We won’t get our hands onPikmin 4untilsometime next year, but despair not. Tinykin, a 3D puzzle platformer by Splashteam is here to save the day. Not only is it a delightful Pikmin-esque romp, it also does a few things that ought to makeNintendosit up and take note.
Tinykin is a strange sort of game that could be described as a puzzle-platformer, but let’s get more precise. It’s a hybrid game that very deliberately evokes both classic collect-a-thon platformers likeSpyroand Banjo-Kazooie, as well as the Pikmin series, in that gameplay revolves around the use of tiny aliens with special powers. You play as Milo, an astronaut from the far future who rediscovers Earth, only to find that he is the size of an insect, and all the other humans seem to have disappeared. Don’t worry too much about the setup though. All you really need to know is that you are a tiny man running around a giant house, collecting special items which will in some way help you get home. There is some nice narrative stuff going on in the background, but this is definitely a gameplay-first situation.
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Visually, the game is a delight. The bright colours and cartoony papercraft art style are a perfect match, and every level displays a sense of imagination and eye for detail that puts most other games to shame. There’s a level of polish here that evokes Nintendo at its finest; whether it’s clambering around the innards of a television set, baking a cake with ingredients that are all three times your size, or running a bath, complete with enormous toy boats, there’s a whimsical charm to almost everything you do. Even the way Milo flaps his arms while falling through the air has a certain appeal to it.
Playing Tinykin, I was reminded ofa 1996 interviewwith Super Mario creatorShigeru Miyamotowhere he talks about the early development ofSuper Mario 64. The mechanics of movement were for Miyamoto and his team, who spent a long time with nothing but Mario and a small room full of simple blocks fine-tuning the controls until the very act of walking, running, and jumping was inherently fun.
“One of our big development themes was letting the players move Mario around any way they wanted. We wanted to make a game where just moving Mario around was fun.” - Shigeru Miyamoto
I suspect the development of Tinykin had a similar philosophy. Movement feels so good that I could spend hours zipping my way around the house and come away satisfied. Milo is a sprightly little guy and in addition to a nice straightforward vertical leap, he can surf around on his “soapboard” and use his “bubblepack” to float and glide to otherwise inaccessible nooks and crannies. You must use these tools to collect Pollen (the Tinykin equivalent of Mario coins) and solve a variety of simple puzzles.
The puzzles are where the stars of the show come in. The “Tinykin” are mysterious alien creatures that Milo can collect, each with highly specialised abilities. Some can carry heavy objects, some explode, some can conduct electricity and so on. Each Tinykin is introduced with a short cutscene explaining their particular power, and then a brief tutorial allowing the player to get to grips with how they control. The Pikmin influence couldn’t be more palpable, but unlike Captain Olimar, Milo doesn’t press-gang the Tinykin into his own private infantry unit and wreak havoc on the local wildlife. There is no combat element to Tinykin, the focus being purely on puzzles and platforming challenges.
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The puzzles aren’t particularly taxing, mostly consisting of finding enough Tinykin for the job at hand, but they integrate beautifully with the platforming. Each level is composed of a number of smaller challenges that in some way serve the one big puzzle running through the whole level. One level, The City of Sanctar, revolves around an insect cult who all have a song playing in their heads that no one else can hear. You have to gather the parts of a CD player and blast the song at full volume in order to bring them peace. You have to explore the city to find each part, bring them back to the temple, and assemble the CD player.
You’ll need to use your various Tinykin to destroy obstacles, carry equipment, and free other Tinykin to bolster your ranks. Unraveling the city’s secrets as my alien horde grew ever larger, then sitting back to watch as my Tinykin carried their various bits and bobs back to the temple was a remarkably serene yet satisfying experience. The way the game’s two halves, puzzle and platformer, come together, reminds me of the kinds of games Nintendo used to make, but has long since lost touch with.
Nintendo are at their best when they take firmly established characters and concepts, and throw in a curveball. That’s why Majora’s Mask is still one of my favourite Zelda games. The time-loop mechanic (which was way ahead of its time) was a risky introduction but produced one of the best games of all time. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, meanwhile, combined RPG and platforming elements so smoothly. These days, Nintendo tends to play things safe just a little too often.
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A new IP, a totally out-there mechanic, or a fusion of genres, Nintendo have the resources to do all manner of novel and interesting things, but so often don’t. How many times have we seen Mario go back to type? How many thousands of Pokémon will there be by the end of the decade? There is some hope, thankfully, in the form ofMario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope. The first game had surprising strategic depth, was genuinely funny, and did a great job of translating turn based-strategy - a traditionally ‘PC’ genre - into an excellent Switch game. That’s genuine innovation. Nintendo took a risk, tried something new, and it worked.
I think Nintendo could use a little “outside magic”. Tinykin is evocative of NIntendo’s collaborations with Rare, many of which still hold up today. DK 64, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and Banjo-Kazooie are all classics that strayed a little beyond what Nintendo would do (especially Conker), injecting the 3D platformer formula with their own mechanics and quirky brand of humour while retaining Nintendo’s polish and attention to detail.
We’ve seen Nintendo team up with indie developer Brace Yourself Games (Crypt of the Necrodancer) to produce Cadence of Hyrule, a game that Nintendo would never have thought to make on their own. When you’ve been going as long as Nintendo havel, you need a fresh perspective now and then. If they’re on the lookout for new collaborators I’d put Splashteam forward as a candidate. They understand what makes Nintendo great, but are willing to put a new spin on old ideas. In much the same way as Nintendo superimposed the Zelda universe into the Necrodancer formula with Cadence, or the Zelda universe (again) into Dynasty Warriors with Hyrule Warriors, they could do much the same with Mario and Pikmin for Tinykin.
Tinykin is a shining example of what can happen when you ask ‘what if’ - in this case, what if we took the Pikmin formula and gave the protagonist a few parkour lessons? By combining two old-school genres that turn out to complement each other perfectly, Tinykin forges an identity all its own. It owes Nintendo a lot but isn’t content to remain in its shadow.
