Tiny Fragments is a powerful, tiny package of oranges and puzzles

Hira, 9 October 2022

Tiny Fragments, a Ludum Dare 46 entry caught my eye as I was browsing through itch.io’s puzzle tag. Daniel Moreno’s creation continued to innovate, with two additional levels in the game added to the original fourteen. As I started it up on my browser, right away it was obvious a lot of care went into the design. Much like Inscryption, Tiny Fragments grew plenty from its original jam entry.

You play as a red humanoid seeking their favourite food — oranges. You’ll drag separate fragments of the level around to piece together a path for the player character, whilst only being able to walk in one direction, unless hitting an obstacle or dead end. The game slowly introduces you to new obstacles (spikes and barriers) and mechanics — you’ll be using keys to unlock fragments, cannons to shoot breakable blocks, and buttons to unlock previously blocked off paths.

Grey-coloured locks keep fragments in place, so you’ll have to learn to work around that. Make sure to think hard about where you place each fragment, as the player character can also fall off an edge and right into the game’s background for an instant level over.  Remember: there is no edge protection in Tiny Fragments, so watch your step!

Playing through the initial fourteen levels was pretty fun and challenging — it never felt too difficult, nor was the game holding my hand. That was right up until the fourteenth level — which had me scratching my head and wondering what to do for several days until I realised the answer was in plain sight. From there on, the fifteenth level was a relative breeze and the final level was a simple three-piece puzzle — my red humanoid character could finally obtain all the oranges they wished.

Tiny Fragments was a fun, albeit short package of puzzles that utilised your ability to shift level pieces around to great effect. Here’s a fun little tip if you’re game to try this: grabbing a piece freezes time.