Let's Talk... The Stanley Parable

Many games try their hand at critically commenting on video game tropes and generally flawed design choices in games, be it narrative or gameplay. It’s become an increasingly common practice amongst the game’s industry and can be extremely entertaining and sometimes eye-opening when done right. Ironically enough, however, many of these supposedly critiquing titles end up actually being more tedious than the game they were trying to mock. The best example of this comes from the huge wave of games like Breath of Death VII or Cthulhu Saves the World that “comment” on the JRPG tradition to throw endless encounters at the player whenever they take two steps. Games like these often end up losing their message or commentary through their poor “on the nose” execution. Occasionally, however, a game will come along that manage to successfully convey and deliver thoughtful commentary, The Stanley Parable, based on a 2011 source mod of the same name, is one of those games.

Yep, you'll be seeing a lot of beginnings

 The basic idea of The Stanley Parable is that you create your own story through the choices you make. Sound familiar? It probably should, at least to anybody well-versed in video game tropes, which are the people with whom The Stanley Parable will resonate best with. The game starts you in your office, you being Stanley, of course, as the narrator simply states that your co-workers are “missing” and continues to narrate the beginning of Stanley’s journey, prolifically narrating precisely what Stanley is doing and what he’s supposed to do next. For example, the narrator will tell you that Stanley went through the door on the left, and whilst you can follow that instruction you can just as easily ignore it and take the first right, to which the narrator will comment something on the lines of “Stanley never was good at following instructions”. Every time you take a specific path, be it correct or not, you are heading towards an entirely unique ending, of which there are quite literally dozens, and straying too far off the beaten path can lead you to some seriously bizarre scenarios which inevitably lead to seriously bizarre conclusions.

Mechanically the game couldn't be any more minimalistic; you walk around following, or not, the narrator’s instructions, opening doors and futilely trying to interact with the environment. It’s the narrator’s drive to narrate each and every action, and inaction, you make, or don’t make, that makes it all so compelling, however, and you’ll find yourself trying to do everything you can just so you can see what reaction the narrator will have, even if it’s as simple as him saying “Stanley stood in the broom closet for no apparent reason”. The fun of the game is trying to find all the ways to break it, and that is exactly what the game wants you to do, be it through simply going the wrong way or by doing things that wouldn't normally work in most games to trigger scenarios that will genuinely surprise you. For example, without giving away too much, a phone rings and you are told that Stanley answered the phone, to which you can either answer it or just unplug the phone which will trigger a whole new sequence and lead you to a whole new scenario.

The game can get seriously weird if you take the right path... or the wrong path.

The dialogue is excellent and the narrator is suitably brilliant. It would have been so easily for The Stanley Parable to be a tedious experience with an ineffective message attached had the dialogue been dry and the tone inappropriate. Thankfully, The Stanley Parables feels like a love letter to video games that simultaneously critiques and celebrates video game narrative in all its shame and glory. The commentary generally feels thoughtful without appearing to be rude or offensive, it does a great job of putting the state of video game narrative into perspective and basically just saying “this is how it is, here are some jokes and crazy scenarios we made to surrounding it”. It manages to make its points about narrative, in particular that some game’s can often offer players too many choices and begins to lose track of the original story and tone, rather indirectly and discreetly, they don’t scream the message at you but its certainly there.

As for the technical side of things, it really is quite basic. The game generally looks pretty good for $15 game but the game features such visually basic set pieces that the visual design just isn't that important. The game also runs pretty well on pretty low spec machines, too. The game’s sound design is also very basic, the aforementioned dialogue is truly excellent whilst the sound of a mouse clicking in-game whenever you do is a neat little touch that presents the game’s tone and setting nicely. Unfortunately, I did find that the game would have definitely benefited from some kind of hint system that would push you in the direction of new things to see and do. Although this would obviously take a lot of the fun out of the game first time round and certainly for the more obvious events and scenarios available, but for some of the more obscure scenarios some kind of enable-able hint system would have been greatly appreciated. 

The original Stanley Parable, a 2011 source mod. 

In the end, The Stanley Parable is a fun little sandbox you can endlessly poke and prod to see what will happen that leaves a memorable impression on the player and hides a discreet critique about video game narrative. Unlike some of the less successful “critiquing games”, The Stanley Parable knows exactly what it is and what it wants to be which is something that ends up being one of the game’s biggest strengths. The game knows that it is just a commentary on narrative design tropes in video games, particularly the overused illusion of choice, and that’s exactly what it tries to be.