How to play
STACK is a tower of slabs and one button. A new slab slides in from the left or the right – which side is random each time – and runs back and forth across the top of the tower. Press to drop it. Whatever part of it overhangs the slab below is sliced off and tumbles to the ground, and what is left becomes the floor for the next one.
That is the whole tension of the game: being late costs you width, and width is your margin for being late next time. Every slab you place adds one to your score, and the score is simply the height of the tower in slabs. The camera climbs with you as the tower grows.
A run ends in one of two ways. Either you drop a slab that misses the tower completely, or the slab you are left with is so thin – about a thirtieth of the starting width – that there is nothing left to build on. A click then takes you back to the home screen.
Tips and strategy
- There is no timer. The slab bounces off the edges and comes back as many times as you like. If a pass looks wrong, let it go by and take the next one.
- Watch the shading, not the slab. The front face of any part hanging over nothing catches the light differently from the supported part, so you can see an overhang before you commit.
- A perfect drop is very tight. It has to land within about two per cent of the starting width of dead centre. Inside that window the slab snaps exactly into line and you lose nothing at all.
- Perfect drops grow the slab. Each one adds a sliver of width back. From the third perfect in a row, each one adds three times as much – the HUD shows the streak as x2, x3 and so on. The slab can never grow wider than the one you started with.
- One miss breaks the streak. Any cut resets the combo to zero, so a long run of perfects is worth protecting with a little patience.
- The speed stops climbing. Each slab moves a little faster than the last, but the increase tops out at around thirty slabs. Past that the game does not get quicker; only your margin gets thinner.
What's in it
One mode, endless. The tower is drawn in side-on 3D with a fixed camera, so nothing leans or moves towards you; slabs slide on one line only. Each slab is a slightly different shade from the one below, so the tower changes colour as it rises, and the cut-off pieces fall as real solids. There are no power-ups and no levels – the only things that change during a run are the speed of the slab and the width you have left.
Questions
Does it save my score?
Yes, on this device. The home screen keeps a top-ten table of tallest towers with three initials each, and your best is shown in the bar at the top during a run. It remembers the initials you used last, so next time you only need to press Enter.
Can I play it on a phone?
Yes. A tap drops the slab, exactly as a click or Space does on a computer.
How does it get harder?
The slab moves faster with every one you place, up to a ceiling at around thirty slabs. The other difficulty is the one you create: every imperfect drop leaves you less to aim at.
Can I pause or start again?
P pauses, and the game also pauses itself if you switch tabs or click away. R abandons the run and returns to the home screen, and F toggles full screen.