Time to take command of your little toy soldiers

Tin Hearts (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £24.99) Verdict: Heartwarming ★★★★☆

PUZZLE games tend to be kind of abstract. They take an idea — blocks falling from the sky, colourful blobs in a row — and give it just enough shape to make it playable.

Not so Tin Hearts. It takes its idea and gives it flesh, shape, emotion and drama.

I’ve seldom wanted to live in the world of a puzzle game before — but I’d make an exception for this one.

The idea is a spin on the old PC gaming classic Lemmings. Here, instead of green-haired critters, it’s toy soldiers that you’re guiding from each level’s entrance to its exit. Can enough of them make the journey without falling prey to the landscape?

But it’s the landscape itself and everything that comes with it that makes Tin Hearts stand out. These toy soldiers are marching across the shelves, workbenches and contraptions of a master toymaker from, I’d guess, the 19th century. It’s all very Geppetto and Pinocchio. And it’s all utterly wondrous.

And it’s not just the toy soldiers moving around these spaces — you are too, in 3D, as a literal ghost, manipulating objects to nudge the little marching column in the right direction. A block here, a cannon there, a drum angled just so. There are moments when, just like in a real workshop, you’re thinking: ‘Where did I leave that confounded wotsit, again?!’

It’s a joyous, lightly challenging experience — but also a poignant one. Along the way, there are flashes of memory, telling the story of the toymaker and his family.

The classical score, one of the best I’ve heard in a while, helps to make you care … and believe that toys are magical.

Forget the grand, fantastic vistas of openworld role-playing games; I want to spend more time here, in this puzzle world, among the gizmos and the gubbins.