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| | Genre: Puzzle & Trivia | | Min OS X: 10.4  CPU: Intel RAM: 512 MB Hard Disk: 180 MB Graphics: 1024x768 |
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The Tiny Bang Story
June 21, 2011 | Ted Bade | |
The Tiny Bang Story from Colibri Games is a short yet sweet puzzle game with a dynamic music track. It takes place in a spectacular fantasy world with unique machines, a smattering of technology, and a landscape rich in color and imagination. Playing is more an experience then a pastime.In this game you will need to solve many puzzles, from locating pieces necessary to unlock more complex puzzles, to a game of “simon”, a real puzzle with puzzle shaped pieces (or a broken image without traditional puzzle pieces), then to complex flow diagrams (align the pipes to allow fluid to flow correctly), and more. There are even some puzzles modeled after old 8-bit graphic arcade games! As a general rule areas start with simple, find the object tasks. While find the object puzzles can be easy, the Tiny Bang Story developers manage to hide these pieces by making them appear to be part of the environment. After the objects are found, you are presented with a more complex puzzle to solve. Solving the more complex puzzle often allows access to a new area making available even more puzzles. Although you can do all the tasks you locate in any order, often you need to accomplish one task to acquire an item needed in another task or to open an area that might contain other items. Most of the puzzles are straight forward, although sometimes it might not be immediately clear what is expected to complete the puzzle. If you search, there are clues to help understand the goal of more complex ones. As you play, you can collect flying bugs. Collect enough to fill a bubble and the hints are available. They are limited and will expose one item, so only use it if you are really stuck, unless you want to spent a lot of time collecting bugs. Most of the complex puzzles include an image you access by clicking on the help icon, which gives a hint about what is needed in the puzzle. Still, there were some puzzles that I didn’t see the “trick” to solving. However, the possible combinations to solve them are far from infinite, so trying all possible combinations until the correct one was hit is the dullard’s easy solution! When the game starts, you watch the tiny world of the Tiny Bang Story fall apart into puzzle pieces. Each chapter of this game includes the task of finding the world puzzle pieces, so the world can be put back together. At the end of each section of the game, you have to place the pieces where they belong, to rebuild the world. The pieces are placed on a screen with a dimmed image of the world as a backdrop, giving you some idea of where they need to go. The environment of Tiny Bang Story is very interactive. Moving the cursor on the screen will cause strings to sway and bugs to skitter away. Clicking on objects will often reveal a task, cause some effect, or open an area to search for items. Also, after completing certain tasks, the environment changes, new objects appear, doors become unlocked, and so forth. While game play is pretty good, it is important to point out that this game is a real work of art. The combination of the scenery, the machinations and objects and colors in the scenes, and the powerful and very melodious music track makes you feel you are not just playing a game, but experiencing a truly wonderful piece of art. Perhaps I am unique in my enjoyment of the artistry of games. I hope not. The biggest problem with this game is that it is so short. I managed to complete the game in only a few hours. But it is priced as a small game and I believe it is worth the fee, just to experience the artistry. If you enjoyed the more complex puzzles in the game, they all become available to select to play again. When you reach the end of the game, there is a grid showing an icon for each puzzle and providing access to try them again. Tiny Bang Story is a cute, short game that offers an imaginative environment, puzzles to solve, and a music track that pulls you into this fantastic world. It is enjoyable to play, and even more enjoyable to experience. It is worth the investment of a few gaming dollars. Pros: • Beautiful scenery
• Powerful soundtrack
• Varied puzzle typesCons: • The game only lasts a few hours
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