Tinykin is a fast, springy, cute new platformer take on Pikmin

This game looks so smooth in motion

Pikmin 4 or no Pikmin 4, at least we got one promising new take on the creature-commanding action-strategy game concept at E3 2021. Tinykin showed up this weekend from TinyBuild, and it looks fantastic for fans who have wanted this sub-genre to blossom beyond Nintendo. Heck, I bet it’ll look great even if you haven’t ever played Pikmin.

Tinykin is a shrunken adventure from developer Splashteam in which a boy named Milo has to strategically chuck little creatures to get around a huge house.

Not unlike Pikmin, the Tinykin can group up to lug around objects, bust open doors, and even form a tower for you to climb up. There seems to be a greater emphasis on puzzle-platforming, and I appreciate just how fast Milo can zip around the world, to say nothing of traversal options like ziplines, a hovering bubble maneuver, and a skateboard.

This game got its start as “Sbirz,” and it’s planning a 2022 release on Steam. I’ll be following along! And if you haven’t heard of Splashteam before, the studio is best known for the platformer Splasher; before then, some of these folks worked on Rayman Origins.

There have been more than a few games at E3 2021 with a blended 3D-world-meets-2D-character art style, and I’m digging the trend.