Take the concept behind Call of Duty: Zombies and apply a theme suitable for youngsters, and the result is STUFFED – a wave-based FPS involving a struggle to protect a little girl’s bedroom door from nightmarish toys looking to smash their way in. Here, we play as a plump teddy bear armed with make-do weaponry forged from discarded toys, soda cans, and busted sports equipment that fires the likes of jellybeans, marbles, and golf balls. Grenades, meanwhile, are replaced with bags of microwave popcorn. Instead of popping zombie’s heads, here you’ll be popping kernels.
It’s a fun premise, and it’s one backed by a sprinkling of innovation – the household environments are procedurally generated, with battles taking place over two floors. That said, after only an hour of play battleground layouts did start to repeat, suggesting there are only so many possible variations.
Enemies – such as gnomes, rubber ducks, and boxy ‘60s style robots – make a beeline to the girl’s bedroom door and must be dealt with before they break it down. The door can however be repaired using a kit purchasable using points gained for each kill. Around the house, you’ll also find self-revives, extra popcorn bags, and much further in, both permanent damage and speed upgrades.
You’ll soon learn that investing in new weapons is vital to progress, as the starting weapon can only handle smaller waves proficiently. New weapons are found behind locked doors, requiring a large sum to open, and once unlocked they inadvertently introduce new portals for enemies to emerge. In addition to new enemy types – including eerie shadowy beings – this helps to shake things up. Even so, there isn’t much here to catch you off guard. There are no surprise waves, or other random events – only occasional bonus power-ups make one run feel different from the last. In one seldom twist, I once randomly gained a powerful weapon a couple of waves in, making me overpowered for much of the match’s duration.
Irritations soon start to emerge, and as suggested, these are mostly linked to repetition. The waves follow a set pattern, with erratically moving bean bag toys always appearing on wave six, and wave ten entailing a pesky swarm of mini shadow minions that require a rapidly firing weapon to deal with. While learning and mastering these waves is part of the experience, it also allows tedium to settle sooner. I never found myself playing STUFFED for more than an hour at a time. I also found it frustrating that ammo can only be purchased from the same location a weapon spawned from, meaning if you’re suddenly low, you’ll have to franticly dash to a certain spot while enemies bash down the door. The default weapon – a “sticc” – isn’t much use either, and the perks that unlock upon leveling up could be more creative, mostly falling into the minor health/ammo increase category.
There’s one other thing to address, and it’s something significant. The PC version (still in early access, whereas this Xbox version is listed as version 1.0) is much further along in terms of updates, currently supporting online multiplayer – noticeably absent here – and other features. As such, I can’t really recommend this Xbox version to all and sundry, as it feels like it was always meant to be played co-operatively – right down to the inclusion of characters skins.
There’s just enough content currently for a few hours of solo fun – and parents would do well to take note of the game’s lack of violence – so while I wouldn’t say Xbox owners are being stuffed with this version, it’s certainly still in need of more padding.
Waving Bear Studio’s STUFFED launched at the end of December on Xbox One and Xbox Series.