“We celebrate our Black people here,“ he says of services including locs, twists, braids and masterful cuts. In those days before the Natural Hair Movement (and before YouTube tutorials), it was also political. Glen’s decision to specialize in natural hair care nearly 20 years ago was not only a business move. In 2006, he opened De Lux Gallery, a unisex salon catering to healthy natural hair in all styles. And a lot of those people wore their hair natural, when it was not otherwise common to see that walking down the street.” Inspired by the neighborhood, Glen changed his repertoire from fades and shape-ups to specializing in loc care and maintenance. “People weren’t wearing name brands too tough they had their own thing. “A lot of trendsetting stuff was going on,” says Glen, 50. Reminiscing back to 2000 - when he moved to Brooklyn from his native Trinidad, then working as a barber at a salon called Black Roots - he describes a pre-gentrified Fort Greene vibrant with Black-owned businesses and a thriving community of young writers, musicians, filmmakers, actors and visual artists. Stacks on Stacks (on Stacks) is available via the Nintendo Game Store, Google Stadia, Steam and Itch.io.“I’m one of the oldheads around here,” says Glen Ettienne, owner of De Lux Gallery, a natural hair salon in Fort Greene. Oh, and before I forget, at the end of each level you get to destroy your tower with a wrecking ball. However, if you have someone else to compete with, it becomes an absolute blast and I’d consider it nearly a must-buy. If you’re only going to be playing the single-player, I’d rate it lower and recommend you pass on it. Ultimately, scoring this game is its own balancing act. It also gives you even more of an incentive to succeed at the mini-games, as you potentially deny an advantage to the other player. That said, the game truly shines in multiplayer, where the randomness of the blocks and constant threat of failure turns from frustrating to hilarious. The aforementioned mini-games are also mostly pretty basic, which slows down the action. In particular, the par times for getting an extra reward on each level (which you can use to customize Rockit) seem especially brutal. The game itself is also surprisingly hard, especially due to its randomness. These are mostly found in the single-player mode, where the game largely tosses you in with an incredibly minimal tutorial. The core gameplay of Stacks on Stacks (on Stacks) is impressively solid, which unfortunately does make its shortcomings much more obvious. There’s a surprising amount of variety for such a simple game, and it keeps things fresh. Other times you might actually need to AVOID building your structure past a certain height instead. Sometimes you have to deal with an extremely small platform to place your blocks. Plus, the rules of the game will even change between levels as well. Randomized puzzle blocks routinely fall, triggering mini-games that give you extra useful blocks if you succeed. The game throws even more wrenches in the works on top of that. In most modes, you only get three mistakes before it’s game over. ![]() Physics-wise, the blocks behave exactly as you’d expect, so all it takes is one unsteady placement to send half your structure tumbling to the abyss. The blocks all have different sizes and shapes, and keeping your tower upright quickly becomes extremely tricky. As blocks fall from the sky one at a time, you stack them on a platform, with the goal of getting the stack up to a certain height in order to advance. As Master Stacker, Rockit, your goal is to stack the blocks and keep them from making a mess.Īccomplishing this is deceptively simple, gameplay-wise. A world full of anthropomorphic food and household items is being assaulted by falling blocks. Their puzzler Stacks on Stacks (on Stacks) seeks to recreate your fondest memories of playing with blocks, and, with a few hiccups, it largely succeeds.Įverything about Stacks on Stacks (on Stacks), from its presentation to its plot, is gleefully silly. The developers at Herringbone Games are clearly more in tune with their inner children than most. I’m of course referring to building the most ridiculous structure you can think of and then knocking it over like a tiny Godzilla. However, while many simply seek to ape the legendary success of Tetris, few try to recreate the most fun part of actual physical blocks. ![]() ![]() Puzzle games about falling blocks are a dime a dozen. Stacks on Stacks (on Stacks) by Herringbone Games
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