Video Games: The Stanley Parable

Nobody really wants to explain what this game is, and for good reason. Like Whedon's The Cabin in the Woods the best way to experience it is as a blind virgin. But, I wouldn't have bought it with just that sentence if I hadn't played the free HL2 Mod, so I will go into detail for those who want it.

I want to become an English Teacher, and when I do, I will have three students play this game in front of the class. If none of them follow the narrator entirely, I will. Then we will write an essay about the experience. It's that well-written. Plus, it's hilarious and has a sarcastic British narrator. What else would students want?

I inevitably compare this game to Telltale's The Walking Dead. This seems quite a bizarre comparison, for those who have actually played it, so hear this out. The Walking Dead was heralded for the ability to choose, and shape the game. I don't feel this is true, for reasons I will rant about in another blog post. However, in The Stanley Parable, this is true. Your choices matter.

Your first obvious choice (though there are others before this point) are to pick the door on the right, or the door on the left. The narrator tells you that you took the door to the left. You can decide not to.

If you do, you get walked through a parody of a conference room, with slides such as:

The whiteboards are awesome. On one of the whiteboards, there's a mention of getting someone out of the broom closet. This hints to another thing you can do: go into the broom closet. The narrator is utterly baffled, and if you stay long enough, he insults Stanley, culminating by saying Stanley was stupid, fat, and addicted to drugs and hookers.

You often get dialogue by just standing still. For example, standing in the employee lounge will have the narrator eventually say: "Stanley's obsession with this room was getting a little creepy," and end with: "the narrator said nothing for a very long while, and Stanley began to think the narrator was trying to make a point."

This game has practically infinite replay value. At this time, there has been twenty endings or pseudo-endings discovered, though I personally found one more. There are easter eggs, like a random person you might see, or the phone ringing. My favorite phone ring has to be the one that has you confirm a delivery of 1000 boxes (or some insanely high number) and the next time you restart the game, the office will be full of boxes. Or if you enter the correct code into the keypad before the narrator tells you it, he gives you a lecture about patience, and stop the game for a moment to play jazz music.

The achievements are adorable, inane, and hilarious. The only clearly achievable one, where you click a door five times, is deceivingly complex. The narrator will break the fourth wall, and tell you that you have to do more to earn that achievement. Then you'll have to run around, clicking on many doors, and even stand on top of the copier before you get the achievement. There's several that seem impossible or insane: play for an entire tuesday, don't play for five years. (Altering your computer's clock can do these.) There's even an achievement you can find by simply looking in the options and turning on the achievement.

It really does have to be experienced to be believed.




You thought I was done, didn't you? Nope! If you're still not sold, play the Demo. You'd think it'd be a shorter version of this game, but it is an entirely different game. While The Stanley Parable deconstructs literature, and indeed, games, the demo does this of demos. Like the full game, the demo has many endings and easter eggs to be found. Now I'm done.