Most people are familiar with Russian stacking dolls under various names, the idea being that the toys house another doll, each smaller than the last, within one another. Some video games have toyed with using these dolls as a series of enemies
to defeat, but Stacking takes a different approach in featuring most of them as heroes you control. Many of them even have names and personalities, along with special skills that the player must use to solve a variety of puzzles.
Players primarily control Charlie Blackwell, an extremely small doll whose main ability is to create stacks of his peers. By approaching a variety of dolls, you can bring them with Charlie (or rather, they bring Charlie along) and pick out the ones you need to take care of a problem. As an example, you might have a crowd of dolls blocking access to a maintenance panel that needs to be worked on so a machine will work again. In most adventure games, the player would find a series of items to handle this; Stacking instead has you stack up with an engineer of modest size, then have him stack into a larger man who can use his voice and influence to disperse the crowd. Once that is done, you unstack from the larger man and use the mechanic to fix the panel, then unstack from him to have Charlie go on his way to the next puzzle.
While that example gets the idea across, it is somewhat basic. Later puzzles may require you to bring as many as half a dozen dolls to solve, and even use some of their skills in tandem in order to complete the task. Stacking would actually be a very linear game, except that almost every puzzle has more than one solution. It even encourages you to try to find them, allowing players to revisit a completed stage and experiment. This experimentation is part of Stacking’s real appeal, as is exploring a rather detailed and playful world where many dolls’ abilities are just meant to do useless but hilarious things. Simply zipping through the game’s primary missions without exploring will lead to Stacking being very short, and players that do this will miss out on a lot of enjoyment.
Stacking is also aimed at players of almost all ages. Anyone able to read at a basic level and recognize visual clues can play this game just fine, and a generous hint system will provide increasingly better ideas on how to proceed if you get stuck. While it isn’t suited for the youngest of children due to the logic tests and reading involved, virtually anyone else could play Stacking and have a great time. It’s definitely a mental game like most modern adventure titles, and
Stacking wants you to win; amazing reflexes aren’t necessary and it appears to be impossible to truly lose; what few enemies there are can be easily avoided, and being caught by them often results in little more than a few minutes’ inconvenience.
A distinct art style, cute story, and creative ideas allow this game to stand out. Those willing to invest time into exploring the world, playing around with various abilities, and solving puzzles will find a lot to appreciate. Stacking is 1200 Microsoft Point/$15 USD a price which places it among the more expensive titles in the catalog, but Stacking definitely earns it.
