Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion: Short, Sweet, And Slightly Illegal

Tax evasion. We’ve all thought about it, but we never actually do it. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion lets you break the law without the jail time or the paperwork. 

Is Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion worth the misdemeanor?

Developed by Snoozy Kazoo and released in October 2020, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a top-down action adventure game that blends federal crimes and sentient foods. It’s a single-player game available to play on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, mobile, PlayStation, Steam, and Windows. 

Your character, Turnip Boy, loses his property to Mayor Onion, who accuses Turnip Boy of committing tax evasion. Turnip Boy becomes an errand boy for Mayor Onion and is sent on tasks with the promise that his debt will be cleared if he completes the tasks. 

Turnip Boy goes all over "Veggieville," a world populated by anthropomorphic produce. All the humans are completely gone and replaced by these foods. Turnip Boy’s adventures lead to self-discovery and uncovered truths. 

Turnip Boy is a menace to society. He takes a sentimental watering can from Old Man Lemon, kills a snail, and shreds legal documents, all in the first five minutes of the game.

The writing, while mostly humorous, has darker themes in the margins of its narrative that add to the messages of the game. The whole game is about the aftermath of nuclear war and how the Earth reacts to radioactivity. 

There are plenty of unique characters that reference other media. For example, a sentient cherry who is a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure reference. My favorite character is an avocado archeologist who wears her fruit as a backpack. Or DJ Sizzle, a fire that has odd lines of dialogue that got a genuine chuckle out of me.

The goal of the player is to collect new tools to unlock new areas and take on new bosses. Boss encounters encourage variation, keeping the game new and fresh with each new level. The only downside to this is you’re forced to switch between items in the middle of fights, which can be rather hard and needless, seeing as several buttons on the controller have no purpose and could easily be adapted to be for certain tools. On the plus side, the game pauses when you enter the menu to switch tools. 

Everything is rather simple: including the puzzles, navigating the map, and the controls. Each new location doesn’t stick around for too long, keeping everything feeling new. 

There wasn’t much to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion that I liked enough to remember, besides a handful of scenes, characters, and the sound design. The sound design fits the world and the tone of the game perfectly. The music is high-quality and sets the mood through a variety of tracks. 

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is just not a game I find all that interesting. The puzzles were almost too simple, which didn’t keep me engaged. The replayability is even worse; there’s no point in returning to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion because there's not much to the game. 

It's short, taking two to four hours to complete. Something that could be a plus or a downside. The short runtime means it ends before it gets too boring or repetitive, but that also means Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion doesn’t have much to it, making it shallow.

However, if this game is your speed and you love it, it's the first in a series. There are currently two main games in the Turnip Boy series: Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion and its sequel Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, with a newly announced prequel, Turnip Boy Steals the Mail.

To me, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a cute but shallow game whose charm wears off quickly. 

My Rating: