Misc. A Tiny Tale Review

Little Robots, Big World

HIGH Buddy and Bag Boy are just too cute.

LOW Unimaginative use of an oversized world.

WTF The only surviving animals appear to be two miniscule cats who are real jerks.

If the machines eventually take over, I can only hope our new mechanical rulers are robots like Buddy and Bag Boy, the main characters of Misc. A Tiny Tale.

In the wake of humanity’s extinction, we have (unsurprisingly) left an assortment of junk and trash in our stead. Living amongst our refuse is a diminutive race of robots who have turned cans into homes and see couch cushions as mountain ranges. Late one evening, an explosion rocks their peaceful little world, prompting Buddy and Bag Boy (best friends forever, and the nicest little bots anyone could ever hope to meet) to venture out in search of its source — and, just maybe, learn a little something about themselves along the way.

Misc. A Tiny Tale is a third-person, 3D platformer with a heavy emphasis on collectibles. The challenge is light and there is no fail state. Buddy has just a handful of primary verbs, and most obstacles can be overcome with a standard double jump and glide.

Across its eight main stages, players are dropped into large, non-linear areas with the goal of uncovering the missing golden cogs necessary to open passage to the next level. Finding these is a matter of exploration and rendering aid to the local robot population. In addition to collecting the lost cogs, players are also asked to clean up the garbage and goo littering the world.

There is a general lack of complexity in Misc. A Tiny Tale, and most of the cogs are found through simple fetch quests. Others are tucked away behind basic platforming segments or awarded for cleaning up scattered garbage. I was disappointed that there was little evolution after the opening stages, and found myself repeating these same straightforward tasks in the final areas of Misc. A Tiny Tale.

As one could guess from the title, size plays an important role in Misc. A Tiny Tale.  The robots are rarely more than a couple of inches tall — blades of grass are jungle thickets, a coffee table is a towering mesa, and a child’s swing set becomes a colossus amidst the arid desert of the local playground.  Unfortunately, this sense of scale is rarely utilized in a meaningful way. 

Many of the stages take place outdoors, in natural environments lacking in a standard sense of relative size. Often, the oversized objects end up feeling like set dressing. Is the process of scaling a mound of dirt in a garden meaningfully different from climbing a mountain as a human-sized character? It wasn’t until the final stages, as I was bouldering up the side of a TV stand and running along the eye-level baseboards of a mammoth living room, that I began to truly feel how miniscule these robots are in relation to the human world.

For all the simplicity in its play, I was surprised to find myself hunting down every golden cog in each of the stages, something I attribute to how endeared I was by the characters and writing. I wasn’t anticipating being so emotionally invested in Buddy, Bag Boy, and the many friends they make along the way. Of particular note are the Bro Bots, a couple of workout-obsessed beetles that have a crush on one another but are too shy to admit it. Enter Buddy, matchmaker extraordinaire, to help break the ice. Moments like these ultimately overshadowed my disappointment with the core play and, after a surprisingly affecting late-stage turn (no spoilers here!) I was fully onboard with Buddy and Bag Boy’s odyssey across the tiny robot world.

Despite its lack of complexity and failure to capitalize on its oversized world, I found it easy to like Misc. A Tiny Tale. The chunky, expressive little automatons immediately drew me in, and its earnest narrative of self-acceptance and mutual aid proved a pleasant counterpoint to the ever-growing hellscape of the real world.  While these elements aren’t enough to propel Misc. A Tiny Tale into the annals of the genre giants it’s modeled after, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a smile on my face as I watched the credits roll over a saccharine song espousing the power of friendship.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Buy Misc. a Tiny Tale – PC – Switch

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Tinyware Games. It is currently available on Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Violence. This game is generally appropriate for all audiences.  The violence is minimal, with the only enemies in the game being wind-up toys, and the only weapon being a safety pin. There is no blood or gore.

Colorblind Modes: There are no specific colorblind modes available, however there is a high-contrast option for the dialogue boxes that appear during gameplay.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles for character dialogue, however there is an un-subtitled song that plays during a late-game cutscene with lyrics that are heavily referential to the narrative and themes. For this reason, this game is not fully accessible. Otherwise, the subtitles cannot be resized, although there is a high contrast option for the dialogue boxes that appear during gameplay. There are no significant audio cues utilized during gameplay, and I experienced no issues when playing without sound.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

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