The Stanley Parable HD

[IamLEAM1983]

Back in 2011, Davey Wreden released a project on ModDB. It was a mod for Half-Life 2 and there honestly is a couple hundred baker's dozens of mods for that particular game. All of them offer some variation on the essential concept of you being a Person Holding a Gun and Shooting at Things. Sometimes the things you shot were goal posts in some sort of futuristic take on Ping-Pong, and other devs went for the Straight and Easy and made their own widdle zombie shooters. Keep in mind, that was in Left 4 Dead's heyday. Everyone and their mother wanted a piece of that zombie pie.

Otherwise, you'd find other Horror projects for the first game. You're a dude with a knife, you go around trying to exit the level you're in, and the enemies you kill don't stay dead. Yay.

What Wreden produced was different. Not just in terms of surface-level gameplay; different in everything that matters.

What he released was The Stanley Parable.

It was a mod for a pre-existing game, and it wasn't a game. You had a goal, and you had no goals. The level design made sense and yet – it sometimes didn't make sense. You were directed along a pre-set tale by an avuncular British narrator, but you were also free to ignore his commands.

You played as Stanley and yet, in a sense, you didn't play as Stanley. It was a mod that made you think on the nature of games, the nature of narrative devices, the importance or illusion of choice – everything deeply or tangentially related to games; but also about yourself. Why were you playing this mod, anyway? After all, it was only trying to present a narrative framework, and the art assets cribbed from City 17 and Gordon Freeman's romp in Central Europe gave this tale of salaryman tedium a weird “European Derelict Prison Chic” feeling. It was a mod that was actually trying to call attention to its nature as a piece of artifice, and its limited tools only reinforced that impression.

It felt as though Kafka, Woody Allen, Dali and Escher had been given a crack programming and level design course and told to go nuts with Half-Life 2's innards. It did work – and it worked flawlessly – but I kept feeling they could've done more.

Then, fast-forward seven or eight months, and Wreden's team releases this :



I was ecstatic.

Again, you know me. I'm at this point in my journey as a gamer where things like scores or leaderboards are of least possible importance to me. I loathe competitive gameplay, unless it's shared with a bunch of friends who I don't mind dicking around with. I don't play games to boost my list of Steam titles or because I absolutely have to obtain all the Achievements for this or that title – I play games I know I'll find either fun or engaging in some way. I don't have time to waste trying to chase the popular darlings if said software divas are being crowded by an entourage of foul-mouthed adolescents. I don't have time to waste trying to nab games that feel despicable or shallow to me, despite their degree of technical excellence.

I play games because I love the medium and, like it or not, several facets of the industry that comes with it. So when I see someone trying to bridge the gap between gameplay and narrative in a way that few other devs have done before, I take notice. I start drooling like my dog in front of a piece of medium-rare steak.

The Stanley Parable's HD remake has now been released, and I've played it for a few hours. I've only peeled back a few layers of its multitudes of possibilities and only willingly subjected myself to a fraction of what the impeccable Narrator has to put me through. I know I say that a lot, I know I tend to braingasm in front of any title that even vaguely pushes things further than the usual “Kill all the Things to Win” leitmotiv – but the limited freedom you're given while in that microcosm is unparalelled.

This is one of the best stories I've ever played (or read) all year. There's really not much to say without spoiling large swaths of the level design – but play this. Buy this now. It's not a typical FPS, there are no guns, no Jump button, no readily identifiable threats – but buy it. Seriously.

As to why you should; that's actually fairly simple.

I've already addressed A Machine for Pigs and been honest as to what I felt about thechineseroom's attempt to reify Frictional Games' typical game design. You don't engage the player by removing mechanics, and you can't engage it either if said player feels safe. It doesn't matter how creaky or dark or Decrepit Victorian-ish the Mandus estate felt, I was never threatened in the game. I was never asked to make a hard choice or to debate the validity of my actions beyond the climax's unavoidable moments of extreme disgust. Thechineseroom tends to focus so much on the narrative that there isn't anything left for the player to sink his teeth into. Dear Esther is a pretty island, walking about its expanse triggers snippets of dialogue; you're generally free to roam around an extremely sterile environment – but you have no control. Sooner or later, you're whisked along to the ending, guided by the fact that all paths and all divergences on that island lead to the same lighthouse. No matter how many times you try and backtrack, there is no other way than forward.

The Stanley Parable understands this, and actually employs its own trappings in a smart way. When the Narrator, ever so patient and slightly pedantic, tells you that Stanley chose to go left, you're entirely free to mentally flick him off and go right. At nearly every turn inside that Kafkaesque office building Stanley inhabits, you'll find alternate paths for you to consider, alternate ways for you to push the Narrator's buttons. You're essentially similar to Stranger than Fiction's Harold Crick, with your gender-swapped Emma Thompson being forced to accomodate you if you choose to ignore his painstakingly crafted and amusingly ironic story about choice and the nature of free will. No matter how many times your bodiless companion might tell you that Stanley chose to embrace his freedom and to make his choices on his own from now on; no matter how jubilant he gets – the fact is that there's a third entity the game never mentions. What feels like a duet is actually a trio, made up of Stanley, the Narrator, and yourself, as the voice seems unable to perceive the fact that Stanley isn't much more than an empty vessel.

You're the silent third wheel the game gleefully uses in its own counter-argument against free will, as you do control Stanley's every move, after all – even if you do everything as planned by the Narrator and guide Stanley to ecstatic levels of emancipation. Honestly, if you are playing Stanley and Stanley is therefore never really in control, is he ever truly emancipated?

That's the big question this tentacular hall of mirrors asks, this half-comical and half-nightmarish enfilade of office cubicles and corridors and the same looping employee lounge, repeated ad nauseam, all try and ask and simultaneously answer. The hall of mirrors seems to start with Stanley's own computer screen, which shows another screen, which shows another, and another, and another, until you realize something.

There's one screen the game cleverly never takes into account. The one computer that honestly matters.

The one that's running The Stanley Parable.

If you've played anything along the lines of Portal, Antichamber, those abovementioned read-by-chapter adventure books or even FMV movie games like Silent Storm, you will absolutely love this. Saying anything more or trying to write down some sort of Highlights reel would only lessen the experience.

At ten bucks a pop, you absolutely have to play this. If you can't pay that for any reason whatsoever, try out the free demo, which carries the same general experience but with its own assets and context. Absolutely nothing gets spoiled, so don't worry. If you're unable to do even that, then download the original Half-Life 2 mod. All you need to run it is the Source Engine's Development Kit from 2007, which is free from Steam, in the Tools section of your Games Library. The original mod is also, obviously, free.

As was the case with Antichamber, don't forget to entirely disregard what the Narrator says. See where that takes you. Then try something else. Then, something different. Then, another swap.

Play. Quite simply play with this title instead of merely playing it like you would everything else, and it'll shock you. It'll amaze you, it'll make you laugh, it'll make you think -

It also just might get you to understand why I still love games so much.