PAX East 2016: Tumblestone

Tumblestone is a match-3 puzzle game that does things differently. It is a return to form for the local multiplayer puzzle game genre, and one that I had an extremely pleasant time playing. The game features a wide variety of different modes which share a common goal of trying to clear the board of all tumblestones by matching three similar colors. The difference between most puzzle games is that this one has you shoot the next colored stone upwards instead of the typical downwards style.

The game features local multiplayer, something that is extremely limited nowadays, so it is refreshing to see a dev so openly embrace it as part of their design. The race against other players to see who can clear the board the fastest can prove intense, and with all of your boards being the same, it makes things fair for everyone. If you want to make things more interesting, you can set up game modifiers. These range from a wide variety of things, including a block that will reappear every other turn which is unable to be shot through. This makes for some intense games as you have to think a few moves ahead before doing anything too sudden. If your board becomes unsolvable, you can press ‘B’ and reset it, although you will still be racing against your opponents.
The game also features online multiplayer which is essentially the local multiplayer except with a ranking system. Also a part of the mix is a Story Mode and a few Single Player modes including survival and one where you have to clear a different colored set of three every move. There is a ton of content and replayability available in what seems like such a simple game. The time I spent with it was really enjoyable, and I can see myself spending a lot more time with it when it officially launches this summer on Wii U, Steam, Xbox One, and PS4.