Tinywings

This is from the help pages to Tiny Wings (iTunes Store link) by Andreas Illiger.

That’s all you need to know, right there:

  • Goal: flight.
  • Conflict: this will be difficult because your wings are tiny.
  • Game mechanic: perhaps you can use the many beautiful hills to help.

And then there’s an illustration to piece all the pieces together and explain what you’re going to do.

The whole game is explained in two sentences; two sentences that manage to contain pathos, hope, a goal, and hints at the gameplay mechanic for achieving that goal.

It doesn’t even matter that “beautyfull” is misspelt (or whether that misspelling is deliberate or not); it’s some of the clearest and most effectively concise writing I’ve seen in a game for a long while.

Lovely. (As, of course, is the whole game – fun, simple, very pretty, and full of flow-state euphoria when it’s going well. Its success is deserved.)

2 comments on this entry.

  • Robert | 3 Mar 2011

    I’m betting on “beautyfull” being deliberately misspelled. When I read it, I find myself thinking “beeyooteefull”, and that strikes me as being the proper way to describe these particular hills.

  • Dan Hon | 3 Mar 2011

    I’m currently stuck on “Reach the 5th island without speedcoins” sadface.