Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 06/Feb 04:39

Tiny Biomes – Review

As much as we enjoy diving into sprawling RPGs or emotionally resonant visual novels, there is something to be said about the simplicity of a straight-up, no frills puzzle game. When a game like that sticks its landing, it effortlessly outpaces much bigger titles in terms of addictiveness. Developer Double Mizzlee’s latest title, Tiny Biomes, has the potential to be such a game, at least at first glance. Can the game cement itself beyond those first impressions though? Story We can be very brief here: there is no story in Tiny Biomes whatsoever. Graphics The titular biomes comprise a lush forest, a snowy tundra and a volcano. These serve as little more than palette swaps, however, as there is nothing that gives each biome its own identity, apart from the color of the flow you create and the backdrop. For a game titled Tiny Biomes, the stages feel strangely devoid of life too. While there is the occasional tree or rock on “empty” tiles, e.g. ones you can’t interact with, there are no animals or anything else of interest. Stylistically, Tiny Biomes goes for readability over realism, with clean outlines and a clutter-free interface. This isn’t the most demanding game either, of course, so it runs as smoothly as it should. That said, the game’s visuals become slightly fuzzy in handheld mode, though not distractingly so. Sound There is a mismatch between the chill and relaxing puzzle gameplay of Tiny Biomes and its overly dramatic soundtrack. We sincerely doubt that the music was written specifically for the game, as it simply doesn’t fit with the overall atmosphere. Adding insult to injury, the music is annoyingly repetitive, to the point that we rather quickly turned off the game’s audio completely. Not that we were missing a whole lot elsewhere. With no story or characters, there was no voice acting, and the game’s sound effects weren’t exactly something to write home about either. Gameplay Although Tiny Biomes boasts 150 puzzle stages, its gameplay doesn’t change at all over the course of the game. You’re presented with a set of tiles arranged in a grid. One of these tiles acts as a source of water, ice, or lava, depending on which biome you’re playing in. Other tiles act as end caps. Your goal is to rotate the tiles in such a way that the source tile is connected to every end cap, with the caveat that neither the source tile nor the end caps themselves can be rotated. Rotatable tiles appear in different varieties, from straight lines to curves and T- and X-crossings. Tiles can only be rotated in a single direction too, and each partial rotation counts as a full move: If you need to rotate a tile 270 degrees, you’re using up three moves. While there is no hard move limit, you’re scored between zero and three stars depending on how few moves it takes you to complete a puzzle, with fewer moves being better. Surprisingly enough, although the grids of each stage become bigger as you make your way through each biome, this doesn’t translate to more challenging puzzles. You can rotate individual tiles in any order, and it’s often a good idea to start not from the source tile but from one of the end caps. Regardless, Tiny Biomes is one of the easiest puzzle games we’ve ever played. We were able to get that coveted three-star score on the vast majority of levels on the first try. More than a few times, we didn’t get that score because we accidentally clicked a tile too many times and it took us a couple of moves to return it to its intended position. There were even instances where we could clear a puzzle without utilising every available tile! Even so, one thing that was sorely missing was an indicator that gave us a target number to work towards, as right now we had to guess. Some of the larger puzzles required upwards of 60 moves, and it was unclear how well we were doing until we got that three-star confirmation. While 150 stages may sound like a lot, it’s important to note that most of the early puzzles take no more than a couple of seconds to complete. This is something that repeats for each of the three biomes as well: every biome acts as its own set of 50 puzzles, complete with a credits screen when you finish one. The next biome starts from scratch again, with small grids gradually building to bigger ones. It took us around two hours to fully complete Tiny Biomes with three stars on each level. Additional modes would have been welcome here. Even something as simple as a mode that introduced a time limit would have added some much-needed longevity and replay value. Another idea would have been a mode that combined different biomes, where you’d need to create separate paths for different flows. Tiny Biomes doesn’t exactly break the bank with its €4.99 RRP, but the combination of a lack of real puzzle challenge and relatively little content still makes the game end up feeling overpriced. Conclusion Our initial impressions of Tiny Biomes were much, much better than what the actual game turned out to be. The tile-rotating puzzle concept isn’t the most original in the first place, but at least it had potential. Unfortunately, Tiny Biomes fails to capitalize on that potential. The gameplay doesn’t evolve throughout the game’s runtime, and there is no sense of challenge here. Add to this that the game’s presentation doesn’t add anything of value and you end up with a title that is fully functional but nothing more than that. As it stands, Tiny Biomes feels like a conceptual demo rather than a full-fledged puzzle game that belongs in your library.