‘Tumbleseed’ is a promising new indie rolling to the Nintendo Switch

By Michael Rougeau April 14, 2017

TumbleSeed - Out May 2nd on Switch, PS4 & Steam

The Nintendo Switch is a great success, making history as Nintendo’s fastest-selling console ever. Now what the system needs most is more games and to that end in rolls Tumbleseed. Dubbed a “rolly roguelike,” Tumbleseed will arrive on Nintendo Switch, as well as the PlayStation 4 and Windows/MacOS, on May 2.

Tumbleseed is like a souped-up version of the classic game Ice Cold Beer, which you may or may not have seen in a local retro arcade. Ice Cold Beer is more of a mechanical game than a video game, tasking players with balancing a steel ball on rollers and moving it upward while avoiding crisscrossing holes. Tumbleseed works similarly, but with endlessly generated levels, fancy power-ups, a bangin’ soundtrack, and a gorgeous indie art style. It features five worlds, more than 30 different powers, daily challenges, and more, according to the game’s official site.

The game will take advantage of the Nintendo Switch’s touted HD rumble features, according to Nintendo’s official listing for it, and you can even play with a friend on Switch when each player holds one of the Joy-Con controllers.

Developer Team Tumbleseed includes Greg Wohlwend of Threes! and Ridiculous Fishing fame, which is quite a pedigree in the world of indie games. The team also includes composer and sound designer Joel Corelitz, whose previous work includes the excellent The Unfinished Swan and Hohokum. They haven’t announced a price yet for Tumbleseed‘s May 2 release.

Nintendo Switch could use more indie games while we wait for Nintendo’s bigger releases, like Splatoon 2 and Super Mario Odyssey, to arrive later in 2017. In the meantime, reports in March indicated that Nintendo may be doubling down on Switch production to attempt to keep up with demand.

If only it would have done the same for the poor, discontinued NES Mini.

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