Devolver Tumble Time is one of those mobile games that you pick up and play for a few weeks, and then realize... "why am I playing this?" So you uninstall it and kind of forget it ever existed.
The issue that plagues Tumble Time is probably mostly due to the fact that it's in Early Access/Beta right now... so the nature of the game could be completely different from when I played it by the time you read this. I don't know.
It's a fun game on the surface: Connect the same heads to pop them and make more room, the more 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 (but ironically, hitting the tumble button is like a death sentence for your score attempt, so you're almost disincentivized from doing the thing that gives this game its namesake). The more points you get, the closer you get to several different point thresholds that give you more coins and stuff which can be used to unlock loot boxes which unlock other characters. Characters have a "tier" system so they're not all equals with their special ability which can be used to wipe the board in several different ways. I really appreciate that if you own a character, but are playing as a different character, you still get XP for all the characters you own.
The issue though with XP is that it does nothing. The game tells you it's for bragging rights. So why is it in the game at all? Why is it even a feature? The developers are trying to get into that "edgy" Devolver humor with some of the game design and it just doesn't work. Weekly challenges end in a boss and the game will be like "hey just pay us 5 bucks and we'll beat the boss for you." Like... c'mon... really? I can't stand all that.
The one thing that drew me in to the game is the mission system, where the old guy who talks to you will tell you to do things and you get some pretty big rewards from the quest line to use in the whole lootbox mechanic. But at one point, I got stuck because they wanted me to watch ads to continue playing the game. The only thing was, is that I bought the unlimited hearts package. So that message never appeared.
For the rare loot boxes, it cycles through one of like 8 different resources you pick up, and for some reason, it doesn't cycle out daily. So if you're missing the "donut" currency, but have enough of the other rare currencies to buy the rare loot boxes, too bad! You have to hope that after you get enough "donuts" that it magically cycles to the currency you have an overabundance of. Infuriating game design around every corner!
And that's not to mention how the characters are completely unbalanced. I used a "B" tier character more often than my "S" tier characters because the B tier ability was always better than the S tier for some reason.
All in all: It has some extremely infuriating design, from the balance of characters and abilities, to the acquisition of loot boxes, to the insulting monetization scheme, and beyond through some game breaking oversights. Like I said in the beginning, it's fun for a week or two, but in that time it will slowly will chip away your psyche until you uninstall it from your phone after realizing it's a massive mess of code, and a waste of your time and I'm just not sure it will ever be redeemable.
The issue that plagues Tumble Time is probably mostly due to the fact that it's in Early Access/Beta right now... so the nature of the game could be completely different from when I played it by the time you read this. I don't know.
It's a fun game on the surface: Connect the same heads to pop them and make more room, the more 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 (but ironically, hitting the tumble button is like a death sentence for your score attempt, so you're almost disincentivized from doing the thing that gives this game its namesake). The more points you get, the closer you get to several different point thresholds that give you more coins and stuff which can be used to unlock loot boxes which unlock other characters. Characters have a "tier" system so they're not all equals with their special ability which can be used to wipe the board in several different ways. I really appreciate that if you own a character, but are playing as a different character, you still get XP for all the characters you own.
The issue though with XP is that it does nothing. The game tells you it's for bragging rights. So why is it in the game at all? Why is it even a feature? The developers are trying to get into that "edgy" Devolver humor with some of the game design and it just doesn't work. Weekly challenges end in a boss and the game will be like "hey just pay us 5 bucks and we'll beat the boss for you." Like... c'mon... really? I can't stand all that.
The one thing that drew me in to the game is the mission system, where the old guy who talks to you will tell you to do things and you get some pretty big rewards from the quest line to use in the whole lootbox mechanic. But at one point, I got stuck because they wanted me to watch ads to continue playing the game. The only thing was, is that I bought the unlimited hearts package. So that message never appeared.
For the rare loot boxes, it cycles through one of like 8 different resources you pick up, and for some reason, it doesn't cycle out daily. So if you're missing the "donut" currency, but have enough of the other rare currencies to buy the rare loot boxes, too bad! You have to hope that after you get enough "donuts" that it magically cycles to the currency you have an overabundance of. Infuriating game design around every corner!
And that's not to mention how the characters are completely unbalanced. I used a "B" tier character more often than my "S" tier characters because the B tier ability was always better than the S tier for some reason.
All in all: It has some extremely infuriating design, from the balance of characters and abilities, to the acquisition of loot boxes, to the insulting monetization scheme, and beyond through some game breaking oversights. Like I said in the beginning, it's fun for a week or two, but in that time it will slowly will chip away your psyche until you uninstall it from your phone after realizing it's a massive mess of code, and a waste of your time and I'm just not sure it will ever be redeemable.