The Stairway (PC)

"Most of life's battles are won, or lost, in the mind." --Craig Groeschel

Source: Screen Capture from Game

Stairway is a short, relaxing puzzle-RPG created by Yomi(illydna). In The Stairway, you play as Stella, a young lady who is searching for her friend Nina. Stella accompanied Nina to a public event, but Stella isn’t much of a person for crowds. So, when Stella suddenly notices that she can no longer spot Nina in the room, she goes looking for her. In her search, Stella comes across a stairway and starts to climb higher and higher. When she finally reaches the top(but not really), she finds herself in a surreal fantasy world.

As Stella continues to climb each new stairway, a new fantasy world unfurls before her. Stella must press on to try to find Nina, solving puzzles and fighting those feelings of unease. On the Itch.io page, it’s stated that there aren’t any horror elements to the game, but there were times that I was expecting a jump scare. Seeing the NPCs with their lack of facial features also made it a little horror-ish to me. There weren’t any jump scares, by the way, but it still made me uneasy.

Source: Screen Capture from Game

The puzzles were simple, but enjoyable. The puzzles were mostly of the ‘use this object to free another object for another person’ variety of puzzles.  I would have liked for the puzzles to be a little more challenging, personally.

This game has a distinct Alice in Wonderland fantasy feel to it. The music is very relaxing and I enjoyed listening to it throughout the game. The graphics are nostalgic and attractive, the charm adding to the Alice in Wonderland feel.  Stella says to herself that she is “lost” in the sense of being lost in one’s own mind.

Source: Screen Capture from Game

My only real issue with this game is the text font used for the dialogue. It can be extremely hard to read at times. The ending is also a bit confusing to me. I understand the Wonderland feeling and Stella being “lost inside her own mind”, but when Stella returns to “reality”, she finds Nina outside. I don’t understand why Nina would have gone outside and left Stella inside and on her own. It’s kind of a mean thing to do, if you ask me.

Still, I enjoyed this little game and what it had to offer. The charming graphics, bright colors and surreal atmosphere won me over. The game took me about 20 minutes to complete, and I would recommend playing the game for yourself. The game can be downloaded and played for free from Itch.io *here*.

Happy Gaming, Friends!

Bell

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