Tiny Lands

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Included in Tiny Lands & Not Not – A Brain Buster, along with Not Not – A Brain Buster.)

Tiny Lands is a family-friendly Puzzle game released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2021. This game is a take on a “spot the differences”-style Puzzle, with players presented with a series of paired 3D dioramas they must scrutinize, each of which contains five differences from its twin.

Tiny Lands isn’t much to look at – its dioramas are generally pleasant, but presented with very low-poly characters and environments. This may make it easier to spot differences, but nevertheless looks less impressive. At the very least these dioramas feature some decent lighting and shadow effects, though nothing truly remarkable. The sound is another story here, with some nice, calming piano music joined by some very nice environmental noises. Again, nothing truly groundbreaking, but here at least the sound truly helps to build a relaxed experience that’s very conducive to the gameplay.

As for that gameplay, players are always presented with two (almost) identical scenes, regardless of where they move the camera. Players can rotate and zoom that camera, pan to the left or right, and select the part of the diorama they believe to be one of the discrepancies… and that’s about it. Unfortunately, the freedom to move the camera is fairly limited, and players may find themselves a bit frustrated that they can’t make it go where they want it to.

I should note that the gamepad controls work fine, and there are also touchscreen controls, although these are fairly useless for navigating menus and moving the camera – the touchscreen is only really useful in selecting one of the differences.

And… that’s about it. There are by my estimate about 80 dioramas to parse through, and the gameplay is… pretty much what you would expect for this sort of game. Tiny Lands isn’t a game that’s revolutionizing anything, nor will it truly wow anyone with its visuals (though its sound is quite nice). But if you’re looking for a decent “spot the differences”-style game on Nintendo Switch, this will likely satisfy that craving.

tl;dr – Tiny Lands is a family-friendly “spot the differences”-style Puzzle game where players scrutinize pairs of 3D dioramas looking for differences. The graphics are somewhat simple, but the sound design is wonderfully calm and relaxing. The camera is not as interactive as one would like, but it’s sufficient. Beyond that… this is a decent but largely unremarkable “spot the differences” game.

Grade: C+

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