Toby: The Secret Mine, A Very Well Made LIMBO-like Platformer

While I’m not usually a fan of platformers, my mind has somewhat been changed thanks to Broforce. Today I checked out Toby: The Secret Mine and came off feeling pretty good about it.

Disclosure: Key provided by the developer.

About the game
A challenging puzzle platformer inspired by games like Limbo or Nihilumbra.

A peaceful way of life in a small village in the mountains was thrown into disorder. Someone has kidnapped most of it’s residents. A couple of brave hearts tried to rescue their friends but none of them has returned. Little Toby didn’t want to just sit and wait so he decided to find them by himself. He went to the near deep forest but he soon realized this is just a beginning.

Go with Toby on an eerie adventure in a dark and creepy world full of dangerous situations, enemies and challenging puzzles.

My thoughts
For a platformer based around the shadows, it’s actually really well put together. The atmosphere in Toby: The Secret Mine is really quite fantastic. It’s very easy to create a rather bland game with visuals like this, but Toby has pulled off the look for sure.

I absolutely love seeing all the little flies and such buzzing around, and the little creatures running around. The world, while dark and mysterious, feels very much alive and full of wonder.

The puzzles aren't all that hard to figure out, but they are interesting and well put together. The key is to really take note of your surroundings, and the shadows that may conceal hidden areas. It has tripped me up a few times when I haven’t been observant enough, and gave me one of those “OH THERE!!” moments.

There’s a couple of jumps that have really aggravated me, but not in the way that puts me off the game. It’s very easy to miss-time a jump, and getting it all correct has given me a real sense of achievement here. What I really like about it, is if I miss-time a jump and full into something, I don’t have to start the entire level over again, so it really appeals to me that it’s keeping the frustration level down.

I’m really interested to find out who this shady looking character is that keeps putting all my friends in cages, and I want to stop him.

The only annoyance is the partial controller support, as it’s not supported properly in the menu it seems, other than that I’ve not had any issues.

Final thoughts: It’s very well put together, and a fantastic game to add to your platformer list.

Find Toby: The Secret Mine on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.