Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion Review – A Pleasing Audit

The one thing I really hate about video games is how arbitrary the names of video games can be. Games like Infamous where you can be a good guy or Destiny where you can go around simply teabagging opponents. How about Final Fantasy where there are no final fantasies? It’s just nonsense that makes me wonder if the people who named the game even played the game! This is why I was so pleased to find out that Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion was about a boy turnip that ripped up his taxes and evaded paying them! I was so worried this game would be about the Bureau of Control or life on the Borderlands. Nope, in Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion you take control of Turnip Boy as he rips up various documents and pays for his crime of tax evasion.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Developer: Snoozy Kazoo
Price: $15
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a Steam code for review

A common problem with humorous games is that they make a fairly standard, milquetoast game in a genre and try to pepper in humor as an edgy or fun take on the genre. Turnip Boy does the opposite of this. Turnip Boy falls into the Legend of Zelda style Action/Adventure genre, where there are dungeons with puzzles and you need items to complete those puzzles. However, there are actually very few genre jokes. In fact, many of the jokes are made as in-world humor with either real-world or pop-culture references sprinkled in.

As a genre piece, it’s not that great. Technically, I ran into no issues. No artistic glitches, nothing that prevented me from moving forward or playing the game. Everything seemed to run as it was supposed to. Turnip Boy isn’t looking to do anything groundbreaking though. I was able to see it for what it was, a humorous story told through an action/adventure lens. Without trying to be more than it was actually made me respect the game more. You can only say so much with a game, especially if that game needs to be low-budget, especially if that game has a small team, especially if that game has a smaller scope. So the developers at Snoozy Kazoo didn’t try to make something bigger than they could handle, and that type of restraint is downright refreshing.

Everything in Turnip Boy seems to be done on a small scale. The world map isn’t particularly big, there are maybe 30 to 40 total screens in this 2D action/adventure game. So when Turnip Boy rips up his taxes and loses his greenhouse in civil forfeiture, there’s not a long-drawn-out quest to get it back. Instead, Mayor Onion is giving you tasks to complete in order to get your greenhouse back. Mayor Onion is a son-of-a-bitch, but he is providing you with an opportunity to get your greenhouse back and come hell or high water, Turnip Boy is gonna do it!

I particularly enjoyed how simple the puzzles to progress were and how they did a great job of teaching what they expected out of me. Again though, Turnip Boy is a vehicle for humor, not puzzles, so while there were some puzzles that fell on the elaborate side of light, I never felt overwhelmed or helpless with what was provided. The first tool you get in Turnip Boy is a watering can and you can use that to grow seeds, which is the primary puzzle-solving tool. Puzzles involve kicking exploding boomblooms into walls, rocks, or even square watermelons used to fill square holes. We’re not witnessing a new era of puzzles here, just rehashing some favorites and making you think for a few seconds between jokes.

And just like the puzzles, the artistic style is simplified as well. The cartoonish art style does an excellent job of portraying both a cute and belligerent Turnip Boy. I call him belligerent because any time he’s handed a piece of paper, his only option is to rip it up. It feels like the odds were stacked against Turnip Boy considering when given his taxes that was the only option he could pick. Still, the artistic style really lends itself to the humor by providing characters and designs that refuse to be taken seriously. Turnip Boy himself is quite adorable but when you see the IRS beets, the potato cops, the various adorable berries, it’s hard to stop smiling while playing.

As a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t take very long to finish, I consider Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion to be the perfect palate-cleansing game. Whether you’re in-between long games or are just looking for something that doesn’t require brainpower for payoff, Turnip Boy is the perfect game to put you in a good mood. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is ripe to be picked and placed in your library.

The Final Word
As a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t take very long to finish, I consider Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion to be the perfect palate-cleansing game. Whether you’re in-between long games or are just looking for something that doesn’t require brainpower for payoff, Turnip Boy is the perfect game to put you in a good mood. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is ripe to be picked and placed in your library.

– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great