{"id":15768,"date":"2016-12-05T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T00:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=15768"},"modified":"2016-11-09T05:01:58","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T05:01:58","slug":"tumblestone-wii-u-ps4-xbox-one-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/05\/tumblestone-wii-u-ps4-xbox-one-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Tumblestone (Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TUMBLE_BOX\"<\/a>Tumblestone is a puzzle game that hearkens back to the puzzlers that had a bit of a boon in the late 80\u2019s and 90\u2019s.\u00a0 When you see it, you may think of games like Puzzle Bobble, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, Cleopatra Fortune, or Magical Drop (especially Magical Drop).\u00a0 The top of your well playfield is covered with colored blocks, and you move a character around on the bottom. Line them up to a block at the top and press a button to take it away and it\u2019ll move to the top of the screen.\u00a0 Then you must match two more squares of the same color before you can repeat the process again.\u00a0 So yeah, it really reminded me of Magical Drop, except less arcade-y and more cerebral.\u00a0 It\u2019s available to download on computers, Xbox One, PS4, and Wii U, but you can also get physical disc copies of it on the PS4 and Wii U.\u00a0 That version on the Wii U is what\u2019s reviewed here.<\/p>\n

The cool thing about Tumblestone is it may seem like such a simple idea, but there are a wide variety of gameplay modes.\u00a0 The main single player experience is the Story Mode.\u00a0 Here you move each character around on a map, and solve a puzzle on every stop. \u00a0You must make sure to always leave three of a color to match, or you\u2019ll have to start the stage over.\u00a0 It takes a lot of planning, and is tougher than it sounds.\u00a0 Sometimes you may have to solve a succession of puzzles or battle another character on certain spots on the map.\u00a0 This mode is how you unlock characters to use in the other parts as well.\u00a0 As you solve puzzles, you\u2019ll gain experience and level up, although I don\u2019t know what good that does.<\/p>\n

There are some arcade modes for single players as well.\u00a0 In Marathon, you must clear the blocks below a certain line, but if you have to use a block above the line, the whole row of blocks will move down.\u00a0 In Heartbeat, the rows of blocks creep slowly down, and you must clear them as quickly as you can.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t match three, they\u2019ll go down even faster!\u00a0 When they reach the bottom, it\u2019s Game Over.\u00a0 Finally, in Infinipuzzle, you\u2019ll solve puzzles similar to the ones in Story Mode until you mess up.\u00a0 You can also tackle quests which give you a boost of experience points when completed, and then they\u2019ll add more quests to replace it.<\/p>\n

But where the game really shines in in Multiplayer.\u00a0 Up to four can play at the same time, and you can even go online!\u00a0 You can do a quick match or use a daily modifier (like a power-up) to change up the matches.\u00a0 You can also play couch local as well, and there are many modes of that.\u00a0 In Puzzle Race, you must clear out your field to win, but if you mess up you must start over, which may give the other players a head start.\u00a0 You\u2019ll solve smaller puzzles as the blocks scroll down in Tug of War, and in Battle, the blocks will slowly creep down as you match blocks quickly.<\/p>\n

The only problems I had with this game are pretty minor.\u00a0 I wish there was an \u2018undo\u2019 mode for the puzzle sections in single player, as it can get frustrating when you mess up and have to start the puzzle all the way over.\u00a0 You can get coins to use to skip tough puzzles, but they are few and far between.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather have a hint option instead.\u00a0 Also, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because of the slightly generic visuals, music, and characters, but the game lacks a tiny bit of the charm that the puzzle games of the 90\u2019s had.<\/p>\n

But other than that, this is a fantastic puzzle game.\u00a0 Call me old fashioned, but I think it\u2019s cool that this game has a physical disc copy, since most of the time these titles are download only.\u00a0 Even better, it\u2019s less than half the price of a regular game, so it\u2019s a great deal.\u00a0 If you like puzzlers, you\u2019ll definitely want to check it out!<\/p>\n

\"TUMBLE_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play, as it is pretty simple to figure out.\u00a0 Younger gamers may get bored of the basic gameplay and frustrated at the tough puzzles.\u00a0 Since the game encourages planning, logic, and other thinking skills, it could be considered somewhat educational.\u00a0 Tumblestone is rated E for Everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tumblestone is a puzzle game that hearkens back to the puzzlers that had a bit of a boon in the late 80\u2019s and 90\u2019s.\u00a0 When you see it, you may think of games like Puzzle Bobble, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, Cleopatra Fortune, or Magical Drop (especially Magical Drop).\u00a0 The top of your well playfield […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15770,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions\/15770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}