Gaming On The Cheap - Stacking

Written by Craig Will Tuesday, 15 February 2011 06:00

Tim Schafer led Double Fine studios latest game Stacking released this past Tuesday and much to my surprise, a quite joyous surprise, instead of the listed $15 it was free for PS+ subscribers.

The whole idea behind Stacking revolves around the littlest Russian nesting doll, Charlie, being able to hop inside larger dolls, each "model" having a unique ability (unleashed by the X button) that can be used for puzzle solving goodness, and freeing his captive siblings, and orphans, from the evil Baron. The main hub and first level of the game is a train station. It is here that you will learn the ropes of the game as well as meet Levi the Hobo - a chronicler of sorts, he creates statues of the unique dolls you've collected and he paints portraits (in puzzle piece fashion) of the challenges you've completed.

Collection completion is really the main entertainment of this game. There are three distinct areas of "collection" that add to your overall completion percentage:

Challenges - these are situational puzzles you solve to move the story forward. Almost every challenge has multiple solutions and after finding one you are encouraged to find the others as well, though it is not necessary to move the game forward by finding all of the solutions. If a certain solution has you stumped there are three hints available in the challenge menu. The first hint is vague and tries to make you think about the challenge in a different way. The second hint is a little more revealing and tells you what abilities will be needed. The final hint just flat out tells you what to do. I will admit that there were one or two challenges that I ended up using the hints on.

Collection - these are a list of unique dolls to collect per level. A protip for finding unique dolls: Find the doll with the ability to find unique dolls, i.e., eagle eye, peerless peek, etc.

Hi-Jinks - A list of things to do with certain dolls abilities. These are tougher challenges as there are no hints and only the title of each hi-jink is given with no description.

This game is a blast for any completionist, though a bit a short (it took me 8 hours to get 100% complete), it's well worth the no money I paid for it. If you don't have PS+ and are looking at paying $15 I would say go for it if you love puzzle solving and want a unique game.