TumbleSeed

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!

This game is like a zen garden on roller skates—it's simultaneously the slowest and one of the most intense experiences I've ever had! It tests your patience and hand coordination to the max, making you question if you’re playing a game or auditioning for a circus act. You’ll find yourself sweating bullets while trying to maneuver your little seed through challenging levels, all while wondering if you had something to drink today but just forgot. Every restart feels like a comedy of errors, but somehow, that makes it even more addictive. If you’re ready to embrace the chaos of slow-motion panic, this game is a hilarious ride you won’t want to miss!

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 i…

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!

Annoyingly addictive rollerroguelite.

Really fun game, all about an unusual movement scheme which is interesting and satisfying to improve at. At least the way I played it, the roguelike aspect seemed pretty light, with most abilities feeling not very consequential and runs not feeling super different from one another (which was just fine, but also limits replayability) - I'd say it's a more fundamentals-driven game around precision and dynamic decision-making.