This DEVOLVER Mobile Game Didn’t Hit the Mark…
Devolver Tumble Time Review
Devolver Tumble Time Review
Let me make one thing very clear. I love the video game publisher, DEVOLVER DIGITAL. These guys know how to fund and fuel exceptionally great games made by small time developers and teams. I know that whenever I pick up a game with their logo on it, I’m going to have a great time playing it. In my dreams, I’m sponsored by them. I can’t speak highly enough of them, and I’d hate to jeopardize any future possible involvement I could have with them. However…
Devolver Tumble Time was a no-brainer for me to pick up. It’s free. Devolver has a great track record, and this is more or less a mini-crossover of a bunch of their branded games. So I downloaded it. Played it. Folks, I am sad to admit, but Devolver Tumble Time is one of those mobile games that you pick up and play for a few weeks, and then in a surprise moment of realization think to yourself “why am I playing this?” So you uninstall the game and forget it ever existed, moving on with your life. I’m a bit disappointed by this.
It’s admittedly a fun game: Connect the same character heads together to pop them and make more room in your tumbler. The more characters you connect, the more points you get. If you can’t connect any heads, you can “tumble” all of them in the hopes that you will get some to connect. What I found is that every time I hit that tumble button, I would always score lower than the goal? So, strangely, I felt disincentivized from “tumbling”, the very thing that gives this game its namesake. The reason you’d want more points, is because there are several point thresholds that give you more coins and game items, which can be used to obtain other characters through a random chance, loot box like system. You want to be collecting characters because each of them has a rarity “tier”, so they’re not all equals with their special ability which can typically be used to wipe the board in several different ways. This is an ability that builds over the course of a level, as you pop your chosen characters head amidst a selection of other random characters you may or may not own. I really appreciate that if you do own a character, but have selected a different character to play as, you still get XP for all the characters you own if any of them appear in the random assortment beyond that.
The issue with character XP is that it does nothing. The game tells you it’s for bragging rights, and that’s it. So, why is it in the game at all? I’m not sure. Devolver Digital has a brand voice, and it’s very snarky, humorous, edgy, and self-aware, which does come through in Devolver Tumble Time. Maybe, the developers here are trying to tap into some of that Devolver humor with some of the game design choices, but for this, it doesn’t work for me. This is especially clear after something like the weekly challenges, which end with a “boss” type puzzle. They’re quite difficult. If you fail at it, the game will point-blank tell you, “hey, just pay us 5 bucks, and we’ll beat the boss for you.” It sounds like I’m joking, but you really can pay them the money, and beat the weekly challenge that way. I see the humor in it — I can’t stand for it implemented in this way.
One aspect that drew me into the game for daily play is its mission system, where an old man character will tell you to do something or other in the game, and you’ll get some big rewards from those quests, which made it so that I felt I was regularly visiting the in-game shop, attempting to get more characters. It was a simple driving force, but it worked on me all the same.
Speaking of those, in particular, for the rare character loot boxes, the price cycles through one of the many different resources you pick up, and for whatever reason, this resource doesn’t cycle out daily. So, if you have an overabundance of rare currencies, but are missing the “donut” currently required by the shop, too bad! You have to hope that after you get enough “donuts” that the price magically cycles to the rare currency you have most of. This was particularly infuriating to me, and created a weird, dissatisfying flow of obtaining characters.
I’d be less angered by the shop system if the rare characters I got were fun to play, and equally useful. But what I found in playing, was that the characters are unbalanced. For whatever reason, I used my “B” tier characters more often than my “S” tier characters because the B tier ability that cleared the tumbler, was always better than the S tier ability which had caveats to it’s clearing abilities, for some strange reason.
Overall, I did have fun with Devolver Tumble Time, over the course of several weeks. Do I recommend it? I’m mixed on that. If you go for it, don’t expect lasting fun, if my experience is anything to go by. The unbalanced characters and abilities, weird shop pricing, loot box acquisition, and insulting monetization scheme were enough to slowly chip away at my psyche, to the point where I ultimately realized, “why am I even playing this game?”. Despite Devolver Digitals incredible track record, I don’t want to spend any more time playing what I think is perhaps their weakest branded title. Your mileage may vary, but my journey with it, for now, is completed.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.