Staring Contest – Basic Guide

Welcome to Staring Contest, a game I was gifted to review and hopefully isn’t a bitcoin mining operation or some such because I genuinely would like to engage with simple games like this in good faith instead of fearing for my gaming PC when a Unity game ticks up that GPU usage.

Guide to Basics

Сrеdit gоеs to Kazzi!

How to Stare

The rules of the game are simple: keep an eye out for your opponent’s tells, and press the ACCUSE bell when you think your opponent blinks. If you can’t figure it out, you can press GIVE UP at the bottom to back out. If you press the ACCUSE bell early, there’s no penalty. Now, for each of your opponents…

Opponents and Tells

Alberto

• Difficulty: Easy
• Description: Seemingly a serious man. He does not know how to play this game tho. . .
• Tell: Blinks after a few seconds with SFX.
• Achievements: A Warm Welcome, Impossible

Pepito

• Difficulty: Hard
• Description: Alberto’s son. He’s a trained professional and has been staring at others since day one. He makes Alberto proud.
• Tell: Eyes turn red, then blinks with SFX.
• Easter Eggs: Pressing the bell early will make “Aight” appear above “Bet” on Pepito’s t-shirt.

Mr. Skeleton

• Difficulty: Dead serious
• Description: Escaped local cemetery.
• Tell: Collapses to the table.
• Easter Eggs: Clicking on his eyes will make them pop out, forcing him to collapse sooner.
• Achievements: Poke of Insight, Happy Skeleton

Moai

• Difficulty: Stoned
• Description: OOOOOOOOUUUUUUU
• Tell: under research, but you can click to make it glow
• Achievements: Stone Whisperer

Potato

• Difficulty: Mashed
• Description: He’s got really cute eyes tho
• Tell: Eventually explodes.

Gecko

• Difficulty: ???
• Description: I’m 100% certain he’s cheating
• Tell: Press the bell 10 times.

Fish

• Difficulty: Fish
• Description: Fish
• Tell: under refish
• Achievements: Fish

Achievements

There are presently seven achievements to find in Staring Contest.

Victory Achievements

A Warm Welcome

• Defeat Alberto!

Press the bell when he blinks.

Stone Whisperer

• Defeat Moai.

Press the bell when [???]

Fish

Fish

• Presumably defeat Fish?

The Golden 100

• Defeat 100 opponents

Defeat opponents 100 times. As you’d imagine, this can be farmed easily against Alberto, though it’s easier against Mr. Skelly as you can force his blinks, or Gecko as you can mash the bell.

Defeat Achievements

Happy Skeleton

• Lose to a Skelly!

Quit the match.

Impossible

• Manage to somehow lose to Alberto

Quit the match.

Easter Egg Achievements

Poke of Insight

• There’s something funny about Skelly’s eyes…

Click Skelly’s eyes.