We were really very intrigued by Tin Hearts since its first announcement, a demonstration that promised not only basic puzzles, but also a constant increase in difficulty and mechanics throughout the story, and all within a very marked and touching narrative. We only got a taste of all this during Gamescom 2022 in Cologne last year in the corner dedicated to us by Wired Productions, but since the demo we tried, our confidence has only grown. Now that we have finally had the opportunity to test the complete product by hand, we are ready to tell you about the adorable Tin Hearts in our review.
The best toy maker in the country!
Tin Hearts is, as already said, a very particular title: in fact, this unites a very rich puzzle game in stile “Lemmings” (ma totally in 3D) to a particularly touching story, which combines fantasy, mystery, and many different emotions. We will impersonate a spiritthat of Albert J. Butterworth, a toy maker, inventor and very talented artist, as well as being a loving husband and father. With it, we will be able to take possession of the toys we find, in order to lead the marching tin soldiers – another of his creations – towards the finish line.
During the passage of the levels, we will live the story of Albert and his family in 4 atti, each one that will offer us a different setting, and with the mechanics – and the unpossessable objects – which will gradually increase. Obviously the first act is the one that will help us take our first steps in the game, which we will take inside Albert’s attic, where we will become familiar with our mechanical friends and more. Mind you that, although in this first phase the game may seem very simple, things start to get interesting from the second act onwardswhen the environments are totally different, they will not recycle often, and above all they will require some inventiveness as well as logic to be completed.
The settingslike the rooms of the house, the garden, the basement, little Rose’s bedroom, are extremely well-finished and recall a strong Victorian style mixed with fairytaleand it will be nothing short of a pleasure to get lost in the game levels while we try to solve the puzzles.
L’Albert’s office it will be our “headquarters”, where we will be able to return between one level and another, choose a level to replay, check the objectives achieved, and why not, browse a bit.
Storytelling in a puzzle game?
The question arises: How do you add a story being told in a puzzle game? With video interludes? With someone who speaks while you play? With characters that are inside the room while you solve puzzles? Exploring places by yourself guiding the character from room to room? Actually, it’s all of these put together.
One of the most inspired and certainly the most successful choices of Tin Hearts lies precisely in the way in which family events are told to us, with all these methods properly locked in within the gameplay, and which will help the player a lot empathize with the feelings and sensations of the charactersfrom Albert, to little Rose, up to his wife Helen.
Proceeding quickly, it can be seen how the plot, so particularly personal, comes in a certain sense masqueradewith the lovable setting and gameplay that they sweeten the pill even in the saddest moments.
We won’t go too far into the merits of the plot, because as it is now clear, this is an integral and indissoluble part of Tin Hearts, so we invite you to discover it for yourself by playing the title, which it definitely deserves.
Marching!
Coming to the juiciest part of Tin Hearts i.e. the gameplaywe would like to say that we are faced with one of the most pleasant and well-finished exponents of its kind ever. We’re not just talking about the complexity of the riddlesbut also of the construction of them, of intrinsic mechanics that we will have to exploit to our advantage and fish out of the hat every now and then, up to the already praised one care for the environment (which in game, will look like real postcards).
What mechanics are we talking about? Well, starting with that the rooms will be completely in 3D, and our character will move within them, we can say that from the beginning to the end of the game nothing will be taken for granted, and at the same time nothing will be unattainable. Starting from simple to move and rotate triangular blocks, we will arrive at use Albert’s increasingly complex inventionswhich we will exploit to our advantage and which will make us smile on more than one occasion.
Let’s not forget, however, that we are at the command of a spirit, and here (thankfully) they also come from ours ability to manipulate timeor of pause and “predict” the route that our toy soldiers will do in advance, and modify/adapt the route accordingly. Some gimmicks will be truly brilliant, as well some little goodies not bad (at some point you may even start a command one of your toy soldiers in third person – clearly with a specific purpose – while the others continue to march).
Eureka!
From a technical point of view we can easily promote Tin Hearts in the version we tested, that is the one on PC, especially praising in particular the adaptation of the several commands both on the keyboard and on the controller. Of course, we’re not saying it will be a walk in health, but given the large amount of commands to learn and manage, the key mapping in both cases was pleasant.
From a graphic point of view we have not witnessed any absurd problems, on the contrary, as we have said several times on a visual level Tin Hearts is a little gem … except for the polygonal models of human characterswhat well, they leave a lot to be desired. Also, in a couple of caseswhile we were with frozen weather, we witnessed gods frame rate drops extremes (about 10 fps on average), which then returned stable as soon as we restarted the toy soldiers.
We finish by saying that Tin Hearts enjoys a level audio compartmentwhere good voice acting still has to bow to one musical direction nothing short of perfect, which marries beautifully with what we see on the screen, as if audio and video were one.
