Steam Double Feature Review: Reventure and Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
REVENTURE
These two games share some common elements, and so I’m
reviewing them together. They’re both retro in design, pixel-arty, and have
great writing. They’re hilarious!
Reventure, for starters, in a fairly innovative take on the
entirely tired platformer genre. Yes, there’s a tiny bit of a twist in that it
also has RPG elements, but that’s not really what sets it apart from so many
other games.
As the name suggests, the game is based around replaying it.
You will die. Often. Often senselessly.
That doesn’t sound fun, does it?
It is. There are 100 outcomes to the game, and 99 of them
involve you dying. At which point, you start over, having learned a bit more
about how to win. Each death is incorporated into the storyline in some absurd
way, and is sure to elicit a chuckle. There’s actually a chart, recording the outcomes. While I
suspect it’s possible to win without dying at least 99 times, it doesn’t feel
likely.
What would be considered a cheap death in other games is
almost a part of your goal in this one. Ooh, a fishing pole!
Dead.
What’s this thing on the ground?
Dead.
On a playthrough last night, I was amused at how many items
I was carrying, all of which are just sort of piled up behind you.
Then the weight of the items killed me.
Many of the deaths cause you to rethink your approach, and
that element adds greatly to the replay value. You want to see all the deaths,
but you also want to win, dammit!
It’s also a game of somewhat non-linear exploration. While
the starting point remains unchanged, the more you play, the more areas you
discover, allowing you to tackle the challenge from different places, using
different means. Everything is a part of the same story, but the game itself is
ever-shifting. It’s not quite Braid-level puzzling, but that’s not a terrible
comparison, I suspect. It looks straightforward on the surface, and turns out
to be anything but.
The writing is really funny, and self-aware. There are
numerous references to other games. Mario, Zelda, and Dragon’s Lair spring to
mind immediately. It’s also a bit vulgar, which is amusing. Reventure doesn’t
shy away from calling you an asshole, or pointing out that shit does indeed
happen. The text never really slows down the action, either, as the speech
bubbles are auto-triggered and go away when you move past them. They’re all
brief, but worth reading at least once.
It’s also varied in terms of play mechanics. You can run and
jump, yes, but you can also acquire a sword, shield, shovel, bombs, grappling
hook, and…did I mention the bit about
carrying too many things?
Graphically, I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed by so
few pixels. Your character is composed of something like 12 x 12 oversized
blocks, by estimation. Because why would I actually count them? That would be
silly.
Somehow, this manages to be very fluidly animated and
expressive. As you die and are resurrected, your character undergoes a lot of
changes. He’s now his brother. He’s bald. He’s in bandages, walking with a
cane. It’s an excellent study in doing more with less. You can also pump the
display resolution way up, and I’ve wondered briefly is this is also part of
the joke. I don’t think it affects anything, beyond a certain point.
Affordable, entertaining, and tons of replay value. What
more could one want in a game?
I bought Turnip Boy, first and foremost, to support the very
concept. Tax evasion! In a video game! Not since Tax Evaders for the 2600, to my limited knowledge.
This ostensible RPG is a bit more high-res than Reventure,
in terms of pixel art, but comparable to a very beautiful Zelda, I suppose. It
also shares a lot in common with that game in terms of play. It’s a world of anthropomorphic
vegetables and animals, entirely charming. Maybe it can be compared to Animal
Crossing, too, which I’ve never played, if Animal Crossing was intentionally
ridiculous. Instead of just being ridiculous.
Quests, side quests, and more side quests push the game along. This might feel tedious in a more serious project. In this one, the story drives it all so nicely that you’ll want to talk to everyone, read every
sign, explore every area. Because the writing is absolutely top-notch. Every
bit of it makes me laugh. From the first moments, I was smiling. How many games
achieve that?
The parody is strong in this one. One element that keeps me
amused is that Turnip Boy himself never speaks. His speech consists of a set
of ellipses, and you get the context from the NPC responses. It gives him the
personality of a likable idiot. A likable, rebellious idiot.
Turnip Boy is silly, but he has his own morals and ethics,
and not always consistent ones. He’s evaded a tax bill, but he also steals when
he has to. Turnip Boy is both hero and anti-hero.
When playing, you’re mostly questing for objects that will
get you further along. You can carry multiple items, and swapping them out for
use is quick and painless. You’re often no more than ten seconds away from the
next interaction and funny bit of dialogue. And when I say funny bits, I mean
it. This is exceptionally funny writing.
It's all very slick and well produced. I have yet to notice
a single hitch that detracts from the gameplay.
One thing to note, as I’ve only played it for about fifteen
minutes or so, is that the chief complaint seems to be that it’s too short. By
all reports, you can beat it completely in about one and a half to two hours of playing.
But people complaining about the length underscores one thing: they want to play more of it. The good news is that the dev team is
listening, and are busy adding more to it. I’m not sure what form that will
take, but I suspect we’ll see another chapter in the life and times of Turnip
Boy.
And that is a valid complaint, given that this one isn’t the
sort of thing you play more than once.
Nevertheless, I feel it’s still worth supporting. It’s a
very quality release, and has a nice bit of subversion built in. I do hope to
see more of Turnip Boy in the future, and more from these developers.
Let’s hope they handle their taxes correctly…
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