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Expansive map, Nearly endless crafting, Beautiful pixel graphics
Difficult combat, Unclear instructions on gameplay and controls
The fantasy sandbox title Tinkertown made its debut on Switch last week, a little over a year since its PC release. Whether you like to game alone or with friends, this game is a place to build your own kingdom! The map features three themes; a mystical forest, an icy tundra, and an arid desert. The game centers heavily around collecting resources and crafting. You get to customize your character with various armor, and build your home with decorative items, all made by crafting. Other tasks include fishing, cooking, farming, and last but not least, fighting. There are ancient dungeons scattered around the map, filled with enemies to defeat and loot to plunder.
Going into Tinkertown wasn’t quite sure if I would have a good time, but after an hour or so I became pretty invested. I was less concerned with completing quests right away, and more interested in exploring the huge map. Pretty quickly I got lost in the game, figuring out the controls and how to craft items. I’m not sure if I didn’t read the NPC’s message closely enough or if they just didn’t tell me how exactly to collect certain resources, however, I could not find much clear direction even in the in game journal where you can access current and past quests. I was stuck on one quest for quite some time and decided to just look up a tutorial on how to craft an item I needed. I also had to do a bit of experimenting with buttons to figure out how to loot and place objects in the world.
The image above is how the game looks when you first start. In the top left corner, you can see your health and mana bars as well as a dial that shows the time of day it is currently. The bar in the top middle holds items in your inventory that you can hold and use using ZR, you can cycle through using R1 and L1. The top right corner has, from left to right, your journal (-) to view active and past quests, NPCs, monsters, collected items and achievements. Next to that is your full inventory (X) , and next to that is the map, (L). You can also view a small portion of the map in the bottom right hand corner. When you equip an item, you can attack or destroy things using ZR. The combat is another thing I found a little bit annoying, as you can’t just attack your enemies head on you have to kind of hit and then run away and repeat. The enemies also have a ton of health for being the first ones you face in the game. Admittedly I have not been able to clear the first dungeon due to this.
This is me after a couple days of playing, and I’ve barely reached the first dungeon and am now on my third attempt to clear it. I have some active quests on the left and my entire item bar at the top is full. I will say I love how detailed the map is, there is so much foliage and items all around s0 the map doesn’t feel empty. I also really love the concept of resource management and crafting items for myself. So far, every new resource I collect, I get a new recipe to craft along with it, making the crafting seem almost endless. I have not touched too much on it yet, as I only have a few crafting stations and not nearly enough resources to craft all that much other than some of the beginner items.
Being able to craft my own world, literally from the floor up, is so appealing to me. I get to build houses for different NPCs using their soul trinkets, and create essentially a village for everyone. I only have this one above complete so far, the Sage’s soul trinket visible in the middle of their little house, but I’m really excited to see the other characters and progress in this game. I did a lot of exploring alone the map and noticed that so far I can’t pass across water at all and there is also a barrier around part of the map. After completing the first dungeon, this barrier will disperse as far as the quest says, but I’m still stuck there for now so I can’t speak about the entire map, but the forest area has been really intriguing so far.
There are various little Goblin camps to raid, and a lot to see even despite the limitations. Also, almost any prop you see you can collect the item itself, such as a wall or a campfire, or destroy it and gain resources such as a tree turns into wood. I collected quite a few totem poles without meaning to so those are just scattered around for now.
Overall I think this game is so fun and expansive, I would love to play with friends so they could help me build and fight, but it is also kinda relaxing just playing alone. Especially now that cold, cozy weather is finally here, this game is perfect for a day off or night in to just get lost in. Let us know in the comments what you think!
Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard criteria.
