The Stanley Parable

Game: The Stanley Parable
Developer: Cakebread
Platform: PC and Mac (as a mod for Half-Life 2).
Release Year: 2011
Stephen's Rating: 8/10

The Stanley Parable is an experimental game which explores narrative, free will, storytelling, and reality.

Basic Plot

You play the role of Stanley, and unremarkable man who works an unremarkable job pushing buttons. One day Stanley goes to work but there's no-one there to tell him which buttons to push. And so the game begins.

Gameplay

From the moment the game starts there is a narrator who explains what is happening to Stanley. At the very start of the game is a moment which pretty much explains where the game is going. You come to a point where there are two open doors.

 Which door will you go through?

The narrator says "Stanley went through the door on the left". And you are left with a choice... to obey the narrator or not? What you end up with is a dynamic game which shifts as you make choices. It explores the role of the narrator and who has the power - the narrator or the characters?

I'm not going to ruin the game by saying anything more, go and play it for yourself. It's free. If you have a PC you don't even need Half-Life 2, you can run it directly from the Source SDK which you can apparently download for free.

(But on that not if you haven't played Half-Life 2... then you should).

Where Stanley works.

Positives

The game was refreshing and new, and unexpected. When I first heard about it I thought "it can't really be that good" but it was. The whole game only takes maybe an hour to explore (if you decide to re-examine all the possible choices) but this is an hour worth the effort.

The narrators are excellent and add a polished professionalism to the game.

Negatives

It was very short, but I kind of liked that about it. I think this was an experiment but it could be taken further into something really wonderful.

Memorable Moments

When I first got to the point where I had a choice between two doors and the narrator told me which door to enter, I got a sudden rush of joy. The potential of the game instantly hit me.