Game Check: Tin Hearts – Clockwork Soldiers on the Lost – News

What has green hair and walks stupidly into every abyss? Exactly, to these legendary ones lemmings I had to play by Tin Hearts from that of former fabulous-Developers founded Studio Rogue Sun often think. Because the wind-up soldiers, which you have to bring to the finish line safely in this 3D puzzle game, run into every abyss just as fearlessly as they do without thinking: from every table. Your most important task is therefore to redirect them with the help of various rotating building blocks and other Victorian-style toys. But you don’t have to pull out your set square, because the game is limited to right angles. This also applies when rotating the stones, some of which can be placed freely, others only in certain places at a given angle.

You often have to look for these building blocks in the room first, but they are not difficult to find. The next step is to identify the starting box and the exit door, prepare the beginning of the route mentally and by placing the first stones, and then let your soldiers run by opening the box of figures. For this check, I enjoyed myself a bit in the preview version.

If you pause the game, you will see the paths of your wind-up soldiers and can still move objects in pause mode.

Soldier by profession

One of the funniest features of the Lemmings was the job assignments. Unfortunately, this is not reflected in the game, only when you unlock new skills for yourself, a soldier remains at the respective box. Timing, which is so important and frustrating for the Lemmings, is also not an issue here, because not only can you pause the game at any time and manipulate the environment, you can even use one of these abilities to fast forward and rewind time and correct mistakes without spending a lot of time. Since the paths of your characters are also displayed when the time is stopped, you can prepare the path well in advance.

Other abilities include moving toy trains that replace the normal bricks with their building block on the trailer, or tilting drums to determine the target point of the soldiers jumping on them like on a trampoline. You can also aim small cannons and then trigger them by letting your soldiers run against the trigger. This allows you to shoot over some books or boards to clear the way for your characters.

Jack-in-the-Box is waiting to intercept your soldiers. Just in case: Rewind and plan a detour.

Few enemies, little action

In the 17 levels (out of about 40) playable in this trial version, which took me almost 2 hours to complete, there was only one type of enemy: Jack-in-the-box is patiently waiting for your soldiers to walk in front of his box, only to snap mercilessly. You can easily avoid this by simply redirecting. The robot spiders shown in the trailer, on the other hand, have not yet appeared, as have the children’s room or the outdoor area. Instead, you wander around in various offices in the first third of the game.

The game is accompanied by a (so far) simple plot about an inventor and his daughter, who you see as ghostly visions working and playing in the rooms again and again. If your soldiers walk over a letter, its contents will be read out.

The beta available for this check ran stably, but had given numerous incorrect key assignments in the tutorial overlays. However, these will certainly be corrected in the release version. The menu navigation is still a bit bumpy, but acceptable with a little getting used to.

The action is told in the game world through ghostly apparitions. At the front of the picture the soldiers are being equipped with balloons in order to overcome the abyss on the left by hovering.

Conclusion

Tin Hearts is visually and musically quite charming and the Lemmings bonds give hope for an exciting puzzle game. In fact, it kept me hooked at times, and almost every level has a new, fun invention to marvel at, like the balloon machine that lets your soldiers float over a chasm. Thanks to comfort functions such as fast forward, even impatient people can remain relaxed while pausing and rewinding to avoid a lot of frustration. Unfortunately, the claim also falls by the wayside, because Tin Hearts is far too easy even for occasional puzzlers. The sections to be completed can be a bit longer later, but due to the level design they are always obvious and can be solved without a lot of puzzling. Especially the stones that only fit in certain places make the game really child’s play. However, these could be overwhelmed by the 3D control. It remains to be seen whether the game will become more challenging as it progresses, but so far I would only recommend the game to a very limited extent – despite the nice ideas.

• 3D puzzle game for PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch
• single player
• For beginners
• Price: still unknown
• In one sentence: Cute, but far too easy 3D puzzle game with slight Lemmings bonds