Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is an action-adventure game developed by Snoozy Kazoo, published by Graffiti Games, and released in April 2021.
You play as Turnip Boy, an adorable yet trouble-making turnip who, after failing to pay his taxes, is forced to become Mayor Onion's assistant. Turnip Boy is tasked with getting various objects that the mayor needs for some purpose, and if he fails, Onion will send the full might of the IRS after him.
The gameplay consist of a Zelda-esque top down adventure where Turnip Boy must explore the town and its various locales, fighting enemies and solving puzzles all the way.
A sequel, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, was released on January 18th, 2024.
Turnip Boy Writes a Trope List:
- After the End: In the penultimate dungeons, it's revealed that vegetables first gained sentience due to nuclear radiation caused by a war that killed all the humans. Or most of them anyway until Turnip Boy came to their bunker and killed one of them.
- Since some of the documents that Turnip Boy finds are dated 2020 and there are mentions of "a virus" and social distancing in the diary entries, they seemingly imply that humanity went to war against the Coronavirus and nuked themselves out of existence.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: There are sidequests which award different hats for Turnip Boy to wear.
- Animals Not to Scale: Snails, worms, pigs and rabbits are all the same size. Sure, some have been mutated by the radiations and toxic waste, but still.
- Ascended Fridge Horror: The game hints at its history in the early sections and while the player can figure that out, the characters themselves really begin to stumble into the unsettling implications without fully focusing or comprehending them, starting with finding war drafting documents and MIA letters in the Farmhouse, leading to seeing the ghost of the drafted son observe Turnip Boy in a hallway. It gets worse from there.
- Astral Finale: The True Final Boss fight takes place in the upper atmosphere with a clear view of space, on ground launched skywards by the nuke Mayor Onion detonates.
- Big Bad: Mayor Onion is the corrupt mayor who is forcing Turnip Boy to be his assistant and collect various items for him to accomplish his plan to use nuclear technology to become a god and conquer the universe.
- Bleak Level: The Bomb Bunker. There is absolutely no humor there, the music features air-raid sirens and is low-key, the true nature of the game's world is revealed, the color palette consists mainly of grays with a red glow like an alarm going off, the few enemies you encounter there are hideous and can kill Turnip Boy very quickly, and it's capped off with a boss fight against a horrific mutant that you inadvertently create when you expose a human girl to nuclear radiation.
- Blush Sticker: Turnip Boy always has some lines on his cheeks, which creates this in an unconventional way. Other characters such as the swaddled beans in the cooler, have the more conventional version. Further into the game with the twists being laid out, the sickly green glow from the nuclear waste, the bruise he gets on his head and potential to have Turnip Boy's head shaved as a cosmetic option, the blush sticker he has can more uncomfortably resemble the outline of his cheekbones when he's viewed head-on, as if he's suffering from radiation poisoning.
- Body Horror: The Rotten as far as other food people go, such as a zombie lollipop that is dirty and has a band-aid hanging off of its side. A more straightforward and serious example comes from those exposed to the nuclear waste and radiation. The Stag constantly vomits projectiles at you, Liz becomes a green mutant with slimy arms growing from her stomach and vomits deadly pools of toxic waste, and Mayor Onion begins wildly sprouting roots while also vomiting goo and growing bigger in both phases.
- Cerebus Retcon: All those adorable little food creatures you meet throughout the game, including Turnip Boy himself? They've all been created by exposure to radiation following a nuclear war.
- Corrupt Politician: Mayor Onion certainly doesn't treat Turnip Boy well for committing Tax Evasion, seizing his home and forcing him on a bunch of Fetch Quests before it's returned. It's later revealed that this was an empty promise, and Mayor Onion not only became mayor and implemented taxes just to gain power, but he's also after a hidden weapon cache left by his former mafioso boss, Turnip Boy's father.
- Endless Game: Sunset Station DLC introduce Limitless Line train, which serves as infinite roguelike dungeon challenge where Turnip Boy has to traverse through each cars and defeat every enemies there before moving on to the next one and eventually facing Onion Conductor at the end of the run. Afterward, the game will put you on the loop with buffed up enemies, where they get stronger with each loop.
- Everyone Has Standards: In one sidequest, Turnip Boy is tasked with reuniting the gravedigger Tots and his dad, most of which involves delivering letters back and forth. Given what he usually does with documents, it comes as a surprise when the letters get to their recipients unscathed, and the father and son are thrilled to see each other again.
- Fingerless Hands: Turnip Boy is a Waddling Head at best, but can swing a sword, open books, handle watering cans, and generally do anything someone with actual hands could do. It's a mafia superpower he inherited from his mafia don father. Don't ask, really.
- Furry Confusion: The main cast is primarily composed of sentient, semi-anthropomorphic produce. Later in the game, you end up finding a regular turnip, to Turnip Boy's utter confusion, and the characters are shocked to discover sentient acorns, because after all everybody knows acorns are just plain old nuts, not living beings. It's because this is not actually a proper fantasy world, but a post-apocalyptic one: the sentient veggies were mutated by nuclear fallout, and the sentient acorns later appeared from a large puddle of toxic waste.
- Grave Robbing: One of the mandatory tasks is to help the local gravedigger locate and rob a grave in The Lost Woods in exchange for the gravedigger's shovel.
- Heart Container: Hidden in difficult-to-reach locations are Heart Fruits, which permanently increase Turnip Boy's health.
- Heel–Face Turn: If the player has unlocked the True Final Boss, the IRS agents that were working for Mayor Onion all end up sacrificing themselves in order to take down God Onion... except one of them, Ellan, refused to do the sacrifice but Turnip Boy forced him anyway.
- Heroic Mime: In dialogue, Turnip Boy can only emote with exclamation or question marks, never saying a word. It doesn't hold him to say "Stop" toward Crancran for constantly talking in Uwu language and shoving an Amimesque portrait of him in his face..
- According to this tax tips video by Turnip Boy
, he's more than capable to talk normally, albeit with weird monotone voice as a precaution because his real voice apparently tends to drive the souls of men from their bodies, which might explain why he prefer to be mute.
- According to this tax tips video by Turnip Boy
- Hint System: If the player beats the game without 100% Completion, a three-eyed cat (representing one of the developer's pets) appears in a cave near the starting area, telling the player where they're missing documents to rip or hats to collect. Once they're all collected, it leaves behind the final Heart Container.
- Humanoid Abomination: One of the penultimate bosses is a surviving human, Liz, having been mutated to the point where her skin is gray, her eyes are blank green, and extra arms of toxic waste protrude from her stomach.
- Interface Screw: One type of enemy in the game the canned ham rations in the Bunker causes Turnip Boy to have the directional controls inverted if he gets caught in their radiations.
- The Lost Woods: One of the areas is a foggy forest filled with tombstones, inhabited by a bunch of pumpkins that tell (rather lame) riddles needed to navigate to the wealthiest corpses.
- Mega Neko: One of the bosses, Rotten Cat Apple, is a giant apple shaped like a cat who will pounce at you from across the room. After you defeat it, it shrinks back down to the size of a regular cat and allows you to return it to its owner.
- Never Say "Die": Typically, characters will never say that others are dead and say that they will become or sleep with the rotten. Justified, as they are mostly all farm produce items. Averted with the True Final Boss, who says the word verbatim before battle.
- Nuclear Mutant: Due to the true nature of the game, pretty much every single creature you encounter is one of these, possibly barring the snails, worms, and rabbits. The Stag, poor, poor Liz, and the boss version of Mayor Onion are the only ones which actually get powers due to their mutation.
- One-Winged Angel: Mayor Onion does that. Twice in a row, even! It's so obviously inspired by JRPG, he even gets an Animesque Transformation Sequence.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Should you disturb the graves in The Lost Woods - which you will for one reason or another - you can dig up an angry, crying Bedsheet Ghost as an enemy that attack by teleporting in order to come at you at other angles and can be struck. Much earlier than that, it's averted with the Ghost of Liz's brother that appears in the Farmhouse after a certain point; aside from blood from a headwound and what looks to be a broken leg, he is a regular-sized floating flickering human spirit.
- Recurring Boss: The Stag attacks Turnip Boy twice during his trip through the Forgotten Forest, running away both times after taking enough damage. The third and final encounter is after the Stag has drunk from the contaminated water, causing it to mutate to a larger size while also donning two toxic waste barrels as makeshift armor.
- Reference Overdosed: This is a game that subscribes to the Guacamelee! style of comedy. It gets to the point where one of the IRS agents ends up completely flubbing one of his quotes and starts Breaking the Fourth Wall instead.Chad: Sorry... that show came out in, like, 2007.
- Schmuck Bait: At the very lowest level of the Mysterious Mafia Bunker, you can find a still-functioning nuke. If you so wish, you can poke it with your shovel... Which will cause it to explode and kill you.
- Shoot the Dog: In one area of the game, the player can encounter a cave entrance blocked by a Tangerine Dog, next to this is a sign saying that upon completion of the game all Tangerine Dogs will cease to exist. Unfortunately, there is no way to save the Tangerine Dog and complete the game. Though upon finishing the game and deleting Tangerine Dog, the player is given a gift in the cave; either a mystical cat will appear and provide hints to help 100% the game, or, if/once the player has done that, a Heart Fruit health bonus.
- Sociopathic Hero: Turnip Boy is compelled to rip every document he comes across, including petitions and love letters, and can partake in vandalism and jailbreaking while completing sidequests. In a twist, it's revealed that this is most likely due to how his father raised him. He somehow became a mafioso when he was mutated, and tearing up documents was most likely a very important part of getting rid of evidence, which is stated as such in his last letter to his son.
- Thinking Up Portals: Some of the plants that Turnip Boy can water produce portals, which can be used to get past walls or change a moving object's trajectory. One of the later power-ups is the ability to make these portals wherever.
- Totally Radical: A sentient bonfire named 'DJ Fizzle' found in the Icebox spouts all sorts of nonsensical slang at Turnip Boy if you talk to him.DJ Fizzle: Fizzle my dizzle, yo!
- Treacherous Advisor: At the end of the game, Mayor Onion, who had been requesting Turnip Boy to gather various tools, arms himself with them and fights Turnip Boy for control of a hidden weapon cache. He also used to be the advisor to Turnip Boy's father as his consigliere, before introducing politics and taxes to the community.
- True Final Boss: If Turnip Boy rips up every other document in the game before fighting the Final Boss, Mayor Onion sets off a nuke and mutates into God Onion.
- The Usual Adversaries: Enemies in the game are typically either Herbivores or The Rotten, past their prime and contaminated foods like dirty lollipops and stale pastries that mindlessly attack other foods.
- Visual Pun: In the barn, there's a talking piece of macaroni named "Mac" who recites an E10-rated pasta-themed variation of the Navy Seal copypasta.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The two human silhouettes which are implied to be Liz's parents barricade themselves further into the bunker and its door remains locked even after Turnip Boy defeats the mutated Liz, leaving their fate unknown.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- The only way to interact with the various pieces of parchment you can find is to read them or rip them completely in half. This includes things of gratitude, sentimentality and otherwise importance, which occasionally elicits this kind of response to whomever just gave you the item. Subverted more often though, due to said characters also being typically rude to you in the first place (one of the first documents is a love letter from a strawberry, who insensitively expresses relief that you aren't in love with them when you deliver the news that a blueberry who is just a walk away loves them, gives you an unpackaged letter response. They simply state how rude that was.)
- Potentially crossing over with Video Game Cruelty Potential and Cruelty Is the Only Option... The Bunker Dungeon introduces enemies that come to life from the last human familie's preservative foods being exposed to Turnip Boy's Radiation, indicated by the green glow that intensifies as he gets closer. To progress, you must go to Liz's room and take a key. While you are there, Liz is visibly shaking inside the dresser she hides in, which has a hazmat suit in front of it. Once you pick up the suit, she closes the door as the same green light begins to emanate from that dresser and finally becomes a crazed mutant after her second exposure to Turnip Boy when she attempt to catch up with her parents, who may-or-may-not be trying to defend them once they barricade themselves away from Turnip Boy adjacent to her boss room.
- Where It All Began: The endgame takes place in and around Turnip Boy's house. More specifically, a lot of it takes place under it, in his father's secret basement.
Go to bed, Turnip Boy. You've done well. But us, we've gathered here to say farewell, till next time. So you can sing along, or don't. Do you.
, or don't. Do you.