Woodturning 3D

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Woodturning 3D, apparently a follow-up to a mobile game released in 2020 under the simple name Woodturning, is an Arcade-style game released on Nintendo Switch in 2024. As the name indicates, this game has players using a woodturning device to chisel away at logs and other objects with the aim of creating specific shapes for customers.

The presentation here is a mix of good and bad, with decent 3D visuals for the objects being chiseled, but some pretty ugly 3D for characters. The sound is similarly a mixed bag – the wood carving noises are strangely compelling, but the repetitive acoustic guitar music gets old really quickly.

The mix of good and bad extends to the gameplay as well. On a base level, the gameplay of Woodturning 3D is really enjoyable – it’s satisfying to carve away at objects to try to match a superimposed shape, and afterwards you get to spray-paint the finished piece, giving you some feeling of artistic freedom here, with players even able to save the pieces they’re most proud of.

On the other hand, the mechanics or physics of the game often have you carving away at parts of the block you’re not directly in contact with, which can be frustrating. However, the big disappointment here is that while this game has satisfying core gameplay, it doesn’t do anything with that.

You’ll be serving one customer after another, and regardless of how well you do or how poorly you do, that line will keep going. There’s no time limit, no reason to be particularly fast or accurate, and while you earn more in-game money for accurate work, this money seems to only go towards buying cosmetics for your tools and workshops, and nothing that affects gameplay.

Speaking of cosmetics, given the creative nature of this game, it would have been nice to have a freestyle mode where you can create what you want without being told by customers what to do. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell no such mode exists.

Woodturning 3D feels like a missed opportunity. This game presents enjoyable core gameplay, but then fails to build on that in any way. And while there can still be some fun to be had here, the lack of a solid goal structure and the repetitive nature of the game’s tasks result in a game you’ll likely lose interest in soon enough.

tl;dr – Woodturning 3D is an Arcade-style game that has you using a woodturning device to carve pieces of wood. The core gameplay here is fun, but the lack of any meaningful goals results in a game that fails to build on that good gameplay. It’s still enjoyable in small bursts, but doesn’t have the staying power to hold your attention for much longer than that.

Grade: C

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