XBOX REVIEW | STUFFED

“Play as a teddy bear and fight waves of nightmares as you defend your owner.“

“Stuffed” takes place in the dreams of a little girl called Ellie. You play as Ellie’s Teddy bear and must fight waves of her nightmares, including sinister gnomes, fanged rubber ducks, menacing robots, eerie shadow creatures, and many more. The idea of Stuffed is to protect Ellie’s bedroom door from nightmares while she is sleeping. You must do everything you possibly can to stop the nightmares from breaking down her bedroom door; if this happens, it’s game over. Stuffed is a first-person shooter with procedurally generated levels. As you defeat the nightmares, you earn points that can be used to purchase upgrades. Additionally, you are awarded bear coins after each game, which can be used to purchase skins for your teddy and weapons. Stuffed is also the first game from Waving Bear Studios. While it may seem that Stuffed is aimed at the younger generation of gamers, it is a very challenging game, and this may put off some younger players.

Things I liked!

• Gameplay | I had a lot of fun playing Stuffed. I really like the weapons that are available to you. You begin with a stick for melee attacks and a pistol called the Planky McBangBang, which is made from a catapult, battery, and a soda can. It shoots small blue balls. This starter weapon is not very powerful but will do for the first few waves. There are other cool weapons such as Boom Corn, which is great for taking out multiple nightmares at once. These are like hand grenades and the first item I look for when I start a new game. You can carry five of these, so as soon as you have none left, you will need to go back and purchase some more. The Cosmic Fan has a faster fire rate and looks like it’s made from a rolled-up magazine with rubber bands. It fires nails, and this was a cool weapon to use. There are many more cool weapons that you will find as you explore. The locations of the weapons will change on each run, so it’s important to find these as quickly as possible. Once you own that weapon, you can come back to purchase ammo at the same place too. There is a short tutorial that I would recommend doing, as this explains the controls and basics on how to play. Stuffed is a fun game that is easy to pick up and play. You earn points by killing the nightmares that appear and get more points for headshots. Then you can use these points to unlock other doors in the house, purchase better guns, ammo, and special abilities such as invincibility or double damage. You can also purchase items such as extra health, faster movement speed, and door repair kits to repair the damage done to Ellie’s bedroom door. Sometimes when you defeat nightmares, they will drop these items too, which will appear for a short time before disappearing. As you play, you will also level up, unlocking permanent upgrades such as health upgrades, more ammo, and faster movement at the upgrade station located near Ellie’s bedroom door.

• Controls | I found the controls in Stuffed really easy to pick up and master quickly. You can sprint, jump, and crouch. Additionally, you have two weapon slots as well as a melee attack. However, you can only carry one special ability item at a time, and these do not appear very often. If you are lucky enough to find one, I would recommend saving it until the end boss on wave ten or when your health is dangerously low. I’ve had runs where I do not see any special ability drops, while other times there have been several. My favourite special ability item makes your teddy grow really big, and you can just walk and melee kill the nightmare creatures with ease. While you are big, you also become invincible. Another special ability allows you to send out a pulse wave that instantly kills any nightmare creatures in its path.

Neither good nor bad

• Sound | Each unique weapon has its own sound effect when firing, which sounds good and adds to the atmosphere. The in-game music does a good enough job and adds to the suspense, but I found it to be annoying and repetitive at times.

• Customisation | At the end of each game in Stuffed, you earn Bear Coins based on your performance. These coins can be used to buy skins for your teddy and weapons. There’s a wide variety of skins available, including a skeletal astronaut, a stripey pirate with a peg leg, and even a rainbow-patterned bear rocking a unicorn onesie. However, there’s a catch: Stuffed is a single-player game, so you don’t get to see your skin while you’re playing. But fear not! You can still admire your weapon skins, which come in fun designs ranging from gold-plated shells to polka-dot patterns. Personally, I find the default skins already pretty cool!
  
• Graphics | While the graphics may look very basic, the use of colours is good, and there are some impressive shadow effects. Overall, it looks very clean and runs at 60 FPS. I never noticed any slowdown on screen, even when there was a lot happening. The character models are well done, and all the nightmares—which are kids’ toys and garden ornaments—look very menacing.

Things I disliked!

• No Co-op Mode | Stuffed is crying out for online co-op or even split-screen play. I believe that if Stuffed had online co-op, this game could really be something special.

• Difficulty | To complete the whole game in Stuffed, you need to survive twenty nights. Each night consists of ten waves, with the last wave of each night being a ridiculously difficult boss fight. I have only beaten wave ten on day one once. After wave five on the first night, the difficulty starts to ramp up very quickly. It is very easy to be overwhelmed by nightmares, and they drain your health rapidly. If this happens, it’s normally game over, unless you have a special ability to save you. To unlock some of the achievements, you must survive a number of nights without using any abilities or taking damage, and these seem impossible to achieve in single player.
  
  
• Bugs & Glitches | Stuffed unfortunately suffers from numerous bugs and glitches that I’ve encountered while playing. These issues range from crashes that send me back to the Xbox dashboard on several occasions, to instances where picking up items like invincibility causes my weapons to stop functioning altogether—leaving me with no alternative but to reset the game. Additionally, when shooting at the tall shadow creatures, they sometimes take no damage, leading to the destruction of Ellie’s door and triggering the game over screen. Remember, even in the world of gaming, bugs can be quite pesky!

How long did I play the review before publishing? 10 hours
How long to beat the story? 50 hours + (Very difficult to impossible)
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 15/36
How long to achieve 1000G | Well over 100 hours, some achievements seem impossible!
You’ll love this game if you like these | From Space & Modern Warfare 3 (Zombies mode)