The Tiny Bang Story is the unfortunate, but incredibly entertaining, story of a cute, little, bite-sized world, it’s apathetic inhabitants and unnecessarily elaborate infrastructure, and a nasty meteor which wreaks havoc in the form of puzzles. (Instead of, ya know, mass extinction events.)

Tiny Planet, their home now in need of serious remodelling, is in chaos after the devastation wreaked upon it and their overly complex contraptions that power everything from the lights and elevators to their communications and, what can be best described as, their transportation system. Overcome the inhabitants’ surprisingly laissez-faire attitude and complete reluctance to fix their problems for themselves (come on people, we could use more details than just a hieroglyphic thought balloon) and restore order to a charmingly precious people and their adorable little planet.

The Tiny Bang Story is a puzzle adventure game for puzzle adventure game lovers. There are zero instructions, a shy hint button that requires efforts of its own just to unlock it’s availability and characters that communicate less than those in the Sunday comics section. Gameplay is more “point and collect”-oriented and reminiscent of Vectorpark’s Windosill and Levers or Machinarium. Games which, as a puzzle lover, I completely adore. Like those, The Tiny Bang Story throws you into the mix with nothing besides the scene itself. With no clue of even the goal, let along the next step, it’s a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by funny looking figures. The only thing left to do? Take two does of click madness and call me when you feel an “ooh, what’s this?” or a “hmm, i wonder what that does.”

Throughout four chapters, each containing multiple scenes, collect the scattered pieces of Seus-like contraptions to reassemble Tiny Planet and the lives of its few, devoted, quite friendly, yet incredibly apathetic inhabitants. Each chapter, prior to its exploration, requires some serious reconstruction; thankfully in the form of classic puzzle piece assembly. If you were so inclined to give up and attempt the use of the hint button, which does, unfortunately, exist, you’ll find it just as reluctant as the Tiny Planet inhabitants: it’s use requires the laborious collection of thirty “cute” bugs (as cute as bugs can be) which hover throughout the entire game.

But the greatest thing about The Tiny Bang Story, other than it’s amazing, hand drawn scenes and it’s compelling “come figure this out on your own” approach, is how the puzzles continue to increase in difficulty throughout the entire game. Finally, a game that doesn’t play to the lowest common dummy. (Oops, I mean, “denominator”.) Not to mention, it ends with a fully qualified plot resolution; a feature completely foreign to nearly all hidden object games.

Bottom line: The Tiny Bang Story is THE best puzzle adventure download game I have played to date. Period. I only wish it was longer and involved aliens that didn’t look like my Uncle Earl. (Perhaps teaming up with, I dunno, J. J. Abrams? Just spit-balling here.)

Hints

1. Collecting puzzle pieces will advance you to the next stage, which is the primary goal of each chapter, but not all pieces are required to move on. Regardless, you will receive all the necessary pieces for the intra-level Tiny Planet reassembly puzzle.
2. Every puzzle has a purpose, even if its not readily apparent when you complete it.
3. Chapter 3, Compass Puzzle: The line doesn’t have to be a perfect fit. If it takes more than 4 rotations, you’re doing it wrong (especially if you’re on 50+ rotations).
4. Chapter 3, Globe Puzzle. This one can be very tricky. Try to arrange one color at a time: first purple, then blue, then yellow pieces.
5. Each chapter ends with transportation to the next (train, plane, boat, etc). Make sure you’re ready to move on before you click on one of those; there’s no turning back!
6. The hint button, when loaded, doesn’t work if there is no hint to be given in the current scene.