Dude, Stop

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Dude, Stop is a Puzzle game released on PC in 2018 and brought to the Nintendo Switch in 2020. The premise of the game is that you are a tester charged with taking a series of simple tests, and each series of tests provides players with multiple potential “trophies” to earn by solving a specific portion of them correctly… or solving a specific portion of them incorrectly.

The game is clearly focused squarely on its sense of humor, with the game’s narrator being constantly frustrated at your refusal to follow instructions, or surprised and delighted when you do. This back-and-forth struggle with the narrator is the driving force behind the game, so the biggest question to answer to determine whether the game works is, “is it funny?”

Ehh… a little, I suppose?

Granted, humor is subjective, and everyone’s going to respond differently to an attempt at humor, but for me much of this game’s humor just fell flat. I don’t know whether it’s the game’s writing, or the voice acting, but the narrator came across to me as more annoying than funny, and I didn’t really feel especially tickled by defying his wishes. Contrast this with a game like The Stanley Parable, another game that’s all about defying a demanding narrator, except that game made defying the narrator both fascinating and hilarious.

The other element of the presentation here, the visuals, comes in the form of pixel art graphics that get the job done well enough, though at times it’s not quite clear what a smaller object is meant to be.

As for the gameplay, it’s pretty simple stuff. The tasks you’re given amount to things like “put this ball in the correct bowl” and “Put the stamp on the proper place on an envelope”. Zero brainpower tasks that seemingly challenge you to defy them. However, on occasion there are tasks that seem to have unclear goals that will require you to figure out just what is the “correct” and “incorrect” way to work on them. For these, it can come across as a bit of a challenge, or simple be a frustrating case of “okay, just what does the game want me to do here?”

This game works with the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen controls, which seems the preferable option here, as using a controller simply guides a cursor that can be a bit sluggish. Unfortunately, some of the smaller items are hard to touch with the touchscreen, making for occasional moments where you’ll be frustrated at trying to get the game to register a selection.

For a game all about frustrating it’s narrator, Dude, Stop doesn’t go far enough to avoid frustrating its player, and the humor the game is clearly going for doesn’t quite seem to stick the landing. It’s an interesting oddity of a game with an amusing premise, but it feels like it could have used a bit more work both brushing up the gameplay as well as the jokes.

tl;dr – Dude, Stop is a Puzzle game where players are given a series of simple tasks and charged with completing a certain percent of those tasks correctly… or incorrectly. The game absolutely relies on its sense of humor which is kinda’ hit or miss, and some elements of the gameplay are frustrating as well. In the end, it’s an interesting idea, but the execution is lacking.

Grade: C

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