{"id":90220,"date":"2026-03-06T12:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigbossbattle.com\/?p=90220"},"modified":"2026-03-06T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:42:08","slug":"turnbound-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigbossbattle.com\/turnbound-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Turnbound – You turn me right bound, baby"},"content":{"rendered":"
A competitive roguelike backpack builder? <\/b>Turnbound<\/i><\/b> certainly sounds unique.<\/b><\/h5>\n

A while ago, I took a look at <\/span>Backpack Hero<\/span><\/i><\/a>, which is one of a rather niche genre of games with a loose connection to the ever popular roguelite deckbuilder. Rather than building a deck though, you\u2019d fill your backpack with equipment, positioning each object carefully to maximise synergy and win battles. <\/span>Turnbound<\/span><\/i> does something very similar, but without the backpack motif and adds a competitive element. It\u2019s surprisingly addictive, but player feedback leaves a fair bit to be desired.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a framing to what\u2019s going on, but that story is minimal at best. You\u2019re a lost or possibly trapped soul in a mysterious caravan in which a magic cat introduces you to a game board. The board will have you place tiles on it to strengthen a character that you temporarily inhabit before that board challenges another trapped soul from another world. If you win enough, you\u2019ll get to go free. At least, that\u2019s what I gleaned from the basic background you\u2019re given. It\u2019s all fluff really, as <\/span>Turnbound<\/span><\/i> is absolutely a gameplay driven game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Turnbound\"
There are only three characters but they each work differently. Perhaps there will be more added if the game does well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To begin a run, you pick one of three fictional characters consisting of Robin Hood, Sun Wukong, and Alice. Quite why these are the options I have no idea, but it\u2019s probably something to do with copyright and publicly available figures. Each one has a different playstyle, with Sun being aggressive and trying to overwhelm his foes, Alice relies on putting tiles to sleep to take them out of action, whilst Robin tries to evade incoming damage and poison his enemy. They have their own special abilities and skills to use during a run, as well as unlockable ones as you level a character up.<\/span><\/p>\n

The actual game has you placing tiles on a grid that will be used to attack your enemy with the goal of reducing the character themselves to zero health. At first you\u2019ll have a few empty slots and a couple of items to place, but after a few rounds you\u2019ll have access to a lot more space and equipment to tinker with. You\u2019re free to alter your grid between rounds, so you aren\u2019t locked into a setup once you\u2019ve placed something. This is a good thing as the sheer volume of items that boost adjacent weapons or skills is unbelievable at times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Turnbound\"
Battles take place automatically. There’s a random element here which can be frustrating when attacks don’t happen in the optimal order.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Win or lose a round, you\u2019ll earn money that you then use to buy more tiles for your grid or to power up tiles that you already have. If you lose five rounds in your run, it\u2019s game over and back to the start with possibly some newly unlocked items. If you win ten, then you win and move into a higher bracket to face stronger opponents.<\/span><\/p>\n

You should be prepared to face some strong opponents early on though, as most enemies are other players\u2019 grids who have succeeded before you. This asynchronous multiplayer that <\/span>Turnbound<\/span><\/i> employs is really neat, as you get to see all sorts of different setups from other players, giving you ideas on what could be effective builds for your future runs. On the downside, it means you can end up facing someone who demolishes you really quickly. Still, you never face a grid that isn\u2019t suited to the round you\u2019re currently on, so you shouldn\u2019t expect to get wiped out too often.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem I came up against is that so many things happen at once in later rounds that it\u2019s very hard to tell what is effective and what isn\u2019t. Even turning the game speed down doesn\u2019t help much as the number of abilities triggering at once becomes visual noise before too long. At some points I just gave up and let things play out in the hopes I\u2019d win. There are a lot of key words to keep track of too. Taunt seems to be very effective, forcing enemy attacks to focus on a specific tile, but you also have thorns, poison, charge, destroy, ammo, and a slew of others that it can be a lot to take in a times, and it\u2019s difficult to really narrow down a playstyle that works best. It doesn\u2019t help that your weapons attack enemy tiles randomly, meaning sometimes you can see a way to win but the RNG decides that you don\u2019t get to. I\u2019d like an option to set priorities for your different weapons, and maybe this is a feature that will show up once the game leaves Early access.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Turnbound\"
Successful runs will save your grid for other plays to battle in their own games.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With those complaints out the way though, I will admit that I found <\/span>Turnbound<\/span><\/i> to be really quite addictive. The one-more-run mentality slipped in very easily, and I\u2019ve been quite happy to try out a bunch of different builds just to see what happens even knowing I might not be able to keep track once the round starts. I\u2019d like there to be more characters, though I appreciate balancing could be an issue there, but it\u2019s still early days for <\/span>Turnbound<\/span><\/i>. The art style is certainly there, although simplistic in terms of animation. I\u2019m hoping the full release does well, as there does seem to be a solid player base at the moment too, so there\u2019s a good chance this game could have legs if it continues to develop the way it has done so far.<\/span><\/p>\n

Turnbound is available now in Steam Early Access.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n