Stacking is a pretty good adventure, puzzle game and it's also created by Double Fine Productions the same people that have made the Psychonauts Trilogy and the remastered version of Full Throttle, but anyway let’s go into the story.
In a small home the Blackmore family of Chimney Sweeps are in despair, with so few jobs hiring and poor as can be the family is wondering how they're going to survive, but the father of the family has good news he was just given a new job and he vows to return with good pay and to support his family.
Unfortunately that was months ago and it seemed the father has disappeared and despite selling everything collection officers come and take the children forcing them to pay off their family’s debt, but not all of them are taken for Charlie the smallest and assumable weakest member of the Blackmore family is left alone with his mother, brushed off for being too small and feeble looking for work, but even though Charlie is small he promises his mother that he will find his brothers and sisters and return home. But can someone so small really stack up to such a difficult challenge well this young boy is determined to do just that.
Now then the likes, the gameplay is pretty good you basically play as this Russian doll called a matryoshka doll and in order to solve the various puzzles you must find different matryoshka dolls with different abilities, you have to use and you have to stack them up in order to use them, it's an interesting idea that has plenty of variety, also there is fun little side activities you can do if you're interested in collecting all the achievements. The puzzles are okay it can be quite challenging but doesn't feel impossible thanks to the fact that we have a hint system.
The story is pretty good it has a good message of helping others and just because you're small doesn't mean you're helpless and there is commentary on corporate greed and late stage capitalism, it's also a nice coming of age tale and its all wrapped up in this semi steampunkish, Toy Story world. The humor was okay, not laugh out loud, but I'm thinking you'll find something funny in it, it does rely on a little bit gross out humor though. The graphic art style is pretty good with its designs, colors and scenery it really does its best to make this world visually stand out that you just want to just stop and stare at it.
The levels are good, the creators really put a lot of thought on how this sort of steampunkish sort of Toy Story world would look like with plenty of everyday items like cans or matches or playing cards being used as furniture and stuff like that, it was pretty interesting to just wander around and see all the different set pieces.
The characters are good they pretty much a standard in this kind of story, like little kid taking on the big bad world, being thrust into adventure in a coming of age story and meeting all sorts of strange characters along the way. The music was good had a sort of a silent film kind of vibe to it that fit with this game very well.
Now then the dislikes, there was a slight problem with the story and that's the cutscenes could go a little too fast, I mean the cutscenes are modeled after the silent film era where people talk but there is this big text block after, problem with that is like I said it goes a little too fast I was able to get the general gist of the story, but I really wish there was a way to just make the story move with a click of a button.
Okay now that I told you all this, Stacking is a pretty good adventure, puzzle game and it's also created by Double Fine Productions the same people that have made the Psychonauts Trilogy and the remastered version of Full Throttle, it has pretty good gameplay, a pretty good story and good levels, so I recommend this game if you've enjoyed double fine Productions other games you may enjoy this one.
