Game review: Stacking (2011)

The game that I am going to be talking about today is a bit of an oddball in terms of what I'm used to playing in games for the most part, it's called Stacking. Stacking is a competitive co-op game where you see who can stack more ice cubes on their nipples an indie puzzle/adventure game which was developed by Double Fine Productions, the same company that worked on the game Costume Quest which I previously reviewed, and was published by THQ. You may also recognize their name as they created games such as Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Grim Fandango Remastered and a few others. The game was released back in February of 2011 for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, with a later release for Steam/Windows in March of 2012. The game was apparently developed and made while they were working on Brutal Legend, something that I thought was pretty interesting considering that they're a smaller indie studio.

Now, the gameplay and setting of the game is a fairly bizarre one, but nothing too strange considering the studio behind it. I mean, come on, they made Psychonauts, one of the most weird/entertaining games ever made. The idea of the game is that you control sentient Matryoshka dolls whom' you nestle into one another to gain special abilities/powers as you need them. While the game is a bit strange, it's definitely one of the more creative games that I have touched in awhile and tells a good tale while providing some entertaining gameplay. Add in some random crude and cute jokes, and you'll find that there's a lot of interesting aspects and depth to the game.

Our main character of the game that we'll be playing is a small doll, quite possibly the smallest doll within the universe of Stacking, named Charlie Blackmore. Charlie is the youngest member of the Blackmore family, which happens to an entire family of chimney sweeps. If you can't tell, the game takes place during a fictional Industrial age where your father has declared that he's taking a job for a powerful industrialist simply known as the Baron. Several months go by and with no word or sight of your father, your four older siblings get forced into apprenticeship by some of the Baron's men, leaving you alone with your mother.

After several weeks go by, you receive a letter from your brother Albert, letting you know that he and the rest of your siblings have been split up and put into slave labor. After reading the contents of the letter, Charlie decides that he must go rescue his family and sets out on his journey to save them. A friendly vagrant helps you set up a little hideout while you attempt to save your family. I can't go into more details really without spoiling the story for you, but generally most of the games story is based around completing tasks and puzzles to save your family and foiling the Barons plans. While it doesn't have the most engaging narrative, it's told quite well and definitely in an interesting fashion.

The gameplay of the game might not be for everyone, as it's probably the least violent game I can think of which I've played in the last couple of years. As I briefly mentioned before, Charlie has the special ability to take over other dolls in the world since he is the smallest. (At the very least, I never encountered another doll even close to being as small as he was.) You can continue to climb up to larger dolls, with each doll you take over having a special ability all their own. You'll be using each of the dolls abilities to solve predicaments and puzzles as you play the game.

Exploring the abilities and characteristics of the dolls within the world is one of the more intriguing aspects of the game. Part of this is because it's possible to interact with dolls through conversations or your actions giving them their own unique response. Hopping into one specific type of doll might frighten another type, but make another type short with you and make them start to just ignore you in general. The same thing goes for using an ability in front of other dolls, with each of them reacting in a special way. It's pretty entertaining trying to figure out which dolls pair well with others, though it can be a bit confusing at first while you're just starting to play.

Most of the general population of the world that you're playing in is generic style dolls, however, which leaves them not really having any special qualities to their designs. This doesn't make them useless, though. At times their abilities have to be used to solve specific puzzles and get through interactions. There is a pretty decent amount of different dolls to take over within the world though, with strange powers ranging from being able to spot other useful dolls, to more silly things like passing gas in an obnoxious way. Going through each dolls powers will take you awhile, but you'll have to try and figure out which are actually useful and which ones are there to just give you a chuckle. It's all a pretty fun process throughout, and never got annoying or frustrating.

Another aspect of the game that is done fairly well are the puzzles that you have to solve as you play. There are multiple ways for you to clear these puzzles, each with their own unique approaches to complete. You can expect it to take you more than a couple of minutes to complete the puzzles, as finding all of the solutions available requires your attention and inspection on dolls in the area that you can use. The dolls/abilities available to you will change as you move, since the game takes places in quite a few different areas, so you'll have to continue to adapt. Towards the end of the game the puzzles start to lose their appeal a bit, however. As a lot of them are easy to solve and only have one correct path to complete them instead of several. While this isn't a big deal to me, I'm sure it could be to people interested heavily in puzzles.

The gameplay isn't the only attractive part of this game, as the graphics that the game uses are quite pleasing to the eye and have their own special charm to them. A sepia type of filter has been applied to the game to give it that old world type of feel as you play, without overdoing it to the point where it takes away from the great color palette that they've used on the world around you. I also have to say they've made the industrial setting feel like a booming, happy place and they've just done it in a great looking way. The music score of the game also aids the atmosphere of the game, playing a lot of classical style musical pieces which fit with the type of era that they're aiming for within the game.

Now, the only negative things I really would have to say about this game is that the puzzles start losing their luster towards the end of the game, and that the game is fairly short overall. You can expect to complete this game in about 2-3 hours, maybe a little bit more if you really, really take your time doing things and exploring around. I wish that the game gave us more like 4 hours gameplay, but there's honestly plenty of content here to be enjoyed in that short 2-3 hours at the very least with the help of the minigames that you play in between saving your family members.

Overall, I would say that Stacking is a very enjoyable little indie game. The game sports some colorful and pretty looking graphics and has a good atmosphere around it that gives a cheerful feeling. I would really say that this game is very casual with it's narrative and gameplay, and is a good game to relax and wind down on for a few hours. It's drowning in creativity and style, and will allow you to get your creative juices flowing as you play through the puzzles. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who is into these sort of games. However, if you're more interested in trying to blast someone in the taint with an M16, or vanquish the titty monster who is trying to abduct some gay ass princess, then you'll probably be disappointed with this one.