"TinyKeep is a single-player historical role-playing game with ingenious gameplay and masterful graphics. Players, starting as a freed prisoner, must escape a procedurally generated dungeon filled with monsters and traps. Survival requires strategy and stealth, using the environment to outsmart enemies and progress through the dungeon. With permadeath and randomized layouts, each playthrough is a unique challenge."
The game features charming graphics and a cute art style that enhances the overall experience.
The gameplay is fast-paced and engaging, with opportunities to use the environment and traps to your advantage.
Randomly generated dungeons provide a fresh experience with each playthrough, keeping the game interesting.
The controls can feel unresponsive and clunky, making combat and navigation frustrating at times.
Permadeath can lead to repetitive gameplay, as players must restart from the beginning after dying, which can be tedious.
Limited variety in enemies and upgrades can make the game feel shallow and less rewarding over time.
gameplay
172 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
64%
9%
The gameplay of this title has received mixed reviews, with many players criticizing its repetitive mechanics, clunky controls, and lack of depth, leading to a shallow experience. While some appreciate the simple hack-and-slash elements and the potential for replayability, others find the randomized dungeons uninspired and the overall gameplay loop tedious. Despite its charming graphics and occasional fun moments, the game struggles to maintain engagement over longer play sessions, making it more suitable for short bursts rather than extended gameplay.
“At the beginning, the gameplay seemed fun and challenging with nice graphics.”
“The gameplay itself is surprisingly good for its simplicity.”
“The core game is very solid, with attractive graphics, fast-paced gameplay that's just challenging enough to keep it interesting, traps and monster AI just complex enough to be both dangerous and useful, a pleasant soundtrack, and engaging voice acting.”
“Gameplay loop is block, attack, stutter, killed during framedrop, restart.”
“There are numerous tiny annoyances that make gameplay unpleasant, notably the jarring camera rotation speed, the too-small drops from lazily-designed enemies, the samey environments, simplistic gameplay, clunky controls that make avoiding or getting free from traps a chore. There are no interesting features to justify plodding through randomized brown mazes.”
“Unfortunately, the gameplay fails to match up in my opinion.”
graphics
128 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
52%
3%
The graphics of the game are generally described as cute and charming, with a distinct art style that appeals to many players. However, some reviews note that the visuals can be basic and lack polish, with issues like minor texture tearing and jerky controls affecting the overall experience. While the graphics are often praised for their fun and cartoony aesthetic, they may not be enough to compensate for gameplay shortcomings.
“Love the art style and it's a lot of fun to explore the dungeons and find all the easter eggs while leveling up.”
“The art style is unique, the environments and enemies are very cool and well-animated.”
“The graphics are cute, and the models are fairly simple, but the lighting and textures fit perfectly - the graphical style fits the gameplay very well, in my opinion.”
“The graphics are fairly basic and the physics behind controlling the character are a bit wonky, but otherwise this is a decent enough game.”
“No hero progress, no level tree, no inventory, a lacking map, dull graphics, and uninspired enemies.”
“Having only resolution and 'graphics quality: good, bad, best' options for a PC game is pitiful.”
story
50 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
16%
78%
6%
The game's story is presented through extensive text walls and revolves around a short narrative of escaping a dungeon with a cellmate, but lacks depth and engagement, leading to a repetitive experience. While some players find the interactions with characters like Maggie immersive and the voice acting decent, many criticize the plot for being weak and the overall gameplay for becoming stale quickly. The procedurally generated levels do not significantly enhance the story, which often feels secondary to the hack-and-slash mechanics.
“Solid plot that got my head right in the game.”
“The story is so immersive I swear I thought I was actually my character and when my head got impaled by a huge spike for the 10th time and I took 1 damage I swear I really felt my character's mild discomfort. Also, your best friend Maggie is there for you the whole game giving you all sorts of useful advice like how to beat the fiery bat demon while you're questing through the great plains, and you feel like she's a real person when you're talking to her while at base camp with all your other companions that you freed from the prison at the start of the game.”
“A dungeon crawler with randomly generated maps, you play the part of a prisoner who apparently sleeps so deeply that his cellmate, one 'Maggie', decided to abandon him and leave a load of (somehow voiced) notes around the place to tell the story and help you out.”
“The general story of the game itself is quite short.”
“There is almost nothing to keep you engaged in the environment, and that includes the weak story that exists.”
“And although the levels are randomly generated, the story (and thus the objective of each level) remains the same and starts to get stale pretty quickly.”
music
26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
54%
34%
12%
The music in the game is generally well-received, with many reviewers noting that it fits the environment and enhances the gameplay experience without being intrusive. While some describe the soundtrack as pleasant and engaging, others feel it lacks uniqueness, rating it as average. Overall, the music complements the whimsical and adventurous tone of the game, contributing positively to the overall atmosphere.
“The music is also fitting to the environment and the action levels.”
“Also has an engaging soundtrack with music that suits each level environment and doesn't disturb the feel and excitement you get from leading pea-brained enemies into traps.”
“Music (wonderfully appropriate music for 'adventuring')”
“The music score isn't anything special either.”
“Okay music.”
“There is a music volume slider available.”
replayability
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
45%
13%
The game's replayability is a mixed bag, with some players finding it enjoyable due to random dungeon generation and fast-paced gameplay, while others criticize it for lacking variety and depth, leading to a short-lived experience. Many agree that while it can be fun for a brief period, it ultimately falls short of providing substantial replay value, with ratings ranging from 2.5/5 to claims of "meh" replayability. Overall, it may be worth playing, but potential buyers are advised to consider waiting for a sale if they don't plan to replay.
“As aforementioned, there are a number of reasons replaying won't get old; the dungeons do change upon replayability.”
“It's still a good game to waste some time, and the random generation keeps a little bit of replayability.”
“This is a great wake-me-up game; fast-paced, replayable, and can be completed in an hour.”
“Imho an 'okay' game, but I do not recommend it: it aims for replayability (rogue-like), but falls short on providing enough fun, variety, or something new when entering the same-looking dungeons over and over again.”
“The replay value is naught.”
“First and foremost, this game doesn't have much replayability.”
humor
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is characterized by its dark, quirky charm and a lighthearted approach that keeps the tone playful despite the themes of death and chaos. Players appreciate the clever writing, including amusing character interactions and funny sound effects, which contribute to an entertaining experience reminiscent of indie games. Overall, the game is praised for its ability to blend humor with engaging gameplay, making it a standout in the roguelike genre.
“I like the humor of the game and how it doesn't take itself seriously.”
“Punctuating the journey at various points are events which offer a humorous welcome break from the endless death and skeleton macaroni soup that you are helping to create.”
“It provides hours of entertainment, it's funny, you kill lots of really annoying things that sound like The Sims, and your best friend is Scottish!”
grinding
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be excessively tedious, often feeling like a chore as they collect gold from enemies, which can be hindered by ragdoll physics. The need to grind for upgrades and the trade-off between increased difficulty and boredom detracts from the overall experience, with some players noting that farming mechanics can disrupt game balance. Overall, the grinding is perceived as a monotonous task rather than an engaging challenge.
“My biggest gripe was that it felt insanely tedious to collect gold from every enemy, especially when other bodies ragdolled, preventing you from moving around the room easily.”
“Starting the game from the first level is a boring chore, grinding and collecting every single coin waiting to have enough to activate some altars, while resuming at successive levels makes the game harder, so the game turns into a kind of trade-off between unfair difficulty and boredom.”
“Finally, one of the last problems is that 'farming' exists, which essentially completely breaks the game.”
atmosphere
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
50%
17%
The game's atmosphere is highly praised, with users highlighting the effective use of voice acting, sound effects, and amusing quotes that enhance immersion. The inclusion of a compass in the HUD is noted as a practical feature that complements the overall atmosphere, allowing players to focus on gameplay without distraction.
“It reinforces the atmosphere, and you don't spend time reading instead of running.”
“Great voice overs, acting, and sound effects create a fantastic atmosphere.”
“Amusing quotes and many nice atmospheric touches.”
“It reinforces the atmosphere and you don't spend time reading instead of running.”
“Thankfully you have a compass for this sort of thing in your HUD, and while it makes keeping track of where health potions and the like are sitting around that you'll probably need to run back to later as you run into more enemies, it adds to the atmosphere of this game.”
stability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Overall, players report a generally stable experience with minimal major glitches or hang-ups, allowing for enjoyable gameplay. However, some users have noted minor annoyances and occasional glitches that detract from the overall stability.
“It is important to point out some annoyances and glitches I've seen as well.”
“As for the environment, I would not describe it as buggy.”
character development
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
33%
Reviewers consistently praise the character development for its charming art style and design, highlighting the quality of voice acting and sound effects that enhance the overall experience. The combination of these elements contributes to a visually appealing and engaging portrayal of characters.
“Everything about it is charming from the art style, character design, great voice overs and acting, and sound effects.”
“The character design is charming as hell.”
“Beautiful gameplay and character design, love it!”
optimization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's optimization has been criticized for causing stuttering issues, which detracts from the overall experience. Some users feel that the limited gameplay combined with these performance problems would be more frustrating if not for the low price point.
“I was lucky to get it for $2.75 CAD, or otherwise I'd be a lot more annoyed at how limited this game is, along with the stuttering problem.”