Quick Review: The Stanley Parable

I’ve already sung the praises of postmodernist game developer Davey Wreden on this blog, I’ll gladly do it again – this time, with the first game that made him famous.

(Guess I need to do this again; what follows contains spoilers. You have been warned. But the game’s pretty famous; chances are, you already know many of the details.)

Nicolas realized that it would be tricky to
show anything from this game without
spoiling any of it.

The Stanley Parable was published by Galactic Cafe and released on October 17th, 2013. Stanley is an office worker who is at work one day only to find the place suddenly empty. Stanley can choose to investigate, or he can do whatever the Hell he feels like doing, and there’s nothing the narrator can do to stop him!

At that moment, Nicolas realized that it was
difficult to convey a game about narration
with still images.

About as meta as a game can get, The Stanley Parable starts from a simple base story that branches out into multiple possible paths. It’s like a book where you are the hero. Or a guy trying to tell a tale, only to be interrupted at every turn by someone taking the plot where it wasn’t supposed to go. The narrator tries to point you, the first-person protagonist of this environmental narrative, into the right direction, but you can choose to ignore him. This may lead to twists you hadn’t seen before. Or it may lead to the narrator getting increasingly snippy and sarcastic at you.

Nicolas could have turned on the game's
subtitles to at least highlight the narration,
but the thought never crossed his mind.

The game strongly encourages multiple replays; going through a path may take 10-15 minutes at best, and then restart the game and try something different. The narrator may comment on your haste if you attempt to speedrun a section; he may mock the choices you make; he may grow desperate as you stick in one place instead of moving forward; he may even change the game sometimes to cut down on annoying segments. I won’t spoil how it happens, but I’ve had one of my biggest laughs in recent memory thanks to this game, in a sequence involving the broom closet.

Although there was no reason to do so,
the reviewer read through the entire
presentation in the Meeting Room, perhaps
hoping for something special. All he got
was confusion and nonsense.

What else is made fun of in this game? Uh… Damn near every single video game convention imaginable. The game pokes fun at the concept of achievements, at the elements of an environmental narrative, at most details of game design you can think of. Whereas The Beginner’s Guide, Davey Wreden’s project that followed The Stanley Parable, is a lot more sober and serious in tone, this one is balls-to-the-wall crazy and hilarious. Two extremely different takes on, yes, that word again, postmodernism in video games. It’s all about calling attention to the medium used to present the oeuvre. It’s the gaming equivalent of Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”. Although perhaps beyond that, both of Wreden’s games focus on the way a story is told through the medium of video games, in a manner that would be impossible in almost any other form of artistic medium. Both games use the concept of a narrator in new and creative ways, as well. On that, I can't forget to mention the very great performance of Kevan Brighting as said narrator.

Wanting to keep his article spoiler-free, Nicolas
only selected screenshots that revealed as
little as - Narrator? What the fuck are you
doing here? Go back into The Stanley Parable!

For the record, I played this game for a few hours, and I am fairly certain I haven't seen nor heard everything. There are so many secrets and endings that, as long as you can think of new ways the plot can unravel, you'll keep finding new content. From what I've heard, the demo is also worth trying.

If you like this type of meta-commentary, you’ll love this game. Hell, even if you’re not looking specifically for that in a game, you’ll likely enjoy this one regardless, as it has enough hilarious moments to get someone laughing. To be fair, this one is pretty famous; it’s possible that you already knew most of what I said here, by this title’s reputation alone. It’s worth trying, definitely. The Stanley Parable is available for 14.99$.