UPDATE: The original version of this review suggests that only winning builds are saved for general play. Though a representative for 1TK confirmed to Summit that user-created boards can face one another regardless of winning outside of the Duel mode, the version of the game as we covered it in our Early Access review could be seen as saying otherwise. Please see the dev comment on this review for a clarification of the board save state.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Turnbound takes the challenge of building an autobattler in a bit of a different direction, though how successful it is in doing so is open to debate.

Turnbound is a board game-esque auto-battler. You play as one of three characters—Sun Wukong, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and Robin Hood—each with their own unique abilities and desired combos. Players then buy tiles to place on their boards, creating a web of potential combos and strategies, all with the singular goal of annihilating their opponent. Players win when they reach ten victories against other players’ saved state boards, and lose when they run out of lives.

That each character has their own abilities gives each of the three characters their own strategy and feel. Playing Alice, for example, my primary goal is to chain enough potions that I win before my opponent has even really had a turn, with their first action triggering my special ability multiple times over. Playing Robin Hood, on the other hand, I don’t care about potions, instead finding ways to destroy tiles and donating the resulting coins to power up my own massive abilities.

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However, while each character has their own specific feel and strategy, they do have access to a common pool of tiles. As Robin Hood, it’s possible for me to draw tiles intended for Sun Wukong, and vice versa, creating the potential for combinations beyond the expected. There are, as always, pros and cons to this. On the one hand, having a broad pool of shared items means items that work well in one build can potentially be adapted to another. On the other hand, the large number of items means one particular item, that could be vital for a particular build, can be hard to find.

Or, more frustratingly, that any items that fit a particular character and their abilities don’t show up for multiple turns, leading to a near-guaranteed loss.

It’s in the tiles and the mechanics within them that some of the flaws with the game design itself appear, making it clear how unintentionally frustrating this game can be.

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Take, for instance, the process of acquiring tiles. The game alternates between battles and shops, with each shop being an opportunity to buy new tiles and new board spaces, and rearrange or upgrade the items already on the board. Players receive a limited number of coins with which to do these things—in the above example, I have twelve coins—with any leftover coins carrying over to the next round. Upgrading items requires having multiple of the same item, plus an extra coin to pay for the process of upgrading, and each board square costs a coin to unlock.

One immediate flaw is that there are not enough coins to upgrade boards in what feels like meaningful ways, especially with characters and builds that incentivise having a large number of objects. In the above example, for instance, my twelve coins vanish before my board meaningfully changes, with seven coins purchasing a hero upgrade, another coin applying the upgrade, and the remaining four coins either purchasing board space or a single object, leaving me with more or less the same board state as I move into the next battle. While some objects do offer the ability to generate coins within a battle, these objects are both rare and generate a negligible amount of coins.

The ultimate consequence of this lack of resources is that, while it encourages players to think strategically about their purchases, it also disincentivises experimentation and switching strategies over the course of a run. When buying and placing one object potentially runs through the entirety of the resources I have available for that turn, there is little incentive for me to change my build, especially when it’s unclear whether my build will actually benefit from having done so. If the first shop I see doesn’t have something immediately helpful, rerolling is also expensive enough to disincentivise exploring to see if there’s something better. Turnbound’s economy, then, disincentivises what I would consider to be one of the fundamental joys of deckbuilders and auto-battlers specifically. There is no space to experiment and to see if a new, unknown card can make numbers go brrrr.

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While the economy design alone disincentivises experimentation, there is a more fundamental element of Turnbound’s game design that removes more of the joy of deckbuilding. Turnbound is nominally a multiplayer game. While there is no way for players to play against one another live, battles are played against another player’s saved board. However, unlike other saved state auto-battlers, Turnbound only saves the boards of the players who successfully win ten battles, with battles then being played against these boards at their various stages of victory. Unsuccessful boards—whether they win nine battles or zero—are not saved.

In the long-run, this also leads to the game becoming inaccessible to new players. When the only boards available to play against are those who have won, there is an endless power creep, with builds needing to be ever more efficient to survive even at the lowest levels. Setting aside the lack of room for exploration, Turnbound’s design will, if left unchecked, eventually create a game that’s unplayable to any but the absolute luckiest. It is deeply deterministic in a way that isn’t true of most deckbuilders or even auto-battlers. Recovering from a couple of bad rounds is nearly impossible, and the strategies for doing so are limited at best.

That said, Turnbound still brings something unique to the auto-battler table. Its approach of a board covered with tiles is an interesting one, and placing tiles strategically is a fun challenge all on its own. There is a satisfaction in watching a chain reaction win me the battle before it’s even begun, knowing that I have indeed placed every element of that chain correctly.

It is also worth considering that Turnbound is still in Early Access. While the game, as it currently stands, has flaws, none of these flaws are necessarily fundamental. There is enough potential within Turnbound that it is a game worth watching, even though its current state leaves a bit to be desired. While any individual run may be fun, anyone seeking something that allows the freedom that traditionally accompanies auto-battlers may want to wait and see how the game develops.

There are elements of Turnbound that are creative, unique, and interesting. There is potential here for an interesting auto-battler with fresh takes on strategic thinking within the genre. Instead, Turnbound is hobbled by designs that punish precisely the sort of creative thinking that draws players to deckbuilders in the first place. This is a game I want to enjoy, but it’s difficult when every round looks exactly the same as the one that came before, and I’m left staring at things I want to build, but can never afford to try.

If you enjoyed this review, please check out the Summit Reviews website [summitreviews.biz] and curator. Thanks for reading!

i have never reviewed a game before, but this game is something special. this game is a ton of fun and i am excited to see where it goes as it moves along and out of early access. for those saying that the game is too RNG heavy- i disagree. pretty much every run i have done has indeed been different, but the game is fair with the tools it gives you to succeed. in addition, each run allows for 5 losses before the run fails, giving you extra time if you get a rough starting set of tiles. as you continue to play with one of the characters, you start to pick up on how the game functions and how to play that character. there are 3 characters at the time of this review, which all play quite differently. i thought the tutorial provided good info. its sort of like a trading card game where if you read the tiles they tell you what they do exactly...sometimes you just have to read them 3 times.

one of my favorite parts of the game is that you can save/share builds with others to challenge with their own builds. so, the game lets you play in a rogue like style where you face random builds other players have made as you create your own build BUT, after the fact, you can play a build you completed a run with against other player's builds randomly or via code.

10/10, would recommend. it is an autobattler, which isn't everyone's style of game. there are a ton of decisions to make while you play that keeps it interesting though, even in early access with limited tiles/characters to play as.

This game has the frame to be one of the best Auto Battlers on the market.

To be clear on my biases, I am a huge fan of Backpack Battles (BPB) and think The Bazaar is hot garbage.

BPB focuses on managing buffs, debuffs, and a global health pool. Item adjacencies are complicated and can extend in unusual ways. There can be dozens of activations and triggers happening at the same time leaving you confused as to what is happening. If you really want to know what happened, you need to open a report to study activations and triggers or have over a hundred hours of time to already understand the interactions. BPB is a great game, and in my opinion is still the best in the genre.

This game takes the bones of BPB and makes some changes I really like. I love how the board is more about the individual items than some global health total. You are buffing the individual pieces on the board to try to build a strategy to kill a specific object on the enemy's board. It is a strategy game where you figure out how to protect your king while coming up with a strategy to assault theirs. By comparison to BPB, the interactions on the board are more clear and easier to follow.

At time of writing, 95% of adjacencies are simple and only work with things that they are touching. This is neither good or bad, and I expect it will become more complicated with development.

You start runs with 2 reroll tokens that allow you to replay a fight than you got unlucky in. This is a great touch and it challenges you to understand when you had a close fight that just didn't go your way versus a poor plan. Have really enjoyed this feature.

Overall - if you have little experience with auto-battlers I'd encourage you to go play BPB and get your fill. Come back here and get this when you want more of the experience. I look forward to watching this one and if they keep their promises this one will be an excellent title.