Stacking stacks up

I've been on a kick lately to play some downloadable games.  The latest I completed is Stacking.  For this article, I don't want to write a review.  Their are a hundred sites out there that do this already.  Instead, I'm going to describe my experience with it.



The gameplay is unique, in that you are a tiny Matryoshka doll who stacks into larger dolls to take on their ability to solve puzzles.  Each puzzle can be solved in a number of ways.  Usually, one of those ways is quite obvious.  For example, in one puzzle, a guard is standing between you and the entrance to a lounge that you need to get into.  Next to him is a vent pulling air into the lounge.  In the train station, there's a doll who farts.  Kind of easy to figure out what to do, right?  However, there are multiple ways to solve this puzzle, and they get more and more complex.  I never really struggled with solving all the versions of a puzzle until the last stages of the game.  But some of those puzzles in the end require a lot of new techniques where you will stack one doll into another, use that dolls ability, then quickly unstack and use the smaller dolls ability to form a combo.

I wish they would have done more combos in the game, because I feel that would have added more puzzle fun in the game.  But it was clear this game was designed to be a light-hearted puzzle game, meant for the casual gamer.  This is not the type of adventure puzzle game that requires you to pull out your internet-accessing device and look up help.  I completed 100% of the game (and trophies), which is a first for me.

The artwork is fantastic.  The dolls look just like beautifully painted wooden dolls, and the environments are equally fantastic looking.  The game takes place in that early industrialization era of Russia, which is a depressing period of time for that region.  Odd that a light-hearted puzzle game would choose that for the setting, but I believe it was a good choice.  Their is no dialogue, only cut-scenes in the silent film model.

I would have to say that by the end of the 5-10 hours this game takes to complete to 100%, I was getting a bit bored with the cut-scenes.  There are a lot of them.  It kind of pulled you out of the world, which is a problem when you're entire game is to make these non-speaking wooden dolls do stuff.  It was hard to really care about the story of this game.  The gameplay is repetitive by design, but I was able to look beyond that to solve the unique puzzles.  In spite of the these issues, I wanted to finish it to 100% for some reason.  I guess because that goal felt achievable, and it was.  Just when I felt like I was tired of playing the game, it ended, so the length was perfect.

I had a fun time playing this game.  I think of these types of games as "escape" games, in that you can let yourself get sucked into a world that doesn't tax your motor skills to play it.  It's intellectual and relaxing.  If you are a PSN Plus member, it's free, so you must play it.  If you pay like I did ($15), I believe you'll get your money's worth out of this title.  It's a fun weekend play.