14 DAY TRIAL // 
Tiny Thief presents a romantic story that has seen many adaptations throughout the centuries, the story of the anonymous little guy standing up to the oppressive authorities and making personal sacrifices for the greater good.
It represents developer 5 Ants' debut title and although it started life as a casual mobile puzzle game published on Android and iOS, it has taken a bold step and made the transition to PC.
Which is a bold move indeed, as the little puzzler might prove to be ill equipped to fight in the consecrated arena of adventure gaming, and which is exactly why I approached it with mixed emotions. On one hand, it looks adorable. On the other, well, it's another casual mobile game, just what the PC world needs.
So let's see if Tiny Thief has what it takes to rumble with the big boys, or whether it should run and hide, never showing its face outside of its casual first home on mobile devices.
Setup
As any port of a mobile game, the story is just a crutch that holds the gameplay closer to the user's eyes. In this case, the setting is a colorful world of injustice where an unconventional hero sets out on an adventure to help the little guy, using trickery and guile to outmaneuver his opponents.
The story is conveyed through very expressive comic panels that tell simple stories using imagery and humor, from a corrupt sheriff stealing candy from a baby to fearsome pirates doing what they do best, plunder and hide their treasures.
The cast will be slowly revealed during the adventures, as will the opponents, and you'll soon be fighting – so to speak – your way through castles and exotic islands, far away from the quiet hamlet where it all began.
Right off the bat, the clunky interface reeks of a mobile port, as the game asks you to click on the screen in order to move the character and interact with the environment, even though the game clearly looks and behaves like a platformer.
There is no fooling the PC crowd, we know when we're supposed to use the keyboard for movement, and at first it feels pretty cheap. Granted, there are some clickable items that allow for simple interactions to justify the presence of the mouse, such as finding your trusty sidekick, a cowardly but lovable pet weasel who keeps hiding in various pots and on lamps, but having no option of direct control is still something that feels unnatural on the PC.
You interact with the environment by getting close to key items, at which point an interface menu with a single option will pop up and allow you to perform various actions such as untying a knot and dropping something heavy on a devious scoundrel or letting loose the hounds of war, which in this particular case are impersonated by a single bellicose goose that scares a guard away.
Even though the game first seems out of place on PCs, it has a tendency to grow on you as you play through it and make you want to explore it some more.
Instead of rehashing the same environments with slightly different elements to figure out, it assaults you with an unexpected variety of actions and different puzzles to figure out, and it's also quick to change the scenery, which is pretty important in a game this light.
Because of the constant change of scenery, you won't feel like the devs tried to get the most out of their art assets, but instead you'll feel as if they tried to present the most adventurous experience a puzzle-based game can deliver.
Instead of the same background with different placement for the key interaction elements, each level feels like a new storyboard waiting to be uncovered. It may sound pretentious to talk in this manner about a cutely drawn touch-operated game, but Tiny Thief manages to captivate through its primitive expressiveness.
The levels feel different enough from each other and the stealth sections are no longer annoying and use some of the same mechanics utilized by far bigger games. And while Tiny Thief does rely on a healthy dose of trial and error from time to time, it's no worse than the classics of the genre, like Gobliiins for instance.
Instead, it's arguably better; it's like a modern iteration with a vivid aesthetic and improved gameplay, that removes some of the most frustrating elements of classic point-and-click adventures and attempts to deliver the same experience in a more accessible manner.
The levels generally follow a clear and simple design, which is both good and bad at the same time. You won't get stuck not knowing what to do and start going MacGyver on your inventory or trying to stick things in places they don't belong in, but you will never be too challenged either, and you won't be able to escape the feeling that the game is perhaps too simplistic.
The basic gameplay will follow a simple routine, hide in a basket until the guard turns around, walk around the level and click whatever interaction bubble pops up, then walk around the level some more and click a couple more bubbles, then profit.
Fortunately, the developers have been creative enough to alleviate the monotony of the game by introducing all sorts of unique gameplay elements that make the game feel exciting and like a proper adventure title, not reducing you to a simple button pusher but making you feel more involved in whatever is going on on-screen.
Although the game only features a limited number of levels, it makes them blend together organically and arrange themselves as more of a story than a number of disparate puzzles to go through, which offers an overall better after-taste than if the game would have been artificially lengthened.
The graphics are all hand-drawn gorgeous 2D sprites, conferring the game a very upbeat and vivid atmosphere. The environments are detailed and varied enough not to feel stale or cheap, and best of all, the scenery changes quite often and to diverse enough locations to portray the sense of adventure the game is going for far beyond its basic puzzle-solving mechanic.
The color palette changes accordingly with the shift in backdrop and it feels pretty atmospheric, looking great as far as simplistic two-dimensional games go. From a medieval town pictured in simple green and yellows to delivering swift justice with a giant lollipop near the sweets factory, which delivers a pink infusion to the scenery, it all feels like a relaxing journey, up to the lush greens and colorful masks donned by the jungle savages.
The simplistic and pastelated backgrounds manage to complete the visual package, offering the game some depth beyond its schematic mechanics.
Even the anonymous hero is cleverly portrayed, and follows the superhero school of Batman, of not having a face and thus presenting the possibility and defining trait that it could be anyone.
The comics that present the story behind each level are also very expressive and do a good job of setting the mood for whatever it is you're doing as well as offering a couple of pointers or motivation for your actions.
The sound direction is the same, and what you would expect from a mobile game port, some intro music and fitting sound effect punctuating various interactions and events.
Conclusion
Tiny Thief is an overall very well put together mesh of minimalist narrative and adventure-infused puzzle-solving gameplay. I started thinking "great, another casual puzzle mobile port" but I soon discovered more than just endlessly recycled mechanics and cutesy graphics under its hood.
From its cute and vibrant visual presentation to the engaging and varied gameplay mechanics, to the way it cleverly encapsulates the feeling of an entire adventure surrounding some simple puzzles and the humorous and expressive manner in which it delivers its graphic narrative, Tiny Thief is definitely an enjoyable experience.
It may be a little on the light side and it definitely shows that it's the port of a mobile game, but it's also surprising how Tiny Thief manages to surprise and offer a deeper experience than what first meets the eye, with its biggest downside being that it is so short.
