TumbleSeed

Genre: Arcade / Roguelike

Players: 1

.

Review:

TumbleSeed is a game that combines Arcade and Roguelike elements, challenging players to balance a rolling seed on a tilting vine as they bring it up a level while trying to avoid holes and enemies, run across patches of dirt to plant, and collect crystals to use special abilities. This game was released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2017.

This game’s visuals have a simple, colorful look to them that uses a lot of simple shapes, and its music is simple synthesized fare with plunky beats. It’s all ultimately vaguely appealing without being memorable or noteworthy in any way.

While the presentation may not be especially noteworthy, the gameplay is at least unique. The game is played entirely with the left and right analog sticks, with each moving up or down a vine that crosses the screen. Tilting one direction or the other causes your seedy protagonist to roll in the appropriate direction.

Players can also press A to change the type of seed they are, essentially changing their character’s class. The default crystal class creates crystals on every third patch of dirt it rolls over, that can be collected and used by the other classes. The flag class uses crystals to plant a checkpoint flag, the thorn class uses crystals to grow thorns that harm enemies, and so on. The game’s Roguelike elements come into play not only with procedurally-generated world, but with randomized classes players can acquire along the way.

Unfortunately, while there’s a lot I like about this game, the controls are horribly difficult to work with, and kill a lot of the potential this game had. The seed’s rolling is just too hard to control – it’s painfully sluggish to get moving to one side or the other at first, but once it picks up speed, it gets so much inertia that it becomes a pain to slow down, and you’ll find yourself exerting so much effort to do so that you’ll repeatedly over-correct and send the seed careening the other direction. Add to this the fact that the game’s classes require players to do multiple things to make use of their abilities – plant three crystals (requiring players to not only gather the crystals, but find three patches of dirt as well). Your default thorn attack randomly rotates around you, meaning you either need to invest multiple crystals to upgrade the attack multiple times, or you have to have precise timing to hit enemies with it, which is a tall ask given the game’s controls.

In the end, while I love the ideas behind TumbleSeed, I just cannot like this game because it is constantly punishing the player, fighting with their controls, and making it exceedingly difficult just to make a little headway. For players who have the patience to master this game’s frustrations, it has some unique gameplay to offer, but I think most will find those frustrations too aggravating to fight through to enjoy the game.

tl;dr – TumbleSeed is a unique game that combines Arcade and Roguelike elements, having a player using both analog sticks to balance a seed on a vine as it teeters left and right on the game’s procedurally-generated levels. There are some clever, unique ideas here, but it’s hard to appreciate them with controls and game design that are seemingly designed to frustrate the player. Only the most patient players should bother with this one.

Grade: C-

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