Stick it to The Stickman Key Art
Image: Free Lives & Devolver Digital

Another early access graduation today, and one that I've been especially looking forward to - Stick It to the Stickman has finally hit version 1.0! I snapped this one up the day it arrived on Steam back in August last year, but South African indie outfit Free Lives (developers of Broforce, Anger Foot and other silly games) have been hammering away at this one since 2021, releasing a series of prototype builds over on Itch.io, and that effort really shows. This game is all of the genres.

Playable alone or in co-op, the main story has you starting a career as a minimum-wage stickman, brawling your way up the corporate ladder (in floor-by-floor arcade brawler stages) to become the new manager. At which point, the Shareholders make your previous character the new villain (they're the boss now, get it?), and you've got to do it all over again, ideally with new characters unlocked. So far, so roguelite. But the wobbly, physics-driven Stickman action here means that there's been little stopping the studio from cramming every unhinged idea they had into the game.

Before long, you've unlocked side-scrolling platformer stages, one-on-one arena fights, driving segments out on the overworld with GTA-style wanted mechanics, and more, including a whole separate 2D hand-drawn version of the game. Every run increases the stock value of your company, and at each new threshold, something new unlocks. And there's a lot to get through, and it's consistently satirical. I'm starting to suspect that this studio of artists and creatives don't much like capitalism! Weird, huh?

Cramming all of that into one game sounds like it was surprisingly rough for Free Lives, though. While their tone remains jokey to the end, a development blog last month mentions that the team working on the game had shrunk from eight to just four people, and that two of the game modes they'd planned–Rise of the Machines and Marketing Department–had to be cut to get the final version across the finish line.

That isn't to say that the launch version of the game isn't beefy. V1.0 adds two more game modes to the mix. The first being Neurolink, an isometric hack n' slasher where your stickman has been cybernetically augmented with illicit psychic powers, letting you levitate around, shoot lasers from your eyes, and throw knives with your mind, all while completely demolishing the office/lab complex around you. There's one last game mode, but they're keeping that mostly under wraps, revealing merely that you're going to have to storm a billionaire's underground bunker. Honestly, who hasn't dreamt of doing that?

Stick it to the Stickman v1.0 is out now for £11/$12, with a huge 50% launch discount, even more shaved off if you own A Few Quick Matches, Speedrunners 2 or Stick Fight: The Game. There's also a demo, and the game even has Steam Workshop support, letting players create whole new hand-crafted Financial Tower levels with custom enemies and moves. Spiffy!