A Terrifically-Tuned Time!
HIGH This may be some of the best game-feel of the decade.
LOW Honestly, the soccer minigame kinda sucks.
WTF Feeding your pet fish… fish-fries.
Have you ever pressed a button in a game and felt genuine joy from the act? Nothing is accomplished, there’s no end achieved, yet it’s so satisfying? That’s Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip for me, time and again. It’s bright, colorful, and just the right level of eccentric.
The story centers on the titular Terry trying to drive to space to become famous. In order to do so, he takes a job as a taxi driver and… then never does his job, yet his boss continues to happily upgrade his taxi as he collects “SUPER JUNK” that improves his car’s boost meter. Why is he doing all this? Because his parents decided to punish him for not doing well in school. I think it’s fair to say he doesn’t really get the point of the ‘punishment’ as he meanders about the island.
Along the way, players get to know all of the island’s inhabitants, some of whom are even more unhinged than Terry. Every conversation is bursting with personality, feeling like a classic cartoon brought to life. I loved it when they let me choose Terry’s punchlines, as there’s some truly outrageous responses. There’s some hilarious satire as well, from the world’s most ethical criminal to panicking government employees and a pair of exhausted small business owners grappling with the consequences of Terry’s chaos.
Okay, so it’s funny and over the top, but what is it? Well, at its core, Tiny Terry is a 3D platformer… yet it also isn’t. Players aren’t going to just run around gathering up loose bits of trash. To gather up all the junk necessary to upgrade Terry’s car, there’s an absolute litany of minigames that turn the game on its head. Even Terry’s various tools, like a bug catcher, shovel, and lead pipe serve multiple purposes, either for movement or completing quests. The entire experience is sheer spontaneity.
There is an open world island to explore, with sandboxy elements, but regardless of the chaos Terry causes, it’s not a kid-friendly crime sandbox game either. It’s an inherently amorphous experience where players find the fun through sheer novelty and variety of tasks. Death isn’t a concern either — the worst that can happen is losing some of Terry’s cash, which is easily replenished through quests and scavenging for buried treasure with a shovel.
One minute, Terry’s freely navigating the 3D world to hunt down chimes for an arthaus mushroom sculpture. In the blink of an eye, he’s in an isometric soccer game, smacking his opponents aside without penalty. There’s a dedicated questline about dueling Terry’s rival in top-down bumper car combat, and these are just a few examples.
In the span of the six hours I played, I robbed crabs, helped a failing restaurant, tried to convince a man that he was literally on fire, dug up six trash cans buried in all manner of places, collected and ate bugs, fed Terry’s fish, dismantled the concept of monetary value, stole cars for a child, bought synthetic gummy pets, discovered how mud can be used to generate electricity, attended a public gathering, paid $660,000 for a used top hat, played soccer with a lead pipe, achieved enlightenment — and I’m still not done because it’s just so packed with things to do!
The most incredible part is how it all feels good to do — it’s smooth, rich, and precisely balanced. This alone is an achievement, as nailing great gamefeel can be a nightmare, but Tiny Terry does it time and again. This is a project worth studying just for how effectively it ensures every action feels pleasant to perform.
Despite saying all of this, my words aren’t even beginning to do justice to the absolute anarchic madness that is Tiny Terry. Nothing can prepare one for what lies in store across this incredibly charming, unrelentingly creative experience.
Honestly, the only thing that stunk out of all m time with it was the soccer minigame. I get what developer snekflat was trying for, but the AI opponents are a bit too good at competing with Terry given the forced camera angle and no ability to dribble — players can only kick-shot and smack with Terry’s pipe. I managed to score high enough to beat the minigame’s criteria but it’s easily the least enjoyable part of the adventure by a country mile. (Also sometimes Terry’s car can get stuck on geometry a bit too quickly.) Everything else is darn-near flawless, as far as I’m concerned.
Tiny Terry is concise yet vast, comically snarky yet endearingly heartfelt… it has to be seen to be believed, and it’s everything I didn’t know I wanted, in the best way possible. So, for anyone needing a mental vacation and a few hours spent not worrying about the world? This is the ticket.
Final Score: 9.5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by snekflat and published by Super Rare Originals. It is currently available on PC. This copy of Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip was provided by the publisher and reviewed on the PC. Six hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign, and it was completed.
Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB, but only contains for Mild Cartoon Violence. If your child is capable of watching something just a wee bit spicy like Gravity Falls, they’ll be fine here. There’s nothing adult, and everything is extremely lighthearted. The only dark joke is “Burning Bernie”, who the player will periodically find on fire (Bernie will express no concern) and who will eventually turn into ash offscreen. Terry will respond “this is sad” and then collect Bernie’s glasses. This is the only real moment of dark humor in the entire game.
Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features subtitles and otherwise relies almost entirely on visual prompts for how to proceed. However, there are wind chimes to find which rely on audio cues, so I’d say this is Not Fully Accessible.
Remappable controls: Yes, the controls are remappable.
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Agree with nearly everything here, but I feel that finding the wind chimes would be difficult without the audio cues, so I wouldn’t go so far as you did to say it was fully accessible.
Heyo! Editor here. Thanks much for the heads up, I agree with what you’re saying. We do our best but sometimes we miss a certain element or cue, so I appreciate the nudge here. I’ll make the change. Cheers!