This is very clearly inspired by games like Limbo. While it has its moments, it lacks in quality and some design decisions. The game’s art style can be phenomenal. It’s well paced, has some moving music, doesn’t overstay its welcome and it has that appealing mystery with the world and where you’re going. However, the controls can be very janky. You know, when there is a small pause after pressing the jump button or there are times where you press jump but somehow your character doesn’t jump and you end up dying. The story is not told or shown in the game at all. You just suddenly wake up and you see beasts trying to kill you. It’s later in the game that I find secrets (the game’s collectibles) where the story is told in little written texts. Other games did this method of story telling better. You need at least some intro imo. Anyway, I found 5 out of 15. I thought about going back to some levels to collect what I missed. I expected to get the option to select the levels after completing the game. But that didn’t happen. The game even starts from the very beginning if you want to find the rest of the secrets, as the progress for the collectibles is saved at least. The game is not good enough to warrant a complete replay with no way to select the levels or checking which collectibles I’m missing in each level. The game is super short, so I’m positive they did this to extend the game’s length.

It might be a game worth playing on Apple Arcade or experience once on the cheap but it’s not worth going out of your way to collect everything or get all the achievements. This game could have been so much better but what we have is interesting enough.

Games like Limbo and Inside succeed because of the intrigue that they build in combination with stellar set design. Stela is a pale imitator of Limbo, Inside, and other Another World inspired platformers. It has an interesting opening, introducing us to our nameless and silent heroine and a world inhabitated with threatening creatures, but it has too many segments where nothing is happening and same-y environments. The puzzles lean towards frustrating because it can be difficult to distinguish background and foreground elements and there were also multiple instances where I encountered bugs that prevented progress. Stela does have some beauty, but it's a forgettable experience otherwise.