The Tiny Bang Story

Hidden object games came a long way. I recall how shallow they used to be early on - for my Mom's a big fan of the genre and I witnessed the evolution of it second hand. Terrors from the deep, for exaple has an intricate - albeit not expertly told - story, aimed specifically toawrds the "mom"' demographic. Well done! This one's on the other hand... well, even the title is only third-way true. This is a tiny game, but there's no story to speak of and while it starts with a tiny >poof<, it only goes out with a whimper. The "plot" is that this little planet fell apart into puzzle pieces and you have to put it back together. You obtain these pieces on beautifully painted, little, multiscreen areas (though if everything went bang, I don't know how this works). While the art style is charming, the places are curiously devoid of life. These adorable little characters you see on the screencaps are merely bio-scenery, they tell you exactly one clue for one puzzle they sit next to, and that's all there is to them. Tha game mainly cosnist of you looking for puzzle pieces and objects to open up other areas to look for some more puzzle pieces. They tried to vary it up by you have to build machines and such, but 80% of the playthrough is still just pixel hunting. There are occasional puzzles thrown in which are very welcome, but they're also very easy (only once had I use a clue, and it only confused me). I think the developers tried to follow Amanita's design, but the world, story and characters they created are just hollow and uninteresting. Nothing feel accomplished in the end. Once you beat the game, you're greeted with a screen where all these "colorful characters" sit together (the same way the did apart in the game), and you're allowed to chose to solve all the puzzles in the game again at your leisure. I guess this might be a fun distraction for young kids on a tablet during a long roadtrip, where even Grandma can help them through the "harder" parts. That's it.

Lovely artwork and challenging but logical puzzles. You don't appear to need to find all the puzzle pieces to progress though which may be a bug but it's still an enjoyable little distraction.

Mini games are annoying

That's a really nice game for what it's supposed to be: a hidden object game with puzzles. Graphics and music are great and the puzzles are generally good, although some are typical in this kind of games and a couple are a bit on the nasty side. The lack of a decent story is the weak point, as well as the ending which doesn't offer a satisfaction to the player. Overall recommended for a nice break over the weekend with your kids or alone.

Need to do extensive online research as the hints do not work, showing absolutely nothing often even when there are residual clues to be found. Otherwise is quite nice. Would be nice to have rather less flies collected for a hint - anyone who wants a hint is not going to want to spend 20 minutes of clicking for each one.