Stacklands is one of those games I picked up for ten minutes and then quit forever. The hour-long requirement of Steam Cleaning brought me back for obligatory time.
Three hours later, I finished my first run of the game.
Stacklands is a colony-management game distilled down to its purest and most potent form. Instead of normal resources, Stacklands has cards. Instead of locations, cards. Instead of people, cards. Instead of weapons… you get the idea. It’s all cards. The entire game takes place on a playmat where stacking cards can assign jobs, forge new cards, or open up entirely new possibilities.
From the beginning, I had one homeless villager. By the end, I had animal pens of livestock, miners and lumberjacks toiling away, a fully-fledged university, wizards fighting alongside militia warriors, a portal to an evil forest, and a forge for new equipment. Unfortunately, I accidentally summoned the final boss before I was ready to face him and my small village was massacred.
Next run, I will be able to use the knowledge from the recipes I’ve unlocked to speedrun back to where I was, and hopefully make it a little further. The time investment in this game is large, but discovering how the game works is its main draw. Once I’ve unlocked most of the cards, I’m unsure how much replay value the game will have.
That said, right now, I’m itching to play more. There are cards to discover, monsters to vanquish, catacombs to explore, and my village needs me.
Verdict: 3.3 hours played so far. So far.
Kyle Adams 