ones I did produce some funny conversations or complaints. The whole atheistic of the game is one of pure silly fun, and that’s exactly what you get.

With Tinykin out on consoles, it would be remiss of me not to mention that there’s a Nintendo Switch version. Having played this on my Steam Deck, it’s absolutely fantastic on a handheld device. One might say that this is a perfect game for the Switch.

There is also plenty of scope to expand the game. Adding another room and a different type of Tinykin would just elevate the game further. I’ll certainly have my fingers crossed that there’s more to come!

I rate Tinykin an excellent 9/10.