TumbleSeed

An interesting concept and unique style of movement made null and void by conflicting mechanics and brutally punishing drawbacks. Tumbleseed's core design is somewhere in between a Shoot 'em Up and pinball, and it attempts to merge these two genres while also making an ambitious leap in its movement design. Unfortunately, its trying to bridge a gap with too little understanding of how those genres function. Which is with a focus on precision that this game lacks. The movement in Tumbleseed is as described: a balancing act, you need to hold both sticks upward to ascend towards the end of each stage. This adds a slowness and unsteady momentum to the game, making the types of maneuvers usually common to it's peers nearly impossible in many cases. Holes and pits are everywhere, making up about 50% of screen space at all times, and each time you fall into one, not only do you lose level progress, but health on top of it (multiple health if you haven't been making manual checkpoints, and you start with only three). Its a double punishment for a very easy thing to do as you try to carefully navigate through. Clawing back your resources is a zero sum game as the amount it takes to heal is absurd, and you'll never be in a better position resource-wise than you were before you fell the first time. Then the game adds chasing enemies on top of it, and that's where an already unforgiving experience crosses over into the annoying. Enemies in this game aren't heavily populated, but their individual mechanics make progressing feel like a nightmare that prioritizes one strategy above all others: speed run. Go as fast as you can, stop for nothing, and pray that you don't accidently hold one stick too long, or its game over for you. It's not fun. 80% of powers and abilities require a type of precision that directly contradicts the type of balancing movement you need to use, and are oftentimes laughably useless or temporary. A flail that only works if you spin fast, but speed is actively discouraged. A cannon that rotates and can only be fired 4 times per resource spot, and only on set intervals. An invincibility that takes five resource spots to use and doesn't protect from pits. The only power I ever found relevant and helpful was the one that removes a set number of pits entirely, and even then the enemies were nearly too difficult on an early stage to win. And that's Tumbleseed, I'm sorry to say. It has ambition, style, and heart behind it, but it just isn't enough to make up for design problems that fail to merge properly. It breaks my heart to say it; I was hoping to really enjoy it when I picked it back up. I hope the development team, wherever they are now, are still making the art they want to and having fun doing it; even if its something I personally don't enjoy, and can't recommend.

Genuinely fun and novel game, there's not many games that really try to push you out of your comfort zone like this. It riffs on a lot of arcade / roguelite concepts you see in other games but has a very unique loop. It's harder than the art makes it look, but I'm still shocked this didn't end up getting much more popular, it deserves to be a cult classic!

I saw the recent (as of writing) NorthernLion stream where Tumbleseed was brought back up and thought it looked compelling, so I decided to give it a try. I have to say I'm having a fantastic time with it so far! The gameplay is pretty much exactly what it looks like. You balance a seed on a platform like those arcade penny games, but with a twist - as you climb, enemies appear and you have to defend yourself by touching nodes to give you powers that deal damage and the resources required to pay for said powers. You do this by switching seed types as you please. As you explore you can get additional seeds for the rest of the run that give you a few interesting decisions. This is the kind of game I want to see more of. Unique premise, decent length, easy to learn, hard to master. I think I might 100% this one on Steam Deck over the next while. The gameplay is weird enough that I can see why it's not a massive hit but it resonates strongly with me personally!