Turmoil Review ( Nintendo Switch )

Review code used, with many thanks to PLAYDIGIOUS

After a successful release a few years ago on Steam, Turmoil makes its way to the Nintendo Switch. A simulation, strategy game set in the 19th century oil rush in North America . Time to go drilling for Oil like it’s 1899!

Black Gold

In Turmoil you are hunting for oil in the hopes of becoming a very rich oil tycoon, but of course it not just you that’s hunting for oil, you’re up against three AI competitors. Take your pick of four pre-generated characters, it doesn’t matter which one you pick as their backstories don’t influence the gameplay.

You have a limited budget of a few thousand dollars to start with and the levels are timed, so you only have a set amount of time to find the oil and sell it to make a profit.

Dowsing For Oil

The first level of the game is a tutorial that walks you through how to drill for oil. It’s simple enough to hunt for oil by hiring a dowser to find a pocket of the black gold under the ground.

Once your dowser has located some oil he will whistle and wave his arms about to get your attention. You then purchase an oil rig, plonk it down where the dowser has indicated on the ground where the oil is underneath.

Drill down through the ground laying pipes as you go. If you’re lucky and hit the right spot, oil will start to make its way up the pipes you have laid.

From there you hire a horse and cart to transport the oil to the seller to get a decent price for your precious black gold. The challenge in Turmoil is knowing when to sell the oil and when to store the oil as the sell price fluctuates up and down. And you won’t become and oil Barron by selling your oil off cheaply. There are two outlets buying oil, one on either side of the screen, the oil price in each varies from cents up to dollars. So you are constantly watching each side of the screen to see what the oil prices are before you sell, it’s kind of like watching a tennis match as your eyes move from left to right watching the oil price rise or drop.

Oil Spills Are Bad

You must make sure your oil rig doesn’t overflow and spill oil everywhere as you will get fined. Having enough transportation is key to preventing oil spillages. You can buy a storage silo to store oil in while the oil price fluctuates but of course, buying the storage silo costs money too.

For such a simple game, it’s actually pretty fast paced and intense thanks to all these different things happening at once, and the time limit ticking down while your searching for oil adds to that excitement.

Once your time is up the tiles obscuring the ground fall away, revealing all the oil pockets that are missed. After the level is finished you’re whisked back to town.

Buy Upgrades To Use Once

In town, which expands as you play, there are a few buildings which will supply you with items at a price that will help in the search of oil. A Stable where you can buy upgrades such as a speed upgrade for your house and cart. Or visit the Workshop where you can purchase upgrades for the oil pipes to make them wider to enable the oil to flow faster. Or buy a Scanner which will tell you exactly what sits below the surface of the ground.

Oddly, when you buy any upgrades the upgrades aren’t permanent, you get to use the upgrade in the next level you play, when you return back to town you have to buy that upgrade again to be able to use it in the next level. This took me by surprise the first time I bought an upgrade, and to be honest I felt a bit cheated, all my hard earned cash spent on an upgrade that I don’t actually get to keep. After a while I did get used to it but I really want to keep my hard earned upgrades!

Bribe Officials

In the local Saloon you’ll meet some shady officials who can be bribed for a price to overlook your oil spills and disgruntled managers to fix the prices on the oil you sell. In the factory you can buy various expensive upgrades to the silo for storing the oil and modified pipe joints which improve your chances of bringing more oil to the surface. Need a loan for your next expedition of hunting for oil, then you will need to stop at the bank and talk to WIlliam the bank manager about finances.

And last but not least you have the Town Hall, it is here you visit to buy new plots of land to prospect for oil, but that’s not all. As the game progresses you also get the option when you visit the Town Hall to take part in a Stock Auction as the Mayor is selling his shares in the town, the mayor puts up a certain percentage for sale, sets the price, after which the price start to count down and who ever presses first gets that share to themselves.

This adds tension to the game as you’re bidding, who will be lucky enough to get the town stock at a decent price and not go bankrupt in the process? Sometimes you’ll get stock for a song, other times one of your competitors will bid well before you do.

Buying Land

When buying new land you’re taken to the world map where you bid for the plots of land against the three AI opponents. Bidding for new land can get pretty heated at times, more so later in the game as all the good plots of land have already been bought up. There are four different environments on the map to buy plots on and as you move to each region a new gameplay mechanic is introduced to keep the game fresh and interesting and stop it becoming stale.

Natural gas is introduced in the later levels, it exists in pockets beside the oil but you can’t sell gas. Instead the gas propels the oil faster through the oil pipes. This is great if you’re prepared for it by having enough horses to transport it and a silo to store it in. But if you’re not prepared, it can lead to more oil spillage and the oil spillage fines will go up.

A little later in the game, you can buy some pretty expensive upgrades that expand the use of gas.The upgrades enable you to pump the gas it straight into either of the buying companies, raising their oil price. Timing is absolutely essential here, as gas depletes quickly and the price tumbles way down with it. Some forward planning comes in handy, too, as you want to avoid drilling gas until the absolute perfect moment.

The Nintendo Switch version of Turmoil comes with the DLC The Heat is On, which adds an additional campaign with some extra mechanics in it, and a basic card game and two new characters.

Visuals And Controls

Turmoil has a western look. They suit the age the game is set in and the gameplay perfectly, it looks a lot better on the Switch screen than it does in the screenshots of the game. The buildings and horse and carts are reminiscent of the time period and are matched with a chill soundtrack of guitars and banjo’s, which all adds to the western feel of the game.

Controls are via the joycons or touchscreen and for the most part they work fine, there are times when the controls can feel a bit fiddly, like when you upgrade the oil pipes underground by clicking on each one to upgrade it. It can be a bit hit and miss especially if the pipes are close together.

Conclusion

Turmoil is a really fun little game, Yes it can get repetitive but it is fantastic for jumping in and out of and playing in shorter bursts. It does have a few niggles with the controls as I’ve mentioned, however these problems are small and you do get used to them.

Do you fancy becoming rich, well, my advice is to take up the challenge in Turmoil and you never know you might strike it lucky and find some Oil that is, Black Gold.

Texas Tea come a-bubblin up through the ground!

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot