The Stanley Parable
Storytelling Reinvention:
uses branching choices in order to comment on player-choice and decision-making in modern video games
Game Information
Release Date: July 27, 2011
Developer: Galactic Cafe
Rating: Teen
Genre(s): Exploratory, Role-Playing
Price: $14.99
Website: http://stanleyparable.com
The Stanley Parable, a game which began its life as a mod for Half-Life 2 and whose popularity was large enough to demand a full remake and major release as a unique title that challenges the idea of player agency. In the game, you take the control of Stanley, an employee whose only job is to press buttons. The game begins when suddenly Stanley cannot fulfill his only job and is forced to investigate his office in search of what is happening. Through your experience, a narrator describes your adventure, and subsequently the choices you make within the game.
The first time you play the game you may be tempted to just follow what appears to be a fairly straight forward linear narrative. The fun though is when you break the conventions of following that straightforward path into the unknown. This is when the game really opens up to the possibilities of treading your own way, and the game reacts to that. In the end it seems to make the point that while you as the player may feel you have some agency over the choices you make in a game, the game is still just that, a game. In that end you are still limited by the options presented to you and just like Stanley you are stuck forever in a loop, never finding your way out. It’s interesting to note that the game never ends, once an ending is discovered, the game restarts from the beginning and you are again making the same choices as before. In fact, The Stanley Parable seems to suggest that the only winning move is not to play.
This narration and the idea of choice are the key elements infused within The Stanley Parable. You as the player are free to choose your own path, to sometimes humorous ends, and at other times, to philosophically interesting areas. No matter what choice you make though, the narrator is making comments, sometimes to the character, other times to the player directly. It’s a great commentary about the arbitrary choices we as players tend to take in video games. Indeed even the narrator comments this, and as a player you can feel resentment to the narrator, or sometimes pity. In the end, the narrator is just as trapped as Stanley is in this game, and because of this we can empathize with him. The Stanley Parable is a must play for anyone interested in Player-Choice and the idea of branching narratives.
Researchers: Jessica Smith and Chris Hurley
