Toby: The Secret Mine

« Toby is as close to Limbo as you possibly can be without lawyers getting involved. But where Limbo is a piece of art where every element comes together this is merely a collection of mechanics that do a decent job. Or with the words of Oscar Wilde: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” »

« Toby: The Secret Mine is a gorgeous, fun and oddly challenging puzzle platformer that has some really large difficulty spikes at times. The playtime might also be too short given its price point. If you’re in the market for a game along the lines of Limbo, go for it. »

« Good game with very interesting phases with puzzles and platforming levels. It's very similar to other indie titles as Limbo or Badland. But Toby is original in some gameplay mechanics. It's also very short. »

« Toby: The Secret Mine is still fun, even with the slightly frustrating misgivings that are present. The game has some fun platforming and some nice puzzles, and would certainly be worth one or two dips into the mine. Make sure to rescue all of your friends, or else the denizens of the deep might get you. »

« For $9.99 (Cdn) Toby: The Secret Mine is a short adventure that is worth looking into for the art design alone and I would love to see the story of Toby told in a graphic novel medium. That being said, it's gameplay, although standard, doesn't bring anything distinctly unique to the table and often the puzzles are just too simple. It's also unfortunate that the game is fairly short and doesn’t offer any replay value at all to allow you to squeeze a few more hours out of it. »

« Toby: The Secret Mine is a somber experience executed using a visually stunning setting. Most of the puzzles are an experience in exploration and intelligence. Unfortunately, the technical issues keep it from being the masterpiece it could be. A truly great game is hidden underneath all the frustrating problems. »

« Toby: The Secret Mine offers a pleasing visual style, but with a quite uninspired and soulless gameplay and with a game design too based on trial and error. »

« The two to three hours it takes to complete Toby: The Secret Mine never sees the story build on its initial momentum from the opening scenes. Toby: The Secret Mine is worth seeing but it's only a handful that will find it worthwhile to stay. »

« This never quite gets beyond feeling like a lesser version of better games. It’s clearly drawing from the same style as Limbo and similar titles, but without the same level of atmosphere, polish or originality. It plays well enough and doesn’t outstay its welcome, but there’s very little here that stands out. The puzzles are straightforward and the presentation is serviceable. Not bad, just outclassed. »

« It does resemble Limbo, yes – the original kind of ‘Limbo’ where nothing happens and you are stuck in a pointless void. Playing through the levels often feels like a chore, and at times the progression itself feels utterly pointless. The puzzles often make absolutely no sense - and merely require you to try out all the options. The game, however, is pretty generous with dishing out gamer points. I really wanted to like this little weirdo indie game but the aforementioned issues make it hard to enjoy. Second playthough? I don't think so... »

« Toby: The Secret Mine Pretty but cheap Toby the secret mine is a limbo styled platformer where you try to rescue all of your friends while dodging hard to see obstacles along your way… throwing switches, pulling chests.. and dying over and over and over… Toby the secret mine is probably one of the most frustrating 2d platforming games ive ever played… there are 21 levels total here that took me around 2 and half hours total to complete… These levels are beautiful and can sometimes be just as fun as they are frustrating… the forground for the most part is a bunch of black.. this makes certain traps hard to see… and one section in particular I actually had to change my screen settings just to see the level as it was a bunch of blinding whites… because of this you will die a lot… and the game feels a bit cheap at times… This is sort **** about dying and then remembering where that switch was so you don’t die again… and for the most part checkpoints are pretty forgiving here… but the most frustrating moments of this game.. especially the final boss fight… where youre given a choice for one of 2 endings… I feel like the checkpoint system can be garbage… the final level was a horrible end cap to this decently enjoyable game where I felt like luck got involved trying to not get hit with a bomb… The rest of the game I didn’t mind the dying and retrying as much.. paying attention to signs for door puzzles, and rescuing my friends out of cages… aside from the final level and a few cheap moments here and there.. Toby The Secret mine is a decently enjoyable yet frustrating 2d platformer… I give Tobe The Secret Mine a 5.5/10 »

« Lets just get this straight now; this game looks like Limbo. It will not take you long to figure that out. I mean, look at the screenshots I’ve attached. And in trying to dissect this game, we will start with the most obvious facet when opening this game up, and that is the graphics. Although they are well executed and aesthetically pleasing for the most part, they are not original. In fact, it is pretty heavily influenced by Playdead games, so much so it really doesn’t deserve any credit as it is about as close as you can get to it without legal implications. Regardless, as a puzzle platformer, the game has perhaps less boxes it has got to tick to succeed. That’s not to imply platforming games are easy to create; in my opinion, the genius’ that are Playdead took more meticulous crafting and nuances to create inside than Infinity Ward/Treyarch/Sledgehammer took to create Call of Duty games. However, it is arguably the case that all that is really needed for an at least half decent puzzle platformer, if nothing else is there, are some good puzzles, and decent platforming mechanics and objectives. Unfortunately, this game hopelessly fails at both. During the 2 hour game, you go through a series of levels, from A-B, for no apparent reason. Narrative is important to me as a gamer, and I do like linear games, but I can also appreciate and accept games with a light or ambiguous story-telling when done for effect. It is this that Toby: TSM tries to achieve, but ultimately leaves too many holes in its delivery. Limbo & Inside implement abstract and unexplained motifs very well, as do Abzu and Virginia, making you piece the parts together, or search online for theories as to what this could all mean. Even if there is literally no objective at all, that’s acceptable if there is a reason to play the game, or nothing expected for you to put into the game, but Toby:TSM does have an objective and does expect you to care about chasing down the weird person with a crown and take him out by making you make a decision, and making you proceed through thick and thin to the end without any motivation to do so whatsoever. None of the 21 levels you traverse through have continuity or meaning. You just complete 2-3 puzzles a level, move into a black space, and come out the other side after a loading screen. You move from woodland, to interior, to snow, to more interior, to a factory setting, to a fire pit…it makes no sense, but more importantly feels like a jumbled mess that is forced to allow certain puzzles to exist. This would be forgivable if the puzzles were fun or intriguing, but trust me, you will not experience either playing this game. These puzzles, although at least varied in type, are linear and mind-numbing. They are counter-intuitive, and solving them doesn’t seem like an award for skillful play, thinking outside the box or for mastering game mechanics, it does genuinely seem random at times. The puzzles are victim to appalling detection and physics in general; jumping on platform, for example, took different techniques each time, and purely depends on that level rather than any overarching mechanic. I’m willing to admit I’m not a pro gamer, but I’m at least a slightly above average one at puzzle platformers, and I struggled not at any puzzle, which were largely generic saws or rotating platforms, but at the awful jumping, triggering levels etc that leave no room for error. Again, this would be great if it felt fair and based on your skill, but it really doesn’t. I can complete Limbo dying under 5 times, but I can barely complete a jumping section on this without being KO’d multiple times. Additionally, there is no introduction and development of difficulty. It is just difficult – not for a scaling sense of challenge, or to overcome the game, but just to add life value to a game that is hollow to the core Even technically the game is lagging behind its competition. I encountered 2 levels where if I died on a puzzle, it would freeze my characters and I’d have to do the whole level again. The game did also crash, albeit rarely, but the game also only took 3 hours to complete. I am very supportive of ID@Xbox games; some of my favourite games are ID@xbox. If you’re a small team or even a one man band with a great idea, take the risk. Get something in the 70’s on metacritic, and you’ve truly succeeded given the project you’re trying to achieve. However, I have little hesitation on giving a low score to a platforming game so unoriginal, unfunctional and unfair as this one. For me, this game was a disaster, and except for an easy 1000G I wished I hadn’t played it. »