Tiny: The Last Wayfinder

i really do feel like im a tiny guy exploring this alive subset of forest at the moment I'm pretty lost on where to go so I've been backtracking and getting a bearing on some things, and occasionally seeing a looming and frightening deer in the background an unreachable distance away

At the time of my review, I bet I could put at least another hour trying to collect everything, so 2-3h long. Tiny was a little bit of a nostalgic experience for me, it has brought me back to a time where games barely held your hand, and you only had maybe 5 games to play a year, so if you felt like playing games you PLAYED them. Trying to find any hidden secret by bumping into all the walls, see what's over there if you've never been before, see what happens if you do this different even thought it's your 5th playthrough. This game doesn't cater to the average modern player : it won't give you a quest log, or a map, and while I've gotten use to these comforts in my quest of completing my endless backlog of steam games and enjoying the task list checking.... I found myself being more observant, and more stubborn , asking myself "Can I go over here?" and what I'd normally accept as an invisible wall, got challenged.... because once or twice I got rewarded for trying or just accidentally going somewhere I didn't think I was supposed to. And then when I could see something just out of reach, I would spend at least 10 min grumbling at myself, cursing more and more trying to climb a CLEARLY unclimbable surface, attempting different angles or timings ... and just as I'd be about to admit defeat, I shimmied myself on this new platform, whether by luck or because the dev wanted, who knows.... but it felt like a win ! Bottom line... Tiny made me enjoy a simpler concept, imperfect in all its glory like our old classics dear to our hearts, and it didn't feel like a huge price tag to have a refreshing experience for a few hours. PROS - Cute, whimsy, atmospheric, quirky, bit more to it than first seems, to be played loosely (no bugs , that I know of?) I could definitely imagine a much bigger (see what I did there) world expanding from this. The art feels a bit stitched together but I found the characters , critters and environment to have some charm to them. CONS - Mainly what threw me off was inconsistent sound effects and atmosphere presence, the billboard trees at night that were hard to look at, and dying in the water without much warning or feedback. Some feedback, up to preference : - A few indicators of things accomplished in a menu would have been nice (Say icons or lists to say "Hey this happened!". Like a collection book/diary - Tiredness got old a bit quick, even if the goal is to make you look for food. Drains too fast maybe? - A few more landmarks or colour changes between areas would have helped differentiate zones and make better mental notes of the map - Not knowing how much the game has to offer , feel people would likely end up only playing half of it and conclude there isn't enough to do. Knowing how many glints exist for hats helps... but there's other stuff I bet people would too easily miss.