Stack is a deceptively simple timing game which is sure to waste hours of your time. The controls are incredibly simple, requiring one to press anywhere on their screen in order to drop a moving shape onto the already present stack. When your timing is perfect you’ll be rewarded with a musical tone and the size of your top shape does not diminish. When you miss partially, the excess hanging over the edge of your present shape will drop, leaving you with a smaller platform to work with. The game ends when you inevitably miss the whole top of the stack, causing your shape to fall and your score to be recorded.

The scoring system itself is simple, you get one point for each time you fail to lose. The ease of use of this game lends itself to the player wanting to play just one more time, each time, until you find that you’ve been playing for an extended period. The satisfaction inherent to the game comes from more than just your score though. You will find that each time you get that perfect stack and the musical note chimes that you want to go further and further while hearing them play. This will cause the player to experience a series of small victories and defeats within the course of the full game, each of which can be as gratifying or frustrating as the whole arc of the game.

As a side effect of the game’s visuals, you’ll find yourself often mystified at the organic structure you’ve created. Pieces which fall off during a miss can land on lower levels and remain there rather than fading into nothingness, and the pieces go through color changes as the game progresses. The whole effect will often lead you with something resembling a complicated sky scraper which may taper sharply and suddenly at a badly misplaced press of your screen.

The pieces come from the upper right and left of the screen, moving back and forth over your remaining field of play. The key seems to be to line up the lower left or right, but the pieces speed up in their movement as you progress and you may soon find a piece rocketing back and forth without much of a field left.

For fans of simple, one press games, Stack is sure to be a delight.