The Pikmin-inspired platformer Tinykin was my favorite surprise of 2022, and I’ve eagerly awaited the next project from its developer, Splashteam. My wait came to an end in April when I attended an event hosted by publisher Dotemu in Paris, France, where I not only learned what Splashteam is cooking up next, but also played what is decidedly not Tinykin 2.
Acornia: Mirror Worlds shares the same visual aesthetic as Tinykin; it places beautiful, personality-filled 2D characters in a fully 3D world. The game also retains the “little person, big world” design, as it is set inside a snowglobe sitting in a bedroom; the implications of this are anyone’s guess. The comparisons end here, however.
The adventure stars a spunky squirrel named Alva who must defend her treetop home from a malevolent corruption overtaking it. The action game shares much in common with Kirby and twin-stick shooters, as Alva’s primary ability is sucking up anything not bolted to the ground into her massive cheeks (she’s a squirrel, after all) and firing it back at targets. She can store multiple objects in several quantities at once to unleash on targets in rapid-fire fashion, with players using the analog sticks to aim.
Every item, whether it’s various foods like fruits, building materials like stones and wood, or larger objects, deals varying degrees of damage. Even enemies can be sucked up and spat back at their allies for some forced friendly fire. You can cycle through each object much like selecting different types of ammo in a shooter, and it’s fun to pepper incoming threats using whatever is lying nearby. However, Acornia’s core lies in a mechanic that lets Alva explore an alternate, darker dimension.
Thanks to a magical mirror orb, Alva can freely enter a dark mirror world called the Duramen, which resembles her normal world but with key differences in layout. Jumping to the Duramen can be used to bypass obstacles in the “light” world, such as large roots blocking a road I encounter early in my demo. Entering the Duramen lets me access the literal roots of this problem and destroy them, removing them from the main world. The Duramen also hosts multiple dungeons that players will explore to defeat bosses and grab valuables used for the game’s other big mechanics: shopkeeping and town-building.
The multi-story tree can be improved to attract citizens and allow new shops to open. Alva herself runs a store, and fans of games like Moonlighter will find similarities to Acornia’s gameplay split of dungeon-crawling action and cozy shopkeeping. Alva’s store can be decorated by crafting furniture using materials gathered while exploring, and running the shop involves selling merchandise that appeals to certain customers. Moles love cherries, for example, and sentient happy logs will eagerly buy pistachios.
Acornia: Mirror Worlds isn’t what I expected from Splashteam, but it oozes much of the same charm and humor of Tinykin, and the gameplay I sampled was fun and varied. Even during my limited time playing, I could tell I only scratched the surface of what appears to be a deep gameplay loop. Splashteam already cracked one nut by doing Pikmin arguably better than Nintendo, so here’s hoping it can pull off the same in this multi-genre follow-up.
