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The Last Tinker: City of Colors
PC (Steam)
A Platformer Without a Jump Button?
3.5/5 stars
“The Last Tinker: City of Colors” (“Last Tinker”) is the first non-smartphone release by German Indie developer, Mimimi Productions. While Mimimi has previously released the type of puzzle and board games typical of the iOS ecosystem, “Last Tinker” represents a much greater effort on the developer’s part to create a game that is an actual experience rather than a throw-away distraction to be played in fits and spurts. Mimimi has described “Last Tinker’s” inspiration as coming from classic 3D Platformers, such as the ‘Jak & Daxter’ and ‘Banjo-Kazooie’ franchises. Since 3D Platformers are rare in the 7th and 8th Generations, and even rarer on PC – the initial platform for “Last Tinker’s” launch – anyone who has been pining for a new game in that genre would understandably be excited about a game that is commonly described as a ‘joyous platformer.’ Yet it turns out that the developers changed their minds mid-development and created a simplified ‘Zelda’-style Action/Adventure game instead.
Presentation
“Last Tinker” is a truly gorgeous game in all aspects of its presentation… except one. The graphics are vividly colorful, representing the titular City of Colors’ three primary hues, red, green, and blue. The environments are a mix of natural-looking rock and grass with artificial objects that look as though they were made from cardboard and paint, as is fitting for the game’s setting and backstory. Characters and enemies are well-animated and full of character as well. The main character’s color even fades as he takes damage, which is a clever use of visual cues within the gameplay itself. Unfortunately this main character, an ape-man named Koru, is absolutely hideous. I find him incredibly hard to look at, and am very disappointed that Mimimi didn’t go with one of the other Koru designs that can be viewed in the game’s unlockable concept art.
The audio is fantastic all-around. “Last Tinker’s” soundtrack is beautiful, without any superfluous or unpleasant tunes. While there is no voice ‘acting’ to speak of, all of the game’s characters ‘speak’ in the same type of gibberish that cartoony Platformer characters used to speak before console game storage media became spacious enough (and the budgets big enough) to contain full voicework. The squeaks and grunts emitted by the characters are great and add a lot of personality, especially to the relatively non-loquacious mushroom folk, Biggs and Bomber, who appear frequently and act as tools within the gameplay rather than static characters.
Aside from the main character’s hideous design, the only real flaw in “Last Tinker” isn’t really the developer’s fault. While the game does natively support Xinput controls, Microsoft made some slight change to the Xinput API for the XBONE controller that makes it different from the Xbox 360 controller. As a result of this change from Microsoft, an XBONE controller can’t be used to play “Last Tinker” due to uncorrectable leftward drift from the left analog stick. Mimimi could correct this by recompiling the game with the updated Xinput, but has expressed no interest in doing so.
Story
“Last Tinker” takes place in Tinkerworld, an imaginary land populated by ideas and built from simply materials like paper, paint, and glue. Tinkerworld is populated by a number of species of creatures, such as anthropomorphic lizards, obese bears, and turtle-rabbits, plus a number of one-off beasties, including our hero, the hideous ape-man Koru, and his sidekick, a small, flying sheep/goat named Tap.
Tinkerworld has seen better times however. The once-prosperous City of Colors that stands at the world’s center has been divided by color-coded racism, where citizens of the three primary colors of Tinkerworld – red, green, and blue – have cut off their districts from the Market and Outer districts (where Koru and Tap, as multi-colored creatures, live) and the production of ‘color’ (read: paint) has dropped precipitously. The mono-color citizens have increasingly adopted the more unseemly aspects of their colors – anger instead of bravery for reds, fear instead of curiosity for greens, and sadness instead of hope for blues – leading to three-way civil unrest.
During an event which traditionally served as a show of unity among the colors, Koru’s fried Tap gets injured. While despairing over how powerless he is to help his friend, Koru is visited in the night by the Purple Color Spirit. The Purple Spirit heals Tap and encourages Koru to come with him to the tower at the center of the City of Colors, as the fact that the citizens have forgotten Purple’s power of unity is the root of Tinkerworld’s troubles.
Of course, Purple is not entirely honest about the situation, and soon Koru and Purple inadvertently unleash a plague of white goo (we will not discuss what it looks like) upon the City of Colors called The Bleakness, which threatens to erase everything in Tinkerworld. It is up to Koru and Tap to unite the citizens of the City of Colors, track down the Red, Green, and Blue Color Spirits, break the Spirits out of their funk, and halt The Bleakness in its tracks.
For a short (10 hours or so), simple Platformer-inspired game, “Last Tinker” does a decent job of tackling heavy real-world issues (racism and depression) in a kid-friendly way. The supporting cast of Color Spirits have great personalities, both when depressed and after their rehabilitation, and there are enough fun narrative touches to keep players of all ages engaged.
Gameplay
While “Last Tinker” is emphatically inspired by 3D Platformers of days gone by, it is in no way a 3D Platformer itself. There is NO platforming whatsoever in “Last Tinker,” Hell, there isn’t even a jump button! Instead, “Last Tinker” is a very streamlined and simplified Action/Adventure game in the tradition of ‘The Legend of Zelda,’ or at least the 3D ‘Zelda’ games.
Koru starts the game with the ability to throw punches and run. If he is running when he comes to an edge, he will auto-jump off of it, hopefully onto a surface on the other side of a small gap. In certain stages, Koru also has the ability to grind on ‘rails’ (which are actually ropes) in a style reminiscent of the rail grinding in ‘Ratchet & Clank’ and “Psychonauts,” though significantly worse due to the horrible camera angles employed during these segments.
As the player progresses through the game and rescues the Color Spirits from their funks, Koru gains the ability to add color to his punches or throw blobs of color. By default the B button throws normal punches and performs combos with Red color, while the A button only becomes available upon unlocking Green color and the X button upon unlocking Blue color. These colors, in addition to dealing damage to Bleak enemies, each have special effects. An enemy hit with Green will run away from Koru, potentially committing suicide by running into spikes or into deep water. Likewise, an enemy hit with Blue will stop moving and weep for a while, completely defenseless.
In addition to their effects on enemies, colors also have effects when used on the friendly mushroom folk, Biggs and Bomber, who can be found in a number of stages. Biggs jumps up and down in anger when hit with Red, runs screaming (with Koru on his back) when hit with Green, and weeps out a tear that can re-colorize and eliminate Bleakness in an area around him when hit with Blue. Bomber (who really, really reminds me of a certain other MeltedJoystick staffer), on the other hand, explodes when hit with Red, runs screaming away from Koru when hit with Green, and sets off a minefield of tears when hit with Blue. These two mushrooms are used to solve the majority of the game’s puzzles, and are generally entertaining to work with.
The main problem with “Last Tinker’s” gameplay is simply the fact that it is an incredibly short, linear game, and is stage-based, rather than using a connected world in the style of most Action/Adventure games. It’s possible to revisit any stage at any time (in order to look for the game’s collectable, Floaty Brushes), but Koru doesn’t retain the use of Color Spirits unlocked later when replaying earlier stages. The fact that the game is relatively light on puzzles and heavy on combat doesn’t help matters, as the combat is really not particularly fun until the player has access to all three Color punches and their effects at the end of the game.
Overall
“The Last Tinker: City of Colors” is a beautiful game with a hideous hero that hearkens back to the days before grimdark and photorealism became the buzzwords for all game development. It’s a suitable game for both kids (who will likely enjoy the bright colors and squeaky characters) and adults (who are equipped to grasp the game’s underlying story elements), though it is rather short and focuses far too much on boring combat instead of clever puzzles. And it is definitely NOT a 3D Platformer!
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Overall (not an average): 3.5/5
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