$14.99Dude, Stop Break every rule on purpose
Solve puzzles politely or ruin them out of pure spite, and enjoy how the narrator reacts to either choice.
Is Dude, Stop worth it?
Dude, Stop is worth it if…
- you want a short, low-effort game for a relaxed evening
- you enjoy teasing a game that talks back
- you like point-and-click puzzles more for the jokes than the challenge
- you would rather break a tutorial than read it
Screenshots
Two ways through every puzzle
Each puzzle is a small point-and-click scene: click things, drag things, throw things across the screen. Every one has a good solution and a bad one. Sort the socks or set them on fire. Feed the cat or, well, don't. The nice path gets you polite approval; the mean path gets you rewards of its own. To move on you need a bit of both, so being a menace is not optional, it is the homework. The puzzles themselves are easy, most take seconds, and the fun is less in solving them than in deciding how badly to behave.
A narrator who takes it personally
The whole game runs on its voice work. A narrator walks you from scene to scene, tells you what to do, and reacts to every choice, and the voice acting carries a real range of moods, from patient to thoroughly done with you. Break his rules and he complains; follow them and he still finds something to say. There is a pet chapter where a woman takes over narration while you play a good or bad dog or cat, which is about as strange as it sounds. The writing is self-aware and tries very hard, and the jokes land often enough to keep you clicking.
How long does it take to finish?
How long does it take to finish?
The story is short: a few hours covers it, and finishing everything can be done in an evening or two. Going for all the trophies is where the time goes, since some puzzles need to be replayed both ways, and the narrator's lines start to repeat when you do. Come for the jokes and the misbehaving more than for a long campaign.
Can you play it solo?
Yes, it is a singleplayer game through and through. You play alone against one very talkative narrator, which is the entire relationship the game is built on.
Are the puzzles hard?
No, most are a breeze on a first run. The light challenge is in finding the hidden or nastier solutions and in working out which actions earn which rewards, since it is not always obvious what leads to which ending. If you want real brain work, this is not that kind of puzzle game.
