Stacks:Space!

I am a 45 -year -old father, probably one of the oldest people playing this game. I am a single father raising my son, who is now 14 years old. My son won this game from his uncle, so we installed it on his computer and he started playing. Until the end of the week he had 24 hours in this game. This was horrible for me, because it was hard to find ways to spend time with my son, because he is always with friends or just watching You Tube. So I decided to do a Steam account and get this game to see if I could play beside him. I bought the game, chose my survivor and level and started playing, but I was stuck in what you should do. I asked my son for help and he organized a game for me to participate. I loved it, because it was the best time I spent with my son since my wife died. Since then, this game has approached me and my son again and now we spend time together away from home as well. This game reminded me that there is fun in everything, and I brought many happy memories to me and my son.

Stacks:Space! is one of those games that sounds incredibly simple at first, but I ended up getting much more invested in it than I expected. I am basically building a space colony out of cards, stacking them together to discover new combinations while trying to keep everyone alive. I really liked how quickly the game turns a tiny collection of cards into something that starts feeling like a proper little settlement. The main mechanic is built around stacking cards together to create new items, buildings and resources. I can combine materials to discover crafting recipes, then use those new cards to expand what my colony can produce. I enjoyed experimenting with combinations because the game does not reveal everything immediately. There is a satisfying feeling when I discover a useful recipe that suddenly gives me access to a completely new part of the economy. Managing the colony adds another layer because I have to balance workers, resources and production while dealing with threats. Astronauts and settlers have different attributes, and I can train them as the settlement develops. I also have to manufacture useful machines and droids while making sure I have enough supplies to keep everything moving. It can become surprisingly busy once the colony starts growing. I also enjoyed the exploration side. I can send my people to different locations, find new resources and encounter enemies and bosses while trying to progress toward the goals of each scenario. The roguelike structure means I have to make decisions with the resources currently available to me, which makes every run feel a little different. I liked that the game is not just a crafting sandbox because there is always some larger objective pushing me forward. The presentation is very simple, with small illustrated cards representing basically everything in the game. I actually think this works really well because it makes the whole experience easy to understand once I learn the systems. The interface can become cluttered when I have a lot of cards on screen, though, and remembering which combinations I have already discovered can sometimes feel like work rather than fun. My biggest issue is the learning curve. There are a lot of recipes, cards and systems to understand, and the game does not always make every interaction completely obvious. I sometimes found myself experimenting blindly just to figure out what the game wanted me to do. There are also occasional rough edges and small bugs, although the active development and updates have improved the experience considerably. Overall, Stacks:Space! is a clever and addictive little space colony game that does a great job of turning card stacking into a surprisingly deep management system. I enjoyed discovering recipes, expanding my colony, sending settlers on expeditions and dealing with the dangers that appear along the way. It definitely takes some patience to learn, but once everything starts clicking, there is a really satisfying loop here. The simple card presentation hides a much more interesting strategy game underneath. Rating: 7.3/10