One of the main enemies of mothers, but also a favorite of children – what is it? Okay, so it can be a lot of things, but when it comes to decorative elements? Of course, it’s the sticker, or deduction (who called it that year?). Anyone who hasn’t had their room plastered with these things should apply! As adults, we outgrow it, but even in this case, a flashier piece can be useful to make our laptop or the water bottle used in the gym unique and not blend in.
But the developers of A Tiny Sticker Tale stayed with the children’s projection – they put together such a charming little adventure game that stars the above little sticky paper stickers. The focus is on a boy named Flynn, who follows his father on the island of Figori with a magical sticker album he gave him. The little notebook is special in that we can “scratch” certain objects in the environment as stickers and stick them elsewhere. If you have to carry something to another location, that’s not an obstacle either, because we can stick it in the album temporarily, the only limitation is the limited space (we can’t take too many things with us).
The tasks are very simple, mostly we have to talk to the other characters and do some kind of favor or solve a task. Sometimes you have to fill a fish pond with new species, other times you have to build a bridge to the river (well, you also have to get the wood for it), maybe you have to accompany your grandmother to a long-desired vantage point, or you have to rescue a dear friend from the swamp, but how don’t miss out on the action, we can also blow up rocks. The things to do are quite diverse, sometimes even a few mini-games like archery or tennis add color to the palette.
The graphics are incredibly charming, they look a little like JRPGs, but in a pleasant children’s book design. The whole thing reminded me of the previously tested A Short Hike (but in 2D and without pixels), the atmosphere here is similarly relaxed, and making friends is one of the main themes. However, we also have a nemesis (well, not very bloodthirsty) in the form of a raccoon, who for some reason always crushes pepper under our noses and blocks our way with a roadblock. The terrain is not very large, it can be easily memorized, but after a while you will also get a map, and you can also use it to locate the stickers you already know in the album.
With its 2-4 hour length, A Tiny Sticker Tale provides entertainment for an evening or an afternoon, and although there is no dubbing, it is not so lacking due to the simple and short dialogues. The content is completely child-friendly, so the younger ones can get into it quite easily, and they may even be the target audience in addition to child-minded adults. And you don’t have to shell out much for all of this – roughly the price of a movie ticket.
The test copy was provided by the game developer.