Stacking Message Board

Double Fine once again controls Costume Quest and Stacking after regaining distribution rights from Nordic Games. Nordic Games acquired the rights to Costume Quest and Stacking when it bought the properties in THQ's bankruptcy auction in April. THQ previously published both games.

Nordic and Double Fine have a deal to publish retail versions of Psychonauts, Costume Quest and Stacking in North America and Europe in the first half of 2014, for PC and Mac.

"I am pleased that we have regained full control over Costume Quest and Stacking, following a daring and top-secret midnight raid on the Nordic Games headquarters in Vienna," Double Fine CEO Tim Schafer said in a press release.

Nordic CEO Lars Wingefors cleared the air in the same release: "We can't wait to partner with Double Fine for this upcoming retail launch of three of its most excellent games. However, I feel compelled to point out that we were happy to transfer distribution rights for Costume Quest and Stacking back to Double Fine in an entirely non-secretive and heist-free manner."

As early as May, Double Fine expressed interest in regaining distribution rights for both games, though it never lost the IP rights.

Double Fine wants to tie up all of the loose ends within its catalog and is seeking the distribution rights to its games formerly published by THQ, Stacking and Costume Quest. Nordic Games picked up the distribution rights to these games during THQ's bankruptcy auction in April, though Double Fine attempted to secure the rights from THQ as early as February.

Double Fine owns the intellectual properties for Stacking and Costume Quest, so if it wants to make new games within each series, it can.

"We're still trying to get the rights to Costume Quest and Stacking," Schafer told Game Informer. "We can still make more of those games. We still have the IP, but we'd love to have all of the IP and distribution rights in house."

On top of those distribution rights, Double Fine wants to regain the Brutal Legend IP from EA and the Iron Brigade IP from Microsoft, Schafer said. These are difficult positions for Double Fine, but for us, deciding which war to watch is just as hard: Battle of Heavy Metal and Mechs or the Battle of Kids in Costumes Playing with Toys From the Old Country. Decisions, decisions.

This patch lets you toggle the film projector effects in cutscenes and the in-game vignetting. These still default to on, but some players have asked for a way to turn them off. You can find the new options in the graphics settings page.

Amazon's PC digital distribution service has a few Double Fine titles on discount this week. Psychonauts -- the original Inception -- is available for $3.99, Costume Quest is a treat at a mere $2.99 and you can nest at ease with Stacking at $7.49.

If you've yet to play or own any of these games (for shame!), then pick 'em all up for $10 with the "Oh So Fine" bundle.

This patch adds an option to adjust the field-of-view (FOV). Theres now a slider in the camera settings (under Help & Options… Settings… Camera) that adjusts the FOV anywhere from 40 degrees to 120 degrees.

The patch also increases the size of a memory buffer that was causing some out-of-memory crashes for a few players.

This patch fixes the following issues with Stacking:

- Fixes the missing geometry issue in the Secret Hideout and Top Hat
Lounge rooms
- Increases audio memory to fix sound drop outs
- Fixes several issues with the controller remapping screen
- Camera settings page now works with both the mouse and gamepad
- Correctly debounces the escape key when pulling up the options menu

Hello, you. I thought you’d like to know that Stacking is out on Steam. Stacking is Double Fine’s puzzley adventure based on nesting dolls. It’s proper lovely. There’s even “money off” until the 13th. But should you buy it? There’s no demo! Well I played a couple of hours of it on the console box, and it was okay – but don’t take my back-handed recommendation as your guide, instead, look into your heart, and if there is only a clown’s face in there, staring silently back at you, wait for Alec’s Wot I Think, which should turn up later this week.

Stacking, the Double Fine adventure game in which a destitute boy commandeers other people by embedding himself in their bodies, is now available for PC through Steam. Don't worry, a liberal application of pure charm covers up what initially sounds like a weird, disturbing premise.

The PC version, which is temporarily discounted to $9.99 (regularly $14.99) during this launch period, includes all the matryoshka maneuvering seen in the console versions, along with the "Lost Hobo King" DLC. The non-physical nature of this release may undermine our suggestion, but do let us know what you think once you crack this game open.

Stacking is Now Available on Steam and 33% off.*

To celebrate the launch of Stacking, Double Fine's Costume Quest and Psychonauts are also on sale at 50% off.*

Explore a vintage world inhabited by living Russian stacking dolls as you jump into more than 100 unique dolls and use their special abilities to solve a wide variety of puzzles & challenges. Play as Charlie Blackmore, the worlds tiniest Russian stacking doll, and embark on an adventure to rescue Charlies family from the nefarious industrialist known only as the Baron. This imaginative 3rd person puzzle adventure game will take you on a journey from a bustling Royal Train Station to a high-flying Zeppelin as you collect unique dolls and matched stacking sets to display in Charlies secret hideout, where you chronicle your adventures.

*Offers ends Tuesday March 13th 10AM PST.

Double Fine's strangely entertaining game about a world of living Russian nesting dolls is on the way to PC. IGN awarded the game an 8.5 out of 10 when it was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 earlier in 2011...

Double Fine has revealed its matryoshka-infused adventure, Stacking, will soon come to PC. The news came from Double Fine's Tim Schafer and Lee Petty during X-Play's Best of 2011 award show. Stacking took home the title of 2011's best downloadable game, with Schafer and Petty revealing the PC port in a rather unique way, which you can see in the video after the break (skip to 1:00).

No other details were revealed, save to say that the PC version will be available "soon."

When Costume Quest arrived on PC, I hoped it meant Doublefine loved us again. Now, in a characteristically jolly announcement during the X-Play Best of 2011 awards, it has been revealed that the beautifully characterised and wonderfully inventive Stacking is on its way too. All that remains is to sulk until Trenched Iron Brigade stomps onto PC as well. Stacking, for those who do not know, is a game wherein the player controls “Charlie Blackmore, the world’s tiniest Russian stacking doll” and “jumps into more than 100 unique dolls”. It’s set within one of the finest worlds I’ve played around in for some time. The news happens in the video below. Skip to 1.02 to get straight to it.

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#doublefine Today, Double Fine art director Lee Petty (project lead on Stacking, among other things) tweeted the picture above, saying "This is what happens if you leave things on your desk at Double Fine…" More »

#fineart As one of the most imaginative video game developers in the business, it's a pleasure today to highlight the work of one of the artists at Double Fine, the studio behind games like Brutal Legend, Psychonauts and Trenched. More »

4 out of 5

Double Fine's recent forays into downloadable territory have been solid vehicles for clever comedy, and that's the primary reason why you're there. The games have been short, solid, and sharp-witted. Trenched keeps the same comic sensibility that you've come to expect from these releases, but the game that backs everything up is an exciting-but-brief piece of multiplayer action that feels well-balanced and reasonably deep. While it could be a bit better at exploiting that depth, Trenched is a great mix of funny and fun mech combat that's great while it lasts.

The story is that two soldiers, manning a communications outpost after receiving wartime injuries, stumbled onto some kind of mysterious broadcast that made them super-smart. With newfound abilities at their disposal, one went and invented "mobile trenches," which is a silly word for "mech," and the other went the dark route and became obsessed with spreading the broadcast to the world. Vlad, the evil one, makes monsters out of televisions screens called Monovisions, and the different types of monos make up the enemies you face while piloting your trench, dropping turrets, and protecting various targets.

Most of the 15 missions in Trenched are defensive in nature, which is where the comparisons to tower defense games come in. There are one to three structures in each level that you must defend from wave after wave of enemies. Your first line of defense is probably your trench itself, which can be customized with various weapons, chassis, legs, and so on. Outfitting machine guns onto your trench gives you a pretty direct way to impact the enemy, but in some cases, you'll want shotguns, or perhaps large sniper cannons or gigantic artillery guns are more your speed. Trench customization is key to your success in each mission, and the game gives you helpful tips about the things you'll need to win.

One of the other ways to customize your trench is to pick which emplacements you'll take into battle with you. These are various turrets that you can plop down just about anywhere on the map. Most of them are pretty straightforward. Shotgun turrets take out ground-based enemies, flak turrets watch the skies, and machine guns can handle both. Sniper turrets and minelayers give you some additional weapon-type turrets to bring out, when you need something a little extra. There are also support turrets, such as dampeners that slow down enemies when they enter the turret's range. This sets up the classic tower defense strategy of slowing enemies down so that your emplacements can really pound on them while you mop up the rest with your mech's weapons.

It's certainly possible to play Trenched by yourself, but it's better with others. Up to four players can get into the game at once via Xbox Live, and once you get comfortable with the weapons and know what to expect out of the levels, an experienced team of players can clean up without taking much, if any damage along the way. As you play, you'll gain experience and collect loot, giving you a reason to revisit levels, but you'll probably hit the highest level--10--after six hours or so. This doesn't mean you'll have access to every part, though, so if you're a completist, you still might find plenty of reasons to keep playing Trenched's levels again and again, because the various weapons and loot you get is usually great. It's also where most of the game's comedy is found. Trenched does the "clever item descriptions" thing exceptionally well, even managing to throw in a trio of wonderful Insane Clown Posse gags along the way.

The items themselves are worth checking out, too. The game does well with stats, letting you see things like range and damage for all the different weapons while you're building your trench. But some weapons also come with additional effects, leading to machine guns that also emit flak to make them more effective against aerial targets. Or artillery shells that hit the ground and cause area of effect damage for a few seconds after impact. Or shotguns that shoot slugs, turning them into smaller sniper rifles for chassis that can't handle the big guns. You'll also get upgraded chassis as you play, giving you more armor and a variety of types that almost serve as classes. The engineering chassis only have a couple of weapon slots, but can take more turret types into battle. Assault chassis, on the other hand, let you load up with weapons, but you'll only get a couple of weaker turret types to take with you.

The game also dabbles in social elements by putting your recent teammates into a regiment. Between missions, you'll get updates on the stats that your regiment has put together, and some unlockable items and challenges hinge on meeting certain regiment goals. Also, between missions, you can run around the deck of a ship and salute each other like crazy. You can dress your marine in different clothing, and the hats confer different saluting animations. It's the right kind of goofy inclusion that feeds in just a little bit more charm.

The downfall of Trenched is that you unlock all of this great stuff, but don't have a ton of opportunities to face tough opposition once you get to the end. The lower levels are a breeze once you've unlocked better gear, and most of them are built in such a way that you want to take specific things into each mission, rather than just loading up with the most savage gear you've got and laying waste to everything. Also, the menus that you use to customize your trench aren't so good, so changing out your chassis, legs, and weapons between each mission takes a little longer than it probably needs to. Once you get used to its particular quirks, it's not a huge deal. Also, the game's frame rate can get a little rough when you've got four players shooting off weapons at the same time.

For something that sounds like such a simple combination of existing genres, Trenched comes together surprisingly well, and it's the way it plays and controls that makes it all work. Shredding the different enemies with your varied arsenal is quite satisfying. It'd be a thin experience if you were looking for something to play by yourself, but if you like to just saddle up with friends and blast things apart, Trenched is a strong download.

#dlc If we had any quibbles with Stacking, Double Fine's acclaimed downloadable game, it's that it felt held back in a semi-conspicuous way - one that might have foretold a sequel or a DLC extension. Lo and behold, the latter is indeed coming. More »

As hinted, THQ has made official "The Lost Hobo King" DLC for Stacking. The add-on is coming in "early April" and takes Charlie to the kingdom of Camelfoot to help his friend Levi sort out "an important family matter." Turns out Levi has some royal lineage -- we totally called it!

No price has been set for "The Lost Hobo King" yet, but players can look forward to more than 15 new dolls, new challenges and Achievements/Trophies, and the "fully-realized" kingdom of Camelfoot to explore.

Surprise! A downloadable add-on is coming to Stacking. On the heels of an achievement list leak, THQ has confirmed “The Lost Hobo King,” a chunk of DLC that will add a new story, a new environment, new challenges, and a total of 15 additional dolls with brand new powers to the game. No word on pricing, but it has been confirmed that The Lost Hobo King will come to both PSN and Xbox Live Marketplace at some point later this April. 

In brief, The Lost Hobo King will have Charlie recovering a fragmented crown and then re-forging it in order to restore a hobo to power in the kingdom of Camelfoot. You just can’t make this copy up:

In The Lost Hobo King, Charlie travels to the kingdom of Camelfoot to help his hobo friend Levi with an important family matter. Levi’s uncle Rufus, heir to the throne of Hobo, may only take his rightful place if the lost crown can be found. To recover the fragmented crown, Charlie must use his unique talents to overcome several tests of valor left by the ancient hobo mystics. It is only then that the ancient crown can be re-forged, Rufus crowned, and the fractured hobo people united under one sardine.

 

In early April, the adventures of Charlie Blackmore continue in The Lost Hobo King, an all-new add-on content for Stacking on Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system. In Stac...

It would seem the first DLC offering for Stacking has been hiding inside the dolls all along. Today, a tipster discovered said DLC's Achievements on Xbox.com and sent us the above screen grab, which indicates it will be called The Lost Hobo King. We have since verified that it's visible on Xbox.com, and on Xbox360Achievements.

The only prominent hobo we can think of in Stacking is Levi, the keeper of records for protagonist Charlie. Hopefully he'll be getting out of that cramped back room and discover his royal lineage!

[Thanks, Aidan]

Looking to cause a little more matryoshka mayhem in Double Fine's Stacking? Publisher THQ's UK Twitter account recently confirmed that "DLC for Stacking is in development!" The tweet added, "Look out for more details on this soon," before ending with a mysterious colon immediately followed by a close parenthesis -- which can only be code for ... something. (We don't know. We're still trying to crack the intricate cipher.)

We've contacted Double Fine and THQ for more information. We'll make sure to take any info received, put it into words, put those words into a post, and then put that post into this website.

Catch the Coen's latest western or play with Tim Schafer's dolls?

Invade the bodies of Russian stacking dolls and ferret out possibilities--but is Stacking fun? Find out in our official Review Pod of Stacking.

Double Fine has finally shaken off its chronic case of "If Only." As in, "Costume Quest is adorable, if only the combat wasn't so repetitive," or, "Brütal Legend is such a fun world, if only the mechanics worked better."

With Stacking, the developer's new downloadable puzzler, Double Fine has delivered a well-rounded game that's drenched in as much charm as you'd expect. But's it's been married to a great gameplay conceit that could more than stand on its own.

Get the basics of the game from the opening moments in the Trainyard!

Cause a ruckus on the deck of the Cruise Ship!

Inspired by silent films, the industrial revolution and Russian stacking dolls, the all-new adventure proves that a big adventure can come in a small package.

Plenty of puzzling and action oriented downloadable titles in this week's PSN update. There's the puzzling Stacking and the addictive defense gameplay of Plants vs. Zombies. There's also the retro platforming of Explodemon or the puzzle-platforming of Tales from Space: About a Blob. Check out the expansive list of PS3 stuff after the break ... try to ignore the PSP ever existed after the NGP's announcement.

Choose your platform to view the corresponding release list:
(Note: Continue past the break to view both release lists.)

#review Stacking is a game about Russian stacking dolls. You know, the dolls that fit within shells of shells of other dolls. More »

Platform: (PS3N,XBLM)

4 out of 5

The plight of the proletariat has never been so preciously portrayed as it is in Stacking, the latest game from the newly download-focused developers at Double Fine Productions. Set against the backdrop of the industrial revolution's autumn years, Stacking uses the concept of Russian stacking dolls as the core conceit for its puzzling adventure. As a sentient doll in a world full of dolls, you use your ability to stack with larger dolls to take control of them, thus giving you access to their unique abilities to solve world-based puzzles and defeat plutocratic greed in the name of the working class. Not exactly the kind of subject matter one tends to find in games intended to amuse and inspire warm feelings, but honestly, when has Double Fine ever stuck to tried-and-true, broad-spectrum comedy? That the brains behind Stacking were able to create such an engaging and chuckle-worthy puzzle game around such depressingly bleak concepts as child labor and the working man's burden is, in a weird way, almost par for the course with this studio. 
 
You're a good man, Charlie Blackmore. In the game, you are Charlie Blackmore, the lil'est child born into a family of hard-working chimney sweeps mired in debt, poverty, and (paradoxically) almost disconcerting levels of hope and positivity. One day the family patriarch returns to inform his family of good news: the local baron (whose industries seem to mostly revolve around indistinct acts of evil, hatred of children, and a generalized insidiousness) has hired him on, meaning the family's money troubles have come to an end. Grand news, until father disappears, and the baron's cronies come for the rest of the Blackmore brood to pay off his debts--except, of course, for Charlie, who is far too little, and thus far too incapable of manual labor to be of use to the baron. As it turns out, the children are being held prisoner along with myriad other adorable scamps who should all be enjoying the innocence of their formative years, and not toiling away in the bowels of luxury ships and monstrous zeppelins as chimney sweeps, coal shovelers, and, most undignified of all, waiters.
 
So Charlie sets off on a mission to rescue his family, despite many a doubt about his fortitude, due to his minuscule stature. Good, then, that he can stack with other dolls to make himself larger, and able to solve the problems that unfold in front of him. Stacking's mechanics are simple enough. As you move around the world, you need only to sneak up behind an unsuspecting doll and press a single button to essentially possess them for as long as you please. The only requirement is size. The doll you stack with must be one size larger than you, though once you have a larger doll, you can then stack multiple dolls atop one another until you've run out of sizes to ascend. In effect, you can possess the souls of several different people at once, and use their bodies to do as you please. There's something vaguely terrifying about that idea, but hey, it's all in the name of saving your family.
 
Each doll that occupies this world has a specific ability. Some of these are little more than trifling amusements (that occasionally still solve puzzles), like the ability to cough sickly on other people, or the ability to fart at will. Others are a bit more generally useful, like a boxer being able to deliver a "proper uppercut" to anyone and anything nearby, or a fancy lass who can immediately identify other dolls who are "important." Others still are very specifically useful for certain puzzle objectives within a given level. 
 
There's a wide variety of dolls to inhabit and use throughout each of the game's four main levels, and though not all of them seem immediately useful, many actually have some function within the game's more opaque puzzle solutions. Every level presents multiple problems that must be solved, be it guards that must be lured away from doors, caviar-consuming aristocrats who must be denied their delicious delicacies, or gigantic goons who must be scared, sickened or stiffened in the name of rescuing a family member. Every one of these objectives comes with multiple solutions. For instance, a guard could be dispatched by stacking up a fire chief doll (who comes complete with a fire hose atop his head) and a doll encumbered with a freezing fan, then using their abilities in combination to wet, then freeze the hapless fellow. If that's not to your liking, how about inhabiting a waiter doll who permanently travels around with a bowl of soup for a hat? In that case, you can have a nearby bird fly down and use the soup for a bird bath, thus poisoning the fowl-intolerant fellow
 
Stacking inside other dolls affords you new abilities, and opportunities to make awful, awful jokes. In that regard, Stacking is an obsessive completionist's dream. The game is dead set on having you discover every possible way of solving a specific puzzle, rewarding achievements and trophies for finding all the solutions in each level--or, at least, all the ones the developers conceived. It is very occasionally possible to solve a puzzle using a method not intended by the designers, which rewards you with nothing more than the knowledge that you're smarter than the people who make the games you buy, and an ultimately empty feeling in your heart. It's a rare enough issue, thankfully, and if you're the sort that likes a challenge, many of the puzzles offer extremely off-kilter solutions for you to deduce. 
 
As for those who aren't into completionism? There is, thankfully, a reasonably obvious solution in front of you in most cases, meaning you rarely have to push your logic skills to their limits if you just want to progress through the story. The downside to that methodology is that you skip roughly half the game in the process. Aiming to do everything nets you a little over six hours of game to play through, but skipping the extra solutions results in a game that's roughly half that length. The good news? You can always go back and play through the stuff you skipped, should you feel so inclined. Still, if you're dead-set on blowing through the story and ignoring the content that lies beneath the beaten path, you could be forgiven for finding the game's $15 price tag a touch steep.
 
Still, you may find yourself compelled to explore, even if you're vehemently anti-exploration in most games. Though you'll see the bulk of the game's humor and plot just by going one-and-done on each puzzle, there are hidden objectives, obscure secondary dolls, and a variety of goofy sight gags you might not see on a cursory first playthrough. Double Fine has done a fine job of crafting a relatively expansive open world that's actually pretty fun to paw through. Perhaps taking a cue from the design concept of "big, but not huge" that governed Costume Quest's world designs, it's easy to get lost exploring each stage's nooks and crannies, though you'll never actually be lost if you have somewhere you're aiming to go. 
 
 There are multiple ways to lure this guard away. This one is the most erotic. As they are often wont to do, Double Fine has imbued Stacking with its trademark sense of humor. The entirety of the game's story is presented in cutscenes steeped in the sepia-toned silence of the earliest films, with large title cards spelling out the dialogue the dolls have with one another through wild gesticulation--despite their lack of limbs, they're awfully expressive--and old timey piano music signaling the moments of tragedy and triumph with delightful results. The early goings of the game are perhaps more clever than legitimately funny--you get a lot of moments that inspire thoughts like "Yes, that was quite amusing" than actual, bona fide laughter. But as the game rolls on, the sets and scenarios get increasingly elaborate, and the humor follows suit. There are some truly excellent comedy bits peppered throughout the adventure; the scene leading up to the final confrontation of the game, in particular, is the first legitimate belly laugh I've gotten out of a game in ages.
 
Stacking looks like a trifling little downloadable title, but the game has a surprising amount of heart. There's nothing particularly heady about the game, mind you. Its a relatively easy-going puzzle game that only rarely, truly challenges, and it uses its marginally Marxist leanings to send up wanton materialism in a fairly lightweight and cartoonish way--though, that said, if you're the sort of person who clings aggressively to Ayn Rand's writings, enjoys the meaning behind Neil Peart's lyrics, and/or unironically considers themselves a monocle enthusiast, be forewarned, you may be horrified. By the same token, every time Charlie encounters a new character, a new situation, or a new environment in Stacking, you can't help but smile at the painstakingly crafted silliness of it all. Similarly, it's hard not to love the all-too-obvious metaphor of a family's need to stick (or stack, in this case) together to succeed--a metaphor that plays out beautifully in the final moments of the game. Like its pint-sized protagonist, Stacking is a small game with scads of pluck and spirit, and only the stingiest, penny-pinchingest players would fail to find something lovable about it.