Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion delivers exactly what its name promises, and it also brings with it a charming story and some nice Zelda-esque dungeons. Despite the game being very short, it is recommendable because of its beautiful art style and amazing soundtrack.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion takes a pretty bonkers premise, and turns it into a thorough action-adventure game. Not only are the design choices and character dialogue hilarious, but the gameplay hits on all of the beats that make a good Zelda clone. The full game is on the shorter side, but it left me hoping that we haven’t seen the last of Turnip Boy and this curious world.

A colorful, funny and terribly catchy little adventure.

The ease of play combined with a relatively small map and short story means that you’ll get through the game in a few short hours. You’ll be acutely aware of the map’s relatively small size since it will have you doing a fair amount of backtracking during your quests. It seems like the game’s length is more likely the result of some sort of constraint felt by the developers, budgetary or otherwise, because there is enough to the game’s world, story, and potential side narratives to provide for a longer experience. Your time with the game will be mostly enjoyable, but you will feel that your experience was cut artificially short when you reach the end.

As it stands right now, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a quirky and fun game with some interesting ideas and an adorable mascot. The gameplay didn't leave a huge impression on me, but I wish I could have committed more crimes with Turnip Boy before the credits rolled. While I currently have a hard time recommending a game this short with its current price tag, it is encouraging to see that the developers plan on expanding the game's mythos with free updates in the future. I can't wait to see what responsibilities Turnip Boy avoids next.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is an adventure with very atypical characters, enjoyable landscapes and humorous dialogues, although its playability is wrong with regard to changing objects or clumsy camera movement.

Dig beneath its cutesy surface and you'll find a small but tasty crop that's well worth harvesting. [Issue#359, p.117]

Short but sweet can sound like a back-handed compliment. But to apply it here is not to damn with faint praise. Both short and sweet, Turnip Boy turns a hearty root vegetable base into a frothy, fizzy confection that doesn’t let you over-indulge.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a short action game that lacks replayability, but it provides an adorable experience in a unique package.

The only thing I would have liked to have seen is more of it, although it does well with what little is already there. I mean, using bombs grown from special plants and strings of portals in conjunction with one another to map explosives down specific routes to destroy blockades is brilliant, and more so when used to fight crazed mutated forest animals, but it’s over all too soon when there’s so much space to expand. What’s worse is that as the story progresses and we learn more about the world and the origins of the living produce, a lot of darker questions begin to surface but none of them are really answered. The whole thing feels more like the showcasing of an idea, even though it does come full circle by the end. All I’m saying is that if we got to see more adventures of Turnip Boy in the future, it would be totally cherry.

As is sometimes the case with comedy films, the premise and promotional material for Turnip Boy ends up being funnier than the end product. This brief and mostly shallow adventure is rarely amusing, but it at least looks charming in the process.