Stack Up Or Dive Trying Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · September 7, 2021

This Stack Up or dive trying review takes on this stack-your-way-up platformer. The objective is simple: get as high as you can. Avoid contact with water at all costs, be swift with your movements and build yourself a makeshift staircase to the top with the objects falling around you.

Stack Up Or Dive Trying Review Pros:

Big bright colorful graphics.
380.39MB download size.
Steam achievements.
Full controller support.
Graphics – resolution, and field of view slider.
Optional tutorial menu.
Online multiplayer with host/password controls.
3 difficulties – Easy, medium, and hard.
Online leaderboards for each difficulty.
Custom game settings – water speed, power up spawn delay, the time before you sink, and object spawn delay.
The game involves you building up to avoid sinking in a room with ever-flowing water.
Power-ups can be picked up and used.
Break boxes to get an item out of them and place them, they can be rotated.
Customize your character with new hammers and hats from crates.
Crates are earned from playing.
The game will keep spawning boxes.
Hit the water and your run is over.
Plays a bit like a Tetris game as you line up objects so you can climb.
Many item types like boxes with ladders, trampolines, and boxes with sticky substances on so you move slower.
Tense frantic atmosphere.
What you get from a box is random.
Power-ups will float down on balloons.
The power-up description and countdown will show on the screen.
Clear red or green outline to show if you can place an item or object.
First-person view.
Shines brightest in multiplayer.

Stack Up Or Dive Trying Review Cons:

The controller has issues navigating the menu at times.
Minimal graphic settings.
No way to rebind controls.
The tutorial only gives keyboard controls and half the actions were not bound to the controller meaning you had to use the keyboard.
The menu is clunky.
Not a game that compels you to keep playing with no real hook.
If you play solo then the crates/customisation is pointless as you never see yourself.
Music is limited and repetitive.
The mouse cursor stays on the screen.
You always need a mouse and keyboard on hand as you never know when you can’t select a menu option or reach it.
No local multiplayer.

Stack Up Or Dive Trying:

Official website.

Developer: PixelConflict

Publisher: PixelConflict

Store Links –

Steam

7/10

Graphics - 7/10
7/10

Sound - 7/10
7/10

Accessibility - 7/10
7/10

Length - 7/10
7/10

Fun Factor - 7/10

7/10

Summary

Stack Up is a simple idea, boxes of items fall down and you must stack and build them so you can escape the room before it fills with water. Simplification is paramount throughout from the controls to the flow of it all, it does struggle to accommodate the controller well however with unreachable menu options and no way to use it within the tutorial. The gameplay itself is solid and a lot of fun but it’s limited to a single player. Online is where the game excels and has the most fun because it adds so much that one person cannot recreate. I couldn’t see myself playing it for a long time or all that often but when I do play it I did and will continue to enjoy it. The devs have taken a concept and crafted a game out of it but it just needs a killer hook to keep everyone coming back. Stack Up Or Dive Trying is a different spin on the floor is lava as you race to escape the flooding room. Hilarity ensues, frustration creeps in but get your mates in and you have an evening of swearing, shouting, and fun ahead of you.