Little Toby sets out to save his friends, and the journey turns out to be far bigger than anyone expected. Toby: The Secret Mine is a puzzle platformer built around a simple premise: a village is losing its residents one by one, and a small boy decides to stop waiting for help. The result is a game that borrows heavily from Limbo but trades its dark dread for color and curiosity, and it mostly succeeds even when its ambition outpaces its execution.
Trailer, via Attu Games.
Toby’s Village and the Kidnappers
The setup is straightforward. Toby lives in a small village in the mountains. Most of its residents have been taken away by creatures with red eyes, and a few brave souls tried to rescue them. None of those rescuers returned. Toby doesn’t want to sit and watch, so he heads into the nearby forest to find his friends.
What follows is a game about exploration and danger. The levels move through forests, caves, mines, and blizzards, each packed with traps that Toby can easily miss unless he pays attention. The design borrows from Limbo, but the tone is lighter. Toby: The Secret Mine isn’t trying to scare you the way Limbo does; it wants you to look around and find the solution.
The Levels and Their Traps
The game is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer, and it runs across nine platforms, from PS4 to PC to Nintendo Switch. That spread is notable on its own, though the core experience is the same no matter which machine you pick. The levels are arranged into 21 separate stages, and each one asks you to solve a puzzle before you can move forward.
The traps are the heart of the challenge. They’re easy to overlook, which is the point. Some are tied to timing, especially in the blizzard levels, where the pace of movement becomes a hazard in itself. Others are visual tricks that ask you to spot a hazard before you step into it. Finding them requires patience and attention, and the game rewards both.
Friends Hidden Throughout
Along the way, Toby finds friends who have been kidnapped and hidden throughout the levels. This adds an element of exploration beyond the main path, encouraging you to search for clues and hidden spots. It’s a clever way to keep the world feeling larger than its 21 levels might suggest.
The Climax and Its Choice
The game reaches its peak when Toby finally tracks down the hideout of the kidnappers and faces their leader. At that moment, the player is given a choice: accept the leader’s crown, or kill the kidnapper.
If Toby takes the crown, his eyes turn red and he becomes the new leader of the kidnappers. His friends turn evil too, and Toby is shown standing on a cliff as his homeworld burns. If he kills the kidnapper instead, his friends are freed and they return home.
It’s a small twist, but it lands because the game has spent its runtime building toward this moment. The choice is simple, but it gives the ending weight.
What Works and What Falls Short
Toby: The Secret Mine is at its best when it’s asking you to think. The puzzles are fair, and the traps are readable once you learn to slow down and look around. The game respects your intelligence, even when it frustrates you.
Where it stumbles is in its presentation. The black silhouette graphics are serviceable, but they don’t have the polish of the games it draws from. The color palette helps, but it can’t fully cover up the rough edges in the animation and the scenery. The game also leans on repetition at times, and some later levels feel like earlier ones with a new paint job rather than a new idea.
The Music and Sound
The sound design is sparse but effective. Toby moves through the world in silence, and the music only kicks in during the biggest set pieces. It’s a deliberate choice, and it works well for a game that wants you focused on the environment around you.
A Solid, Small Ambition
Toby: The Secret Mine isn’t trying to remake Limbo. It’s trying to make something similar but friendlier, and it mostly succeeds. The levels are clever, the puzzles are fair, and the choice at the end gives the whole thing a sense of purpose.
It isn’t perfect. The graphics are rough, the pacing drags in the middle, and the sheer number of levels means some ideas get repeated. But the core loop — look, find, solve — holds together well enough that the game remains engaging even when it falters.
The Numbers
- Developer: Lukas Navratil
- Publisher: Headup Games
- Platforms: PS4, Linux, Android, PC (Microsoft Windows), iOS, Mac, Wii U, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
- Genres: Platform, Puzzle, Adventure, Indie
- Modes: Single player
- Perspective: Side view
- Levels: 21 separate stages
- Score: 5.9/10
Final Word
Toby: The Secret Mine is a solid puzzle platformer with a small ambition. It wants to be a fun, clever game, and for the most part, it achieves that goal. The choice at the end gives it a memorable hook, and the puzzles keep you thinking even when the presentation shows its age.
It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a pleasant one. If you enjoy puzzle platformers and aren’t put off by rough edges, Toby’s journey is worth taking.
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