Tiny Echo is a wordless point & click game set in an ethereal realm. Your job is simple – deliver messages to the spirits. The art is absolutely gorgeous and I can see an ode to the Shelter series, which was also a project of the Might and Delight developers. However… the pace is just too slow. The only story is what you make of it as there is no dialogue or reading to give you any hints. This was not the game for me, but if you like very slow-paced, easy and ambiguous narratives with a gorgeous setting, you may think differently.


Pros

• Gorgeous backgrounds & art

Cons

• Extremely slow pace with walking, animations etc
  
• Ambiguous story where everything is obtuse
  
• Clunky controls, difficult to see where to go and control the camera
  
• Price is quite high for a roughly 1-2 hour game ($AU21.95)

I tend to review wholesome, puzzle, horror and narrative-driven games. If that sounds up your alley, please feel free to check out my curator page Cookie Reviews.

The narrative in Tiny Echo is wordless and is very much up to each player to deduce. Personally, I do not prefer these titles so I may have a slight bias already, however there are many in the past that I’ve still been able to enjoy. Yet, Tiny Echo was not one of them and really just drops you into the game and you have no idea what’s going on, where you are, what you are, what are the letters for that you need to deliver etc etc.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413999930

The ambience is peaceful and calming but I was just confused, looking, hoping for some form of context that just never came. As stated in the introduction, if you like these types of “unknown” games, where you get to craft the story and do not mind a story without explicit context, this may not be an issue for you.


You explore a small, maze-like area to deliver letters to spirits (I think they’re spirits). A few puzzles here and there but they’re mostly solved by just clicking on everything.

You cannot fast-walk anywhere by double clicking and the walking speed felt extremely slow. Animations overstay their welcome and linger for much longer than seemingly needed. My cursor would often disappear when I would hover it over anything but the designated path. I do not believe there is a button that highlights hotspots so I resulted in just clicking on everything. Holding right click to move the camera was met with annoyance, as often the camera would keep panning back to where my character was, or I couldn’t pan further away. Moving the camera around was also the only way that exits were highlighted and it was a bit tricky to locate these without the arrows, only adding to my frustrations.

The background art is absolutely stunning, just like the Shelter series and was by far, the most enjoyable element of the game for me.

Audio is minimal, with a few ambient sounds and little chirps from the characters.

This game was played using a mouse only, and with the following PC specs.:
AMD Ryzen R5 7600x 5.4 GHz
32GB DDR5 5200 CL36 RAM
Radeon RX 6800 XT
2560x1440 resolution
NVMe 3.0 SSD
Windows 10

Tiny Echo’s world appears lovingly crafted with impeccable artistic skill, however the narrative and gameplay itself was far too boring and slow to be enjoyable for me. The environmental storytelling was also not as fleshed out as I would have liked, with most concepts still keeping players in the dark. However, with the game being at such a slow pace and on the more expensive side for what it offers, I cannot recommend this game.

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Tiny Echo is a wordless point & click game set in an ethereal realm. Your job is simple – deliver messages to the spirits. The art is absolutely gorgeous and I can see an ode to the Shelter series, which was also a project of the [i]Might and Delight [/i] developers. However… the pace is just too slow. The only story is what you make of it as there is no dialogue or reading to give you any hints. This was not the game for me, but if you like very slow-paced, easy and ambiguous narratives with a gorgeous setting, you may think differently. [b] [u]Pros[/u] [/b] [list] [*] Gorgeous backgrounds & art [/list] [b] [u]Cons[/u] [/b] [list] [*] Extremely slow pace with walking, animations etc [*] Ambiguous story where everything is obtuse [*] Clunky controls, difficult to see where to go and control the camera [*] Price is quite high for a roughly 1-2 hour game ($AU21.95) [/list] [quote] I tend to review wholesome, puzzle, horror and narrative-driven games. If that sounds up your alley, please feel free to check out my curator page [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34936724/] Cookie Reviews[/url]. [/quote] [h1]Story[/h1] The narrative in Tiny Echo is wordless and is very much up to each player to deduce. Personally, I do not prefer these titles so I may have a slight bias already, however there are many in the past that I’ve still been able to enjoy. Yet, Tiny Echo was not one of them and really just drops you into the game and you have no idea what’s going on, where you are, what you are, what are the letters for that you need to deliver etc etc. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413999930 The ambience is peaceful and calming but I was just confused, looking, hoping for some form of context that just never came. As stated in the introduction, if you like these types of “unknown” games, where you get to craft the story and do not mind a story without explicit context, this may not be an issue for you. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] You explore a small, maze-like area to deliver letters to spirits (I think they’re spirits). A few puzzles here and there but they’re mostly solved by just clicking on everything. You cannot fast-walk anywhere by double clicking and the walking speed felt extremely slow. Animations overstay their welcome and linger for much longer than seemingly needed. My cursor would often disappear when I would hover it over anything but the designated path. I do not believe there is a button that highlights hotspots so I resulted in just clicking on everything. Holding right click to move the camera was met with annoyance, as often the camera would keep panning back to where my character was, or I couldn’t pan further away. Moving the camera around was also the only way that exits were highlighted and it was a bit tricky to locate these without the arrows, only adding to my frustrations. [h1]Visuals & Sound[/h1] The background art is absolutely stunning, just like the Shelter series and was by far, the most enjoyable element of the game for me. Audio is minimal, with a few ambient sounds and little chirps from the characters. [h1]Technical & Stats [/h1] [quote][b]This game was played using a mouse only, and with the following PC specs.:[/b] AMD Ryzen R5 7600x 5.4 GHz 32GB DDR5 5200 CL36 RAM Radeon RX 6800 XT 2560x1440 resolution NVMe 3.0 SSD Windows 10[/quote] [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Tiny Echo’s world appears lovingly crafted with impeccable artistic skill, however the narrative and gameplay itself was far too boring and slow to be enjoyable for me. The environmental storytelling was also not as fleshed out as I would have liked, with most concepts still keeping players in the dark. However, with the game being at such a slow pace and on the more expensive side for what it offers, I cannot recommend this game. [quote] Follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/] [b]IndieGems[/b][/url] if you enjoyed this review and wish to see more like it[/quote]