Tiny
Where your room begins
About 180 fish in the room, and 2,000 in the big places.
How you play
Your powers live
on your wrists.
Turn the back of a wrist toward your face and a small glowing bead appears on it. Touch it with your other hand and its beads fly out to float in front of you, ready to tap. Every icon is drawn in a 1940s–50s cartoon style.
Two beads, two wrists
Where everything lives (on your hands)
One menu at a time: opening one puts away whichever was out.
Back of the left wrist
The porthole opens the main menu: a bead for each place, then music, hints and a room rescan, then restart and Exit.
Back of the right wrist
The trident opens the fish menu: how many fish on top, then gun mode, hero mode, feed mode and the science gun.
Not sure what a bead does? Hover over it
Every bead explains itself. Point at it, or hold a finger near it, and a speech bubble says in one line what it does.
Each launch offers the controls guide, which shows what every button does. The main menu brings it back, and turns the hints off once you know them all.
With controllers
Point, pull, and the buttons bring the menus
Everything your hands do works with Touch controllers too. Aim at any bead, on a wrist or in a floating menu, and pull the trigger: the bead swells and the controller ticks before you choose. Or skip the wrists: a button brings its menu up in front of you, and pressing it again puts it away.
Left hand
-
☰
Main menuThe places, music, hints, the controls guide, rescan, restart and Exit.
-
Y
Gun modeThe bubble gun, on and off.
-
X
Fish menuThe fish sizes and the modes.
-
·
Left stickWith the science gun: up and down sizes the object on the beam, sideways turns it.
Right hand
-
A
Science gunOn and off. Hold it 1 s to move the gun to your other hand.
-
↑
Teleport and turnIn the VR places: push forward to aim the teleport arc, let go to land; push sideways to turn 45°. With the science gun, it pushes the beam out or pulls it in.
-
◯
Meta buttonThe headset’s own: Meta’s menu, not the aquarium’s.
Both hands
-
T
TriggerPoint at any bead and pull to choose it. Otherwise it is the mode’s tool: a bubble, food, or the science gun.
-
G
GripGrabs the advanced controls. While aiming a teleport, it cancels the aim.
The science gun
Build your own reef
Place anything, anywhere
- LoadChoose something on the palette.
- PlaceAim, and pull the trigger.
- MoveTake the empty gun and drag an object elsewhere.
- Size and turnThe left stick.
- ReachThe right stick.
- RemoveChoose Remove, then pull the trigger on an object.
- WindowsIn your room: windows and portals.
Everything forms out of flecks of light, and dissolves as you put it away. No controllers? Your hands pinch a plate, carry an object and let it go. Fish and paint take a controller.
Natural
Anemone, soft coral tree, sea grapes, Sargassum and Xenia. Plants root where they land.
Decorations
A treasure chest that lets out bubbles now and then, which catch fish, and a Viking longship you can walk on and set things on.
Interactive
A ring to swim through, a feeding ring that sprinkles food at a touch, and a waving lucky cat.
Lighting
A lantern: touch it to light it, and fish come to graze by its glow.
Fish
Any fish, in any place. Set how many a pull brings, or load a hunter. The gear beside a fish opens its controls.
Then paint the room, like graffiti
Spray your walls, floor and furniture with eight materials, from sand to glowing paint, or anything on the colour wheel, gold and silver included. Paint works in your room and in the hollow, where it shows on the rock in front of your walls.
- Paint or placeClick the gun’s stick to switch.
- BrushFlick the gun’s stick sideways.
- SizePush it up or down.
- SprayHold the trigger.
- UndoThe Undo plate takes back the last stroke.
The advanced fish controls
The rules aren't hidden in a settings screen. You play with them.
A round dial of light, with a tiny live copy of the school swimming at its centre. On the science gun’s palette, choose a fish and press the gear beside it.
Bend the rules of a school
- ForcesHow close, how aligned, and how keen on its goal.
- MovementHow fast the fish swim, and how sharply they turn.
- SpaceHow far each fish sees, and its size.
- TimePause the ocean, slow it, or double its speed.
- SizeThe arc round the fish grows or shrinks the school.
- RemoveThe button by the time dial. Press it twice.
Drag a distance ring and life-size bubbles appear around real fish nearby, so you see what a fish perceives. Everything you change is saved. Hunters share one set of controls.
- Reset fishThe amber arrow by the time dial. Press it twice to bring back the place’s recommended fish.
Hero mode's commands
Then make it dance
Once a school has turned to face you, your hands speak to it. Each command is a motion made twice, so a passing gesture never sets one off.
- Come hereTwo beckoning strokes, palm toward you: the school follows your hand like a ribbon.
- Circle meDraw two circles in the air: the school swirls around you in a vortex.
- Wave awayTwo quick flicks outward send a following school off.
- PushShove both hands away to release every playing school.
Designed for controllers too: point one at a school to ask, and make the same motions with it.
Teleport and snap turn
Explore places bigger than your room
In your room, you move by walking. In the VR places, push the right stick forward to aim an arc, and let go to land on the seabed, or on your turtle's shell. Flick the right stick sideways to turn 45°.