Tinykin Studio Splash Team Teases Acornia: Mirror Worlds at Gamescom 2026

During the Gamescom 2026 pre-show, Splash Team—best known for Tinykin—teased its next project, Acornia: Mirror Worlds, a cheerful adventure starring a squirrel named Alva. The game blends cozy pastry management with dungeon-crawling action, and it’s built around a single core mechanic: inhaling items from the world and firing them back at enemies.

Key takeaways

• Acornia: Mirror Worlds was revealed at the Gamescom 2026 pre-show by The Arcade Crew and Splash Team.
• Players control Alva, a squirrel who returns home to find her town nearly abandoned after her people vanish.
• The cause is Duramen, a parallel dimension ruled by darkness that corrupts the world of light.
• Alva reopens her bakery to earn money to revitalize the town and to push into Duramen’s dungeons to stop the corruption.
• Gameplay splits between cozy baking/management and action exploration through enemy-filled rooms and boss fights.
• The game is not scheduled for PC and consoles until 2027, though it was playable at a creator-organized event.

A town drained by a parallel darkness

Acornia: Mirror Worlds follows Alva, who comes back from a long journey to discover that her hometown is in rough shape—many residents are gone and the community is effectively left behind. The explanation points to Duramen, a parallel dimension packed with monsters and dominated by darkness, whose corruption has spilled over and affected the brighter reality beyond.

Faced with that situation, Alva commits to two goals at once: she reopens her pastry shop to generate funds, and she heads into Duramen’s dungeons to confront the corruption from inside the source.

Cozy pastry management meets dungeon action

The project’s structure revolves around two distinct gameplay modes. The first is bakery management, where Alva prepares desserts, serves customers, hires staff, and handles upgrades like buying new furniture and machinery to grow the business. While the time spent in this mode wasn’t enough to judge how deep its systems are, the impression was that it delivers a carefully crafted cozy vibe reminiscent of other comfort-focused life sims.

Money earned from selling pastries also unlocks side quests involving townspeople. Customers sometimes return to ask for help, with their requests able to change depending on the season—meaning staying on top of local needs becomes part of restoring what Duramen has damaged.

What helps bridge the cozy and combat halves is Alva’s signature ability. She can inhale ingredients, furniture, and other objects from the environment, store them inside her body, and then convert them into projectiles to shoot at enemies. The mechanic is presented as a close sibling to the kind of ability fans associate with Kirby-style physics, but applied here to both combat and progression.

Pastries as ammunition in Duramen

Once Alva switches into Duramen, the game shifts into action-adventure territory. Players explore multiple dungeons, push through rooms packed with enemies, and fight set-piece bosses. This is where the inhaling-and-firing mechanic becomes central: it isn’t only for attacking, because it’s also tied to discovering new baking recipes back in the pastry shop.

In other words, the desserts you cook—tarts, cupcakes, and more—aren’t just for earning money. They can function as ammunition for dungeon encounters. Enemies can have strengths and weaknesses, so the recommended approach is to match your projectile choice and cause effects like poison, fire, or ice damage. To make those combat options work, you’ll need to revisit the ovens and prepare the right desserts before going back out.

Another key point from the playable segment was how the actions in the darker dimension can echo back in the brighter world. Progress in Duramen can unlock new routes and can also lead to rescuing characters who have been corrupted, including boss-related outcomes.

Difficulty also ramps in the later parts of a dungeon. The final floors were described as more challenging than expected, with boss fights requiring timing, dodging knowledge, and an understanding of what to shoot—and when—to break through effectively.

A colorful tone designed for both comfort and combat

Acornia: Mirror Worlds was shown as a title that successfully mixes management, exploration, and action, with an art style that leans into a bright, relaxed look suited to its overall personality. With its dual-mode gameplay and the way its mechanics connect the bakery to Duramen, Splash Team’s new squirrel adventure left players wanting more, with 2027 positioning it as a future PC and console release.