EDIT SPOILERS ARE NOW OPEN:

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Our sixth game of 2023 is Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. The target completion date is March 27, 2023.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after March 27, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You are also free to come back any time after the completion date and share your thoughts! This club is meant to be open to all whenever you want to join in the fun!

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion?

A comedic story-based game about a sentient turnip fighting against the oppression of taxation without representation with a 2D Zelda gameplay style.

How long is Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion?

How long to beat lists it as 2 hours long.

Sounds like Jan Jansen's favorite video game.

without saying much i'll just say that when i beat this sometime last yr i found it to be a great little short game with a bunch of charm n i wish i'd played it sooner , i'm looking forward to that sequel

I'll say more once spoilers are lifted tomorrow, but I just played through this in one sitting and really really enjoyed it.

Spoilers are now oepn.

I played this awhile ago but I liked it. It was simple but fun and a lot of the humor was at least amusing, though it didn't get a lot of big belly laughs. It's a perfect Game Pass title because it's very slight but it's breezy and entertaining. I don't have that much to say because it didn't leave a massive impression on me but it was at least a positive impression.

Yeah, this one's a nice little thing of a game. I played through and got all the achievements in one afternoon. The combat works well enough for what it is and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

The humor is the real make-or-break aspect here. A lot of the gags fell flat, like the macaroni noodle that gives you that one shitpost meme speech verbatim, but enough hit to make up for it. This is also a case of using 'environmental storytelling' well, because they use it here to add flavor and darker themes to an otherwise carefree and jokey main plot. The secrets and collectibles require some backtracking, which is just enough to satisfy people who want to wring everything out of the game but so much as to annoy.

The one thing that I didn't know I wanted from a game is the way this thing handles its dungeon concepts. Most/all of the dungeons are lived in spaces that have been taken over by MoBs, and once you clear out the boss those dungeons return back to lived spaces for NPCs. That's a very minor touch, but it does more to create buy-in for the game world than any other Zelda-like I've seen.

Comedic games need to be short, to the point, and integrate the gags in with the gameplay. That's usually just to the left of impossible, but this thing somehow pulled it off. I'm mainly thinking of the recurring gag of Turnip Boy ripping up every document you look at. There are a handful of effective punchlines gotten out of it, but the real kicker is that you have to find and rip up every document in the game in order to unlock the true ending. It also helps that almost all the documents are found either on the critical path or as sidequest rewards.

Also, is there a concept page for games where you can get a joke ending by hitting a nuclear bomb?

I'm feeling pretty similar to @borgmaster, except I think more of the jokes landed for me. Although, I'm glad you mentioned the macaroni bit because that one went right over my head and I ended up being annoyed that I couldn't back out of the conversation halfway through.

All in all though, I think the mini dungeons really worked well, and the dialogue was funny and short without being overly quip-y. Combat was as good as it needed to be in most cases, but I found some of the boss battles to be pretty big spikes in difficulty- like the Toxic Stag and Liz. And switching between Portals, Watering Can, Sword could be cumbersome at times. I was happy to use the bumpers to swap back and forth, but I sometimes had a hard time differentiating what I had equipped from the sprite. I know I could always enter the menu to change, I just never got used to it since the game was so short and it only asked you to swap between all things towards the end.

All in all, I think it is the perfect length for what it is. I did not spend much time with the Binding of Isaac-style mode that opens up post-game, but it was neat that it was there for whoever wants it.

I'd recommend it to most people who enjoy the 2d-Zelda games or if someone is looking for a game that implements humor effectively- 8/10.