Star Stuff [Review]
Save the star factory in this colorful puzzle automation game.
Star Stuff. Credit: Ánimo Games Studio / Astra Logical
It’s Mija’s first day on the job as an engineer at the star factory, and she’s thrown straight into the deep end as everything goes haywire. Somehow she’s the only one available to fix things and prevent catastrophe, but she’s cool as a cucumber. In Ánimo Games Studio’s Star Stuff, published by Astra Logical, you’ll help Mija program her way to activating every emergency power switch and save the day.
In every room’s puzzle, the power switch is out of Mija’s reach. Thankfully, there are robots and a console with which to program them. You select functions from a menu, drop them into a robot’s list, select targets for each function, and start the program. Usually, you can’t just sit back and let it run; Mija will often need to go to certain positions, hit buttons, or move boxes in time to let things go smoothly as she opens up a path to the main switch.
Star Stuff. Credit: Ánimo Games Studio / Astra Logical
The UI is effective and easy to understand, letting you delve into your code with no frustration. Coding works like some visual programming learning applications such as Scratch; you add functions and other statements to the program as blocks, which have fields to set target variables and can be moved to reorder the sequence. Star Stuff turns out to be a great introduction to programming—I’d recommend this game to any parent or teacher that wants to get kids started with coding.
As Star Stuff goes on, more types of robots and increasingly complex programming instructions become available. Every area of the game introduces something new with an easy tutorial level and then the rest of the puzzles in the area test your ability to master the new concept. In the end, the game is an effective primer to teach programming logic fundamentals.
Star Stuff. Credit: Ánimo Games Studio / Astra Logical
Star Stuff features over 150 puzzles, divided between standard puzzles and optional challenge puzzles. I was able to solve every standard puzzle, sometimes with the help of the game’s hint system, but some of the challenge puzzles are real head-scratchers. You don’t need to solve every standard puzzle to finish the game; every area has a certain number you need to complete for the exit door to unlock and it’s always less than the total number of puzzles.
The game’s gentle hint system helps reduce the stress of solving certain puzzles very effectively. When you ask for a hint, the game will fill in all the instructions of the program while leaving every variable empty for you to figure out and test, so by the end you’ve solved the problem while also learning something new. I would have liked if the hints had multiple steps instead of filling every line in at once to nudge me more into discovery, but I was thankful it existed even in its current form. Either way, solving each puzzle by writing a program with logic that runs smoothly is a satisfying experience.
Star Stuff. Credit: Ánimo Games Studio / Astra Logical
Star Stuff. Credit: Ánimo Games Studio / Astra Logical / Sam Kahn
Star Stuff’s graphics are cute and colorful, with cartoony characters and robots. The visuals never get in the way of interpreting a puzzle while still being nice to look at. It looks like something you might see on the Switch, complete with the character rim lighting glow that has become a visual signature of some of Nintendo’s games. You can also find dyes and get hats to customize Mija’s looks.
It took me around 10 or 11 hours to finish the game’s campaign while doing a few of the challenge puzzles as well. I’m sure milage may vary depending on your grasp of programming. I had a great time with the game.
Star Stuff is available now on Steam for PC.
Overall Score: 8/10
Played on: Steam Deck
