43 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
43 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "A Tiny Sticker Tale: Wholesome Scrapbooking"
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date: 2023-10-15T21:50:00+02:00
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score: 3
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game_release_year: 2023
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howlongtobeat_id: 129740
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howlongtobeat_hrs: 2.7
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game_name: "A Tiny Sticker Tale "
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game_developer: 'Ogre Pixel'
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game_genre: '2D Action/Adventure'
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tags:
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- wholesome
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---
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A peculiar donkey on a quest by boat clutching a sticker book is what convinced my wife to press the _Buy_ button on the Nintendo Switch eShop. We had little idea of what to expect, except for the sticker fest. _A Tiny Sticker Tale_ is more than that: it also tries to convey a wholesome message: be kind to others, persevere during hardships, and so forth. While I found that most messages were lost in translation, the game does an admirable job in trying to be more than a short scrapbook pasting adventure.
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In _A Tiny Sticker Tale_, you are on a quest initiated by your deceased father to become a better version of yourself by adventuring and helping others along the way. The verb _helping_ is usually translated into fetch quests ending in exchanged gratitude: help collecting five fish, can you carry me to the sea, where is my brother, I'm lonely and want a dog, ... Yet somehow these short hikes do not feel as cumbersome as your below-average RPG-esque fetch quest as it involves manipulating the environment---or even the NPC themselves---by pulling stuff to and from your sticker book.
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Most, but not all, objects you encounter can be pulled from their environment and put down somewhere else---by temporarily transforming the object into a sticker. This works not unlike in _Paper Mario: Sticker Star_, except that you won't need them to do battle, but to complete (very simple) puzzles. For example, if you collect trees and present them near the carpenter's hut, he'll convert them into furniture for your tent. If you manage to nag the sun and put it up in scenes where it's night, it'll suddenly be daytime which might reveal a secret. You can even pick up any NPC you encounter: some will help clear out roadblocks.
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The _Tiny_ island you're slowly uncovering is laid out in a `7x7` grid where roads, bridges, and underground tunnels connect each cell. As you make progress, shortcuts such as a drawbridge---or even a sticker-version of a bridge---can be unlocked, making the required traveling back and forth a bit less of a pain.
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As you pick up objects---I mean stickers, of course---your sticker collection will gradually grow. Apart from providing a lovely overview of collected stickers, this does next to nothing, but it's a nice way for completionists to prolong the game a little bit, plus it provides hints as to which secrets are yet to be discovered.
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The game's feeling reminded me of previous year's [TOEM](/games/switch/toem), a wholesome photo adventure that struck a chord here. TOEM's music, variety in level design, and emotional tones remain are unmatched, but in essence, _A Tiny Sticker Star_ does a good job evoking similar sentiments. If you're down and in need of a pick me up, but don't feel like endlessly retreading the same Animal Crossing-esque ground, give _Sticker Tale_ a whirl. Its three-hour-long duration plays as an advantage here, not overstaying its welcome as I did feel sticker fatigue lurking around the corner.
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The controls are perhaps the least interesting part of _A Tiny Sticker Tale_, especially when the game demands you to frequently navigate back and forth your sticker book for the 40th time using nothing but the analog sticks that clumsily move the pointer around. In addition, I frequently pressed `X` when I should have pressed `Y` or the other way around. Whether or not this was due to my inability to adapt to the control scheme or the game's that could have been mapped more naturally, I don't know, but it was annoying nonetheless.
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Personally, I didn't care for the presentation. The artwork feels overly simplified, its blandness has little going on, and is very static. I suppose this helps focusing on the essence of the game---the stickers---but again compared to _TOEM_, after finishing it, because of this and because of the arguably too low-key music, it felt like an ephemeral adventure instead of one that should permanently stick (ha!) to my memories. In other words, the game's general charm feels generic.
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Unlike _TOEM_, _Sticker Tale_ does not come with a journal log but since there were only a couple of instances where we weren't sure what to do next, it was hardly needed. One of the villages acts as a hint guide: if you "paste" her in the current scene, she'll drop a hint or two, helping you decide what to do next. I don't think we relied on that more than once, but it's there nonetheless.
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Even though we finished the game, we ended up going back to it to scour the island looking for secrets just because it was a lot of fun to do. That says a lot about the game as I'm usually not the type of gamer that does this. In the end, _A Tiny Sticker Tale_ is more than worth the three hours time you can put into it, despite the bland look and feel, and even though some of the more philosophical life lessons it awkwardly tries to tell you did not stick (another ha!) with me as a player long enough to contemplate on after shutting down the console.
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