Stick to the Plan Review

Stick to the Plan is an adorable puzzle title in which you play as Roberto — a dog that happens upon a bigger stick whilst walking with one already in his mouth. Thenceforth, it's your job to take this stick through over 100 levels to make him happy, and who wouldn't want a joyful pupper?

As a puzzle game, Stick to the Plan has minimal story as you go through the worlds with new sticks to take through the level. What there is, however, is shown in quick, three-panel comic strips that give you a bit of an idea as to what's happening.

The rest of the game is as simple as the story, and that's a good thing! Each world has a couple of stages you'll need to pass through, and every world has a new gimmick that you need to learn. These include unique ways to traverse the world to new ways you’ll manoeuvre with your stick, like a chainlink fence you can stick it through. These were very inventive and enjoyable; slowly mastering the mechanics was actually a highlight, and unlike in some other puzzle titles, I genuinely missed some of the ones I left behind.

What's great about Stick to the Plan is that its simplistic gameplay design isn't a bad thing — nothing ever overstays its welcome, and it is never so difficult that I got bored of the levels. It's a perfect title to pick up and play in downtimes and be completing over the course of a few days.

The game gets progressively more difficult throughout each of the worlds, but every time you reach a new one, it becomes simpler once again as you get used to the mechanics. The dog's stick also sometimes resets from its two-square size to a monstrous three-square, and you have to inventively move it around to adapt to the gimmicks. Despite their simplicity, some of these were ingenious and genuinely fun, but it does suffer from being too easy at times; once I understood the gimmick for each world, the subsequent levels were effortless.

The difficulty will be a good or a bad thing depending on your personal viewpoint — for me, I was quite happy with the level of difficulty. While I'm not one to deny challenging puzzle titles, Stick to the Plan is enjoyable and casual, and it was the perfect game for me to pick up and play whenever I had any sort of downtime. We need more games like these.