System: Switch
Release date: July 22, 2025
Developer: Tinyware Games
Publisher: Tinyware Games
If ever there was a game that had intense trailer appeal, Misc, A Tiny Tale is it. Cute, miniature robots living happy-go-lucky lives in the ruins of human society? Check. Cozy item hunting to help out your robot pals? Check. A snarky, plastic cat that’s somehow obsessed with food. Check plus. The game practically sells itself. I took the plunge into this adorable world to see if the game lives up the hype.
First and most importantly, the game is just as cute as advertised. The graphics look just as good in motion as they do in the trailer, each level populated with quirky characters and increasingly humorous scenarios. The visuals won’t be blowing anyone’s mind, but they communicate the game’s post-apocalyptic, “reclaimed by nature” aesthetic perfectly. Each level is stuffed with oddball residents who each have their own problems, from dude bro body builders struggling with interpersonal issues to snooty socialites who just want to lounge on an oil-filled beach. The players is rewarded for each resident they help, receiving both tangible rewards in the form of currency and collectibles, as well as an inspiration mechanic that encourages residents to follow your lead in benevolence. In this way, the cutesy robotic world feeds into gameplay seamlessly.
From a story perspective, you follow a single mystery from level of level, looking for the origin of an disaster that left behind golden cogs (the aforementioned collectibles) all over the world. You must collect enough golden cogs in each level to repair the gateways between them, leading you directly into the path of each of the world’s residents. Our three primary characters on this adventure are Buddy, the player, Bag Boy, his misunderstood best friend, and Bag Boy’s cat, Flick. The interplay between the three is a constant throughout the story, driving both the humor and emotional center of the story.
The humor is, however, one place where the game falls a bit short of its advertising. The game is dripping with charm, but many of the individual jokes fail to land as the developers intend. The dialogue just isn’t written sharply enough or with the level of ridiculousness you’re expecting. If I didn’t know game was developed by native English speakers, I would have guessed that the jokes were suffering from wooden translation.
This one flaw aside, this cozy adventure game still offers excellent characters and gameplay. Each level comes with a variety of objectives. Every level has a series of smaller items to collect, random junk left behind by the disaster which struck the robot world. The junk collected can be turned in to a recycling robot for currency, which can be spent for quest items and equipment at the local store. Players are encouraged to platform and explore each self-contained area for all the items they can find, discovering hidden nooks and crannies all over. The controls are tight and challenges well designed, starting out fairly simple and steadily increasing with difficulty as you progress to each new area.
My personal favorite challenges are provided in underground sublevels, hosted by a raccoon who appears once each level. These are pure platforming gauntlets, each one playing with specific aspects of the game’s physics engine and rewarding persistent players with a unique collectible each time. With each new level, I found myself eager to locate the raccoon and see what he had in store. Not only did they provide a dose of extra challenge, but they also permit you to experiment with the limits of Buddy’s increasing arsenal of platforming tools.
The biggest advantage to cozy games like this is the modest difficulty, which makes full clearing levels feel less like a chore and more like a reasonable challenge. The fact that many quests reward you with additional interactions with the game’s lovable robots. In that way, Misc, A Tiny Tale ends up being an excellent palate cleanser game with broad appeal.
While this indie title is far from perfect, it handily accomplishes its goal of being a cute, humorous, and accessible platformer. If anyone’s looking for a cozy adventure in a literal (and figurative) tiny package, you can’t go wrong with Misc. A Tiny Tale.
Misc. A Tiny Tale copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.
