Stacking is the newest game by Double Fine available on the X-box Live Arcade and the PS3 Network. The game is about little Charlie Blackmoore the smallest child in his family and quite possibly the smallest child in the world. The story starts out with Charlie's father calling the family together to tell them the good news about his new job and how he will be gone for a while. Weeks later the Blackmoore's father is missing and the children are taken away as child labour to pay off the Blackmoore's rising debt. Charlie however is not taken by the authorities due to his size. He decides however to embark on a journey to find his father and release his siblings from the clutches of the Evil Baron's Child Labor crews.
In this world Charlie is actually at an advantage due to his size. You see all the characters in the game are Russian Nesting Dolls, and since Charlie is the smallest he has the ability to jump inside the other dolls and take control of them. As creepy as this game mechanic may seem it allows for some interesting game play as you switch between all the different dolls of various sizes. Charlie has to start off stacking into the smallest dolls and then he can move up from there stacking one size bigger each time. Each type of doll has different abilities and there are several unique dolls in each level with special abilities not found any where else.
You use the different dolls and abilities to solve a myriad of puzzles, anything from destroying art exhibits to rescuing imprisoned dolls. Each puzzle has several different ways to solve it. Some of them are simple and straight forward, such as using the nearest available unique dolls ability. While some of them will have you scratching your head looking for clues as to how to pull off something in an entirely new way.
There are other tasks sprinkled through out the game called Hi-jinks. This are simple little tasks that usually involve using a dolls special ability in fun ways. Things like using a towel cleaner to cover dolls to make them look like ghosts, or having a little kid toot near people. Each hi-jink rewards you with a special little accessory placed onto the dolls. Such as the tooting kid gets a gold bottle cap medal pinned to his chest.
My problems with the game stems mainly from the fact that it fills like the game is leading up to something more game play wise but never really delivers. I had to laugh when during the final level the game gave me a quick tutorial on using multiple dolls to achieve most interesting outcomes. Shouldn't this have been introduced in the first level? Why are we just getting to the really interesting stuff half-way through the final level? It's basically the same problem that I have with Double Fine's last project Costume Quest. Despite the fun aesthetics and interesting game mechanics it fills like the mechanics are never fully explored. So we are left with a good game that is dangling on the verge of greatness.
But despite all that I would still recommend Stacking, as it is a interesting a fun game to play. The story is a bit dull at times and I found that it wasn't til the very end of the game that Schafer's hilarious wit started to come through. It's worth the money to at least check out and if you have as much fun as I did with some of the unique dolls then it is definitely worth the time to play it.
In this world Charlie is actually at an advantage due to his size. You see all the characters in the game are Russian Nesting Dolls, and since Charlie is the smallest he has the ability to jump inside the other dolls and take control of them. As creepy as this game mechanic may seem it allows for some interesting game play as you switch between all the different dolls of various sizes. Charlie has to start off stacking into the smallest dolls and then he can move up from there stacking one size bigger each time. Each type of doll has different abilities and there are several unique dolls in each level with special abilities not found any where else.
You use the different dolls and abilities to solve a myriad of puzzles, anything from destroying art exhibits to rescuing imprisoned dolls. Each puzzle has several different ways to solve it. Some of them are simple and straight forward, such as using the nearest available unique dolls ability. While some of them will have you scratching your head looking for clues as to how to pull off something in an entirely new way.
There are other tasks sprinkled through out the game called Hi-jinks. This are simple little tasks that usually involve using a dolls special ability in fun ways. Things like using a towel cleaner to cover dolls to make them look like ghosts, or having a little kid toot near people. Each hi-jink rewards you with a special little accessory placed onto the dolls. Such as the tooting kid gets a gold bottle cap medal pinned to his chest.
My problems with the game stems mainly from the fact that it fills like the game is leading up to something more game play wise but never really delivers. I had to laugh when during the final level the game gave me a quick tutorial on using multiple dolls to achieve most interesting outcomes. Shouldn't this have been introduced in the first level? Why are we just getting to the really interesting stuff half-way through the final level? It's basically the same problem that I have with Double Fine's last project Costume Quest. Despite the fun aesthetics and interesting game mechanics it fills like the mechanics are never fully explored. So we are left with a good game that is dangling on the verge of greatness.
But despite all that I would still recommend Stacking, as it is a interesting a fun game to play. The story is a bit dull at times and I found that it wasn't til the very end of the game that Schafer's hilarious wit started to come through. It's worth the money to at least check out and if you have as much fun as I did with some of the unique dolls then it is definitely worth the time to play it.
