What ho, Lusipurr.com readers! May the blessings of the Bright Potato and his Buttery Disciples be with you this and every day. I am back and ready to assail you with more stimulating discussion about potatoes, The Sims, and Harvest Moon. Huzzah! We shall begin our writer/reader relationship anew today with a review of a game that I had intended to discuss on this week’s MAP, but had to duck out of the recording before we got around to Now Playing. Far be it for me to deprive our readers and listeners of any bang, great or small, so here is my review of The Tiny Bang Story.
This is not weeaboo BS
The Tiny Bang Story is a whimsical little point-and-click puzzle game from indie developer ColibriGames, and was released on Steam on April 22, 2011 and will be available for iOS and Android … someday. If it could be summed up in a single word it would be “cute”. Not uber kawaii weeaboo cute, or even “d’awwww lookit the widdle game!” kinda cute. It is quirky and fun, and is under no delusions that it is anything other than a charming little puzzle game. On the whole it is casual with just enough of a challenge in it to keep the player’s attention.
The basic premise of the game is that the world, aka “Tiny Planet” has been struck by a meteor and has broken into many conveniently puzzle-shaped pieces. The player must work their way through five chapters worth of pretty hand-painted levels, gathering items and solving puzzles along the way. After each chapter the player is awarded a jumble of jigsaw puzzle pieces which can be used to reconstruct part of the shattered planet.
The gameplay consists of a healthy mix of puzzle types. First the player must scour the world for little puzzle pieces which tend to blend into the scenery, and other miscellaneous items which are needed to activate various other puzzles. Here and there the player must also solve matching puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, arcade puzzles and just about any other puzzle you could imagine in a point-and-click format. The puzzles are on the whole fairly easy, but with such a variety of puzzles to work through, most players are likely to be stumped a time or two, as we all have our little weaknesses.
1 of 60 hand-painted screens.
The area in which The Tiny Bang Story excels, and offers enjoyment to players of all skill levels is the visuals. The game is, well, preeeeetty. It is completely hand-painted, which gives it a genuinely unique look. It also helps increase the difficulty level when it comes to locating the little objects one must collect, as they can be carefully shaded to blend ninja-like into the background. The game is painted in soft watercolors and is easy on the eyes, making for a rather relaxing, casual experience.
