TumbleSeed
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TumbleSeed is a deceptively deep roguelike about balancing a seed up a dangerous and ever-changing mountain. Avoid holes and defeat corrupted creatures in this dual-stick action adventure. Along your perilous trek you'll be forced to strategize, grow powerful with upgrades, and master the art of rolling to avoid the mountain's many dangers. TumbleSeed features 5 procedurally generated worlds and over 30 unique seed powers. Top your personal best or compete with the world in the daily challenge. The mountain holds many surprises, secrets, and adventures waiting to be explored — see you on the slopes!
Steam User 36
I started playing this game after the very recent update that adds 4 pre-generated levels that gradually teach you the complex mechanics. I've completed those in a couple of days and I've taken a few stabs at the procedurally generated adventure mode.
While it's still a hard game I'm really enjoying it, and I don't feel anything close to the extreme frustration that reviewers of the earlier version of the game mention.
If you haven't played the game because you heard that it's "too hard", that's a solved problem (As long as you enjoy perma-death rogue-likes). Props to the team for recognizing that and fixing it.
So far I'm really pleased with it, and it is already worth the $11.99 I payed during the sale. I'll update the review in the future to mention if it caught my attention in the long term like other rogue-likes like Spelunky
Steam User 30
In the olden days, there used to be these wooden boxes with a built in mazes. They would contain a little metal ball under a piece of glass. You would tilt the box and navigate the tiny metal ball through the maze carved into the wood.
It was delightful and extremely frustrating.
This is just like that, but in the future.
Steam User 17
The 4 Peaks update really saved this game for me. Previously I rage quit after less than an hour because I kept failing so horribly at the game. I loved the art and music, but felt like I was being repeatedly punched in the face. I gave it a second chance after the update and am really grateful for the devs figuring out and solving the learning curve.
This time I was able to gradually improve my understanding and motor skills with fixed level layouts and provocative simple quests. Most of the game hasn't changed, but at least now I can learn what is happening and why I'm failing. Over the next few nights I completed the 4 Peaks and earned all the quest upgrades. This leaves Daily One Chance and Weekly Repeatable challenges, a mode I love in most games of this type.
And then there's adventure mode which is different every time. Going back into adventure mode while understanding how to play made it so much more fun. The game is still ridiculously hard, but at least I get it. The closest comparable game I can think of is Monkey Ball, where it's all about mastering the controls. If that's your type of game, give this a try.
Steam User 17
Genre: Rogue-lite
The Good:
+ This is one of the most unique rogue games out there. The entire game is built on the premise of balancing a seed on a beam. The goal is to navigate the seed through obstacles and enemies while collecting offensive/defensive seeds to grow stronger. The unique art style and sound track also goes a long way.
The Average:
+/- Completing side quests rewards you with passive auras that grant you specific abilities, yet the only aura that matters is the one that negates fall damage. Considering falling through holes is the hardest part of the game an aura that completely negates damage becomes crucial to survival, making every other aura obsolete.
The Bad:
- This game is brutally hard and not in a good way, especially the last 2 levels. The game needs to be balanced further for a more enjoyable experience.
Conclusion:
I am willing to give this game a thumbs up on the premise of how unique it is and the game provides some fun for a while. However gameplay balancing is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Steam User 18
TumbleSeed is a pretty great modern arcade game and a nice variant of the '83 arcade machine, Ice Cold Beer (Zekes Peek). It's a challenging game of rolling a ball by controlling the two ends of the rail the ball rests on, while avoiding hazards, such as holes and spikes, and avoiding the various enemies the encounter within each level. Great artwork, Great sound and gameplay that maybe unique to most. Strangely enough, if you play a lot of helicopter simulation, those skills translate well into this game.
The developers did a smart job with keeping the artwork simple, but unfortunatly they squander is by making enemies that blend into the backgrounds (bombs in holes, tiny insects). While playing the game you will mostly focus on the lower half of your screen so it would be better if all enemies/hazards stood out within your peripheral vision. I've also run into cases where there were holes hidden behind forground objects.
The game features an adventure mode, which is basically you trying to get to the top of the mountain. You slowly accumulate new items to help you on your way. Within this mode the game also features quests to keep things interesting, though this feature is a bit awkward as, after completing the quest, you confirm the quest with the quest giver and you basically have to die before he'll give you your next quest.
Also featured is a Daily Challenge, which i assume is the same level for everyone competing in it. As the game is designed to be challenging this mode can be pretty tense as your daily shot at making it somewhere on the leaderboards.
TumbleSeed is a unique game that is hard to categorize, but i would call it a, "modern arcade game" more than anything else. I recommend the game if the idea of modern arcade games appeal to you, though it does have a handful of flaws that turns a challenging game into a frustrating one.
Steam User 37
Introduction
TumbleSeed is one of those indie titles which proves to me that I haven’t seen or played it all just yet. With a seemingly simple yet effective gameplay mechanic and a similarly streamlined story, it’s the near perfect definition of a game you pick up and play in short (or longer) sessions without an issue in sight. Or so I thought. You see, when TumbleSeed regards itself as “roguelike”, it certainly doesn’t refer to dungeons or cloak & dagger scenarios. Simply the hair-pulling difficulty which entails that subgenre more often than not. The debutante dev team (Benedict Fritz, Greg Wohlwend, Joel Corelitz, David Laskey and Jenna Blazevich) even stated in a recent interview that they had to tone down the game’s difficulty since barely anyone managed to reach its final Achievements.
Story
The protagonist within this story is the eponymous TumbleSeed (affectionately nicknamed “TS” by his seed brethren), the hero of the realm and leader of a seedy rebellion against gluttonous insects among other things. Yes, he really is a seed and the entire subplot revolving around not getting eaten by increasingly larger creatures, did remind me of the Cell Stage within 2008’s Spore video game. In TumbleSeed you’ll also have to choose wisely between fight or flight. The best course of action is to get accustomed to the balancing mechanic first and then worry about taking the fight to those pesky worms.
Much of the story may not make a lot of sense but bear with me: TS must travel across several mountains, each of a different climate & biotope and cleanse them of enemy presence while assisting his fellow seeds with some planting of his own. You don’t need a lot in terms of coherent plot, since you’ll be far too busy focusing on maintaining that fragile balance while slowly climbing and avoiding most traps. NPCs interact with the player and offer advice and the occasional support but you’ll best rely on your own patience and TumbleSeed skill. Yes, you’ll get better at it after you die one too many times. The perfect roguelike formula, right? Be grateful there’s no permadeath “icing on this cake”.
Graphics
From the visual style’s point of view, TumbleSeed did remind me quite a bit about a more traditional roguelike, called “Unexplored”. It featured abstract locations and characters from the top-down perspective with similarly looking “cyclops” creatures (instead of sentient seeds) that wielded sharp objects against deadly foes. Still, I couldn’t find enough evidence to point towards ther usage of Unity Engine assets, but the dev team has used Unity in the past while working on the prototype for TumbleSeed.
It may be proprietary or not, yet there is no shadow of doubt that the game features beautiful sprites and other 2D visual effects. It screams “indie game” but it is far from obnoxious. Quite the opposite, in fact. Managing to run it in my native monitor resolution and at a stable frame rate, consolidated my impression of TumbleSeed. Weather effects and day/night cycles showcase the team's determination to differentiate one mountain level from another while procedural generation is the true promoter of replayability in the game's case.
Audio
I didn’t expect a mindblowing soundtrack, but for such attention to details in terms of its looks, TumbleSeed somewhat disappointed me with its lack of sound diversity and far too repetitive background music. Glancing over its OST DLC now (of course it just had to be paid DLC), I’m surprised that it contains 23 tracks. Perhaps most of them only play out on later levels which I definitely didn’t reach. I value my sanity more than that.
Gameplay
While I can’t think of a video game counterpart to TumbleSeed’s unique gameplay, I did some digging around the Web and found that the concept for this title, was at least partially inspired by a Japanese mechanical arcade game, called Ice Cold Beer. The objective was basically the same: controlling a horizontal metal rod, players had to carefully guide a metal ball across a vertical surface and avoid certain obstacles such as gaps, until they reached the top of the level. I admit that arcade machines aren’t my specialty and as a kid I never got to experience many of them since I grew up in a country whose idea of gaming machines seemed limited to money grabbing slots geared towards and hogged exclusively by drunkards & slackers. To each his own, I guess…
Back to our heroic seeds, the balancing issue is both this game’s blessing and curse. On one hand, it’s something you haven’t seen in other games but on the other…well let’s just say that there’s such a steep learning curve that you can even fail the tutorial level. Repeatedly. Since its release, several months ago, TumbleSeed has become somewhat notorious for being a sucker punch in terms of its difficulty. You wouldn’t see it coming, no matter how much you prepare. Dev team stepped in and toned it down a bit, if I could even call it that after less than 1% of the player base managed to see the game through its conclusion. At least there’s a dedicated number of gamers which would never shirk the challenge offered by TumbleSeed. In a perfect world, I’d have all the spare time I need in order to finish the game myself. I’ll let you guess how far from reality is the scenario above.
Verdict
Difficult as it may be, I will never decrease a review rating by a large margin just for a gameplay design which is either a feature or an oversight, depending on your personal opinion. Yes, TumbleSeed is going to stress you more often than not but if I were to choose between the alarming norm of nowadays game streamlining (bordering the real definition of “dumbing down”) and a difficulty that may or may not induce rage quitting, I’ll pick the latter and stick with it. Practice makes perfect and if I were to ambition myself in this game’s case, I’d definitely take a good bite out of it before considering to shelf it for another time and place.
It currently has no Trading Cards, but it may be just a matter of time until Valve approves them. TumbleSeed is fully worth its price tag and I’m glad it went for the multiplatform release on the same day. That is the respect PC gamers deserve, not getting a weak sauce port of a game that’s been “beta tested” on consoles for several months already. Devs don’t think TumbleSeed will sell enough in the end, but I beg to differ. Before becoming a true pillar of independent game development, how many gamers gave Super Meat Boy a chance in its first year since release?
Strong Points
+ Steam Achievements.
+ Pleasant visual style and amusing storyline.
+ Procedurally generated levels ensure replayability.
Weak Points
- No difficulty slider or scaling option.
- Repetitive sound selection.
- No Steam Trading Cards.
Rating 80/100
This review was submitted for ReviewExperts, through the generous contribution of Daniël - REX ♥ Gaming.
Steam User 10
As you can see I've played TS for well over 100 hours. As that implies, there's a lot of meaningful depth and secrets to discover.
There are other reviews that focus on TS's unique, compelling aesthetics and mechanics but few from players that have persisted to see its depth. As is the case with all good roguelikes, the most interesting, rewarding version of the game comes after many hours of practice and play.
Some reviews have suggested some or many seeds are harmful and to be avoided. For a beginner player I can understand that view, but if you persist you'll see things differently. Each of the powerup seeds in TS is useful and creates super interesting decisions once you've learned how they work. As you understand more and more of them, you'll find huge satisfaction stopping just near a plot and considering your powers while planning your route through a tricky screen full of enemies.
With the latest update, the developers have added a bunch of new ways to help ease players into the complexity and challenge that makes the game great. If you like evergreen games that get your heart pounding, give this one a shot.