Play as Charlie Blackmore, the world tiniest Russian stacking doll. He is all too accustomed to being overlooked and dismissed--too small to be of any consequence. But Charlie's size turns out to be his greatest strength after all.

Features:

• Explore a world like no other: Embark on imaginative adventure set in the 1930’s and discover a rich, open world environment filled with Russian stacking dolls of all shapes and sizes. The first location and hub of the game is the hustling and bustling, Royal Train Station.

• Meet colorful characters, each with a unique talent: Every character has a special talent, useful in solving a challenge or just fun to perform. “Stack” Charlie into other characters to utilize their special ability.

• Solve challenges your way: Use different combinations of abilities to problem-solve your way through various challenges.

GCM: During delays in the production of Brutal Legend, teams worked on designing other games, two of which were Costume Quest and Stacking. Will we see any other of the Amnesia Fortnight games fleshed out into full products?

LP: We have announced that four of the Amnesia Fortnight projects (including Costume Quest and Stacking) have been signed by publishers and are in production. We just announced "Once Upon a Monster", which also began life as an Amnesia Fortnight project.

GCM: Compared to Psychonauts and Brutal Legend, Costume Quest and Stacking have had remarkably short development cycles. Will we be seeing more games from Double Fine with that sort of schedule in the future?

LP: I think shorter development cycles are a reality for any downloadable games that Double Fine does, due to the much smaller budgets. In some ways it’s a blessing in disguise, because it really forces you to find and focus on the heart of the game early on.

GCM: It seems like many of Double Fine’s games have some element of classic adventure games in them, with Stacking returning to that in some really clear ways. What do you do to try and blend modern gameplay with the classic feel of the old LucasArts adventures?

LP: I grew up with adventure games, and I always really liked how they would let you play the game at your own pace; there were no enemies shooting at you to pull you through the level, no QuickTime-events to railroad you on a Hollywood rollercoaster ride of doom. I miss that in games, and I wanted players to be able to have time to experience the world in Stacking.

But adventure games can be a bit inaccessible, and can lack moment-to-moment appeal. I thought that the dolls, and the mechanic of stacking, could be an interesting way to address some of those issues. The dolls themselves could become the tools that the player uses to solve the puzzles. They would be the inventory, the verbs, and the characters all at the same time.

GCM: Double Fine games have always had a visual style that stands out drastically from other games. Is this a priority when conceptualizing a game, and what led you to the diorama and silent film influences for Stacking?

LP: Yes, it is a priority at Double Fine. We want our games to look and feel different from other games out there. We want people to think “this could have only come from Double Fine”

GCM: What lessons were learned from Double Fine’s previous games?

LP: That personality is important in games. I think it’s what we do best. Also, something we wanted to try with these smaller games was to focus more on a smaller set of game play mechanics and polish them. It was a priority for us to give the gameplay as much charm as the visuals.

GCM: Stacking’s multiple solutions for puzzles make it seem like a game where the player can decide how difficult they want it to be. Can you give a few examples for our readers and say what led to doing this?

LP: Our main reason for crafting puzzles with multiple solutions was to avoid some of the frustration with classic adventure games, which typically only had one solution. Logic puzzles are quirky in that people either tend to get them or they don’t, because they rely a lot on assumed background knowledge. All of Stacking’s challenges have between 3 and 6 solutions, with at least one being really easy and one being hard. The solution difficulty ramps up a little bit over the course of the game, but never becomes too difficult.

The player is only required to find one solution to move the game forward, but they can optionally find them all at any time they want. Each solution they find gives the player rewards. The player is given the option of making this as easy or as hard as they want to. An in-game challenge hint system lets the player reveal progressively more obvious challenge hints for each solution. We wanted to give the player the choice about they wanted to play the game.

GCM: As the smallest stacking doll, Charlie Blackmore can stack into larger dolls to take control of them and use their abilities. What was your favorite doll that Charlie can assume control of?

LP: I always have trouble with this question, because there are over 100 unique dolls in the game, and it was fun to design so many of them! My current favorite is an enormous deranged Clown called PECK THE CLOWN. His ability is the best!

GCM: Finally, what have the fine people at Double Fine been playing lately?

LP: People at Double Fine have a broad variety of tastes, and play everything from the latest big budget hard core shooting game to the smallest indie game. Lately, I’ve been playing and loving Little Big Planet 2. I’m also still playing through Heavy Rain.

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