TumbleSeed adds Switch-exclusive Battle Mode

Unusual arcade roguelike TumbleSeed, a game about balancing a ball on a beam, has just received a new Battle Mode exclusive to its Switch release.

This competitive two-player mode was included in the game's Four Peaks update, which drastically alters the game in a myriad of ways that we covered in June when the patch arrived on PC.

The basic gist is that it adds new non-procedurally-generated training stages, a Weekly Challenge mode, and unlockable persistent perks. In an excruciatingly detailed and insightful postmortem, developer Greg Greg Wohlwend examined every regret he had with TumbleSeed at launch and how the Four Peaks update should make everything better. It's a fascinating read.

As far as the new Battle Mode goes, the developer described it on Twitter as "a one on one King of the Hill style competitive mode" in which players vie to stay in a highlighted zone the longest.

"Controls can be two Joy-Cons, a pro controller and a set of Joy-Cons or whatever you can dream up," the developer noted. "It's all local, on-the-go or docked."

We recommended TumbleSeed in May, when it launched on Switch, PS4, PC and Mac. "It's effortlessly merged Ice Cold Beer with lessons learned from modern masterpieces like Spelunky," I wrote in our TumbleSeed review. "The result is a surprising delight that feels at once vintage and vogueish."