Stacking ... an adventure game like no otherIf guaranteed success, adoration would Tim Schafer undoubtedly be a multi-millionaire now. Gamers, who loved Monkey Iceland adventure, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts has practical is deified him. In person he is too self-effacing, smart and fun. He loves games, he believes in them. He called Bobby Kotick a prick.
He has also ideas like this: in the middle of development hell on Brutal Legend, and inspired by improvisational film-making tactic Chinese director Wong Kar-wai, Schafer Split his workforce at double Fine in small groups and got them all to prototype small games.
It was meant as a team-building exercise, but when brutal legend 2 fell, he returned to the interesting ideas his staff came up with and spied a new production model: contained, digitally distributed titles, which could be struck as cheaper, riskier prospects to the right publishers. So they beat four of them and sold them all. First out was costume Quest, designed by ab-Pixar animator James Harris, next will be Stacking, an adventure game like no other.
The Setup is typically Schaferian. Charlie Blackmore is a teeny Russian doll, whose family has been kidnapped by an evil person, who has put them to the despicable work around his empire. But a little Charlie is not helpless, he has the ability to pop itself into progressively larger Russian dolls, takes on each host abilities. Cut adrift in a world that is in part looks like a Victorian theatre and partial set of a silent film, he must use this gift to track down his siblings.
But although this sounds typically Schafer, the concept came from Lee Petty, art lead on Brutal Legend. "I was really interested in doing something in the adventure game genre, but I didn't want it, to a retro throwback," he says. "The things I focused on was the history of ideas, to be able to play the game at your own pace, logic puzzles. But I also wanted to be more immediate, I would that be a dynamism to the gameplay. I saw my daughter, playing with a stack of Russian dolls, and thought, wow, that could really work, because rather than having an inventory of objects, each of the dolls to objects. And stacking dolls is fun in itself.
But it could not have been an easy sell, right? During the process, how amnesia Fortnight he inspire other members of the double fine to join his group? "At the end of my presentation, I had this list of reasons to join the Stacking team," he explains. "The top one was alcohol at each meeting. And there were no other reasons, I ran out of ideas.
"And it was a lie," adds Schafer.
Stacking begins in a cavernous railway station, where a noisy strike is in full swing. Charlie need to persuade four members of the mighty train guild out of their gentlemen Club meet with picketers and get trains running again. But how will a humble urchin make it? Pretext. With the Setup, which is established, you can freely wander beautifully ornate station, "talk" to other Dolls (which would normally cause a daft speech bubble or a useful clue) or stacking inside them When he can. in access to unique special ability of the greatest doll – one plays violin, one can burp, one farts and one slaps passers-by with a white-gloved hand. It does not sound useful, but keep in mind that this is a double beautiful game.
These abilities are in fact needed to complete the areas, where Charlie challenge is given a substantial puzzle to solve. Access to the gentlemen club he needs to distract the janitorial, but he does it by living a doll if scream requires help and attention from all colleagues? Or perhaps by popping in an attractive blonde if the skill is simply named, ' seduce '. In fact, he could do either-in Stacking, each puzzle has multiple solutions, and if you want, you can try to find them all. A practical guide menu, pause shows how many are available for each challenge.
What immediately captures your attention, however, is the beautiful set of design. From cardboard cut-out animals to steam the deck of the ship made of lollipop sticks, the effect part proscenium arch Theatre, part model village. At the beginning of each challenge, there is a flicker silent film clip-scene, full of visual gags that trade off le Bretonneux, pompous look of dummy characters. It is so watchable and lovely.
Later, when the strike is broken, the trains will be available, and each leads to a different area of the operator and a member of the family Empire second to save. In our demo we head to a steamship, where Charlie's sister is hired to clean out much steam channels with a toothbrush. There is a nice puzzle game that the player needs to cause chaos on an onboard safari exhibition. One method is to break into the big game hunter in hand luggage, stack in his stuffed bear and run to alert passengers – leaving piles of sawdust in the wake terrified.
While you don't solve the key challenges, there are other activities. Players can earn bonuses for stacking in matching sets of dolls. There is an illusion, if minimum family member is a dog doll – stack to him, and you can do tricks like dragging your bottom half across the floor. (The team has an amazing amount of mosaic animative depth from a bunch of limbless Dolls in two bulbous halves.)
You are also able to involve themselves in the hijinks, a series of daft mini-challenges, which employs selected Dolls special abilities. When Schafer demos game us, he shows off a task in which the dummy white-gloved has slapping 10 other characters – their affronted yelps and screams of pain makes it more comfortable.
Schafer is the appeal of the game is obvious. "I started out working on adventure games with characters, stories and puzzles, games, moves at a pace, certain, and I could play with my family. This is not a throwback, but the have fun section of these games are placed in a whole new mechanic. "
In the meantime, he also supervises the other two titles from the fortnight research methods, and there is a growing cooperation with an old LucasArts colleague. "Ron Gilbert and meet regularly in our Office to discuss the top secret project, he has," teases Schafer. "This is something very new ... and very cool."
• Stacking will be released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network on March 31st
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