TumbleSeed
Review

TumbleSeed (2017) is an action puzzle game where you guide a seed to the top of a mountain. However, you can't control your seed direction, but have to roll it from side to side to avoid pitfalls, destroy enemies and collect crystals. The combination of a uniquely restrictive controls and fiendish levels make this game something to play over and over again.

Inspired by the classic arcade game Ice Cold Beer, where you guide a ball up and past holes in a board, play involves tilting a vine to roll your seed left to right and guide it safely past the many pitfalls and enemies that are procedurally generated as you move up through the five sections of the mountain.

As you progress higher, you collect crystals to exchange for special abilities. For example, growing an appendage that allows you to explode oncoming enemies. However, if you lose your three lives, the game is over and you must return to the base of the mountain to start the game all over again.

This means that, like life, success in TumbleSeed comes from hard work and repetition. You must master the stripped back control system to overcome the ever increasingly difficult challenges that the mountain throws at you. So, what starts as a simple traversing game, quickly becomes an addictive process of trying to keep your lives in tact, climb up the mountain and beat your best score.

Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked TumbleSeed 20 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 15 months ago.