The code and data behind xeiaso.net
The Stanley Parable (#514)
Signed-off-by: Xe <me@christine.website>
+105
+105
blog/stanley-parable.markdown
+105
blog/stanley-parable.markdown
···
1
+
---
2
+
title: "The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe Review"
3
+
date: 2022-07-25
4
+
series: reviews
5
+
---
6
+
7
+
Every so often a game comes around that is genuinely hard to review. Especially
8
+
when you are trying to avoid spoiling the magic of the game in that review. This
9
+
is a game that is even harder to review than normal because it's an absolute
10
+
philosophical document. This game absolutely riffs at the games industry super
11
+
hard and it really shows. I'm going to try to avoid spoilers in this article,
12
+
except for a few I made up.
13
+
14
+
<xeblog-conv name="Cadey" mood="coffee">I was going to include screenshots in
15
+
this article, but it's difficult for me to get them without spoiling the subtle
16
+
comedy at hand, so I'm going to leave this as a text-only review.</xeblog-conv>
17
+
18
+
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is either the second or third game in the
19
+
series. At first this game was a Half Life 2 mod that came out of nowhere and
20
+
was one of the most beloved mods ever released. Then they made it a proper game
21
+
on the Source engine and expanded it a bit. After a while they wanted to
22
+
continue the parable and expand it even more, but they weren't able to get it on
23
+
consoles with it still being a Source engine game. So they ported it to Unity
24
+
and the end result is The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. It is one of my
25
+
favorite games of all time.
26
+
27
+
It is a deeply limited game, you only can move around and interact with things.
28
+
The story is about an office drone named Stanley that pushes buttons based on
29
+
instructions from his computer. The big thing that this game does though is make
30
+
you realize the inherent paradoxes in its own design.
31
+
32
+
<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="happy">Being limited like this is not actually a
33
+
bad thing like the phrasing would imply. It just means that the main focus of
34
+
the game is not on the micro actions the player can take. In this case the main
35
+
focus is on what the player can do with the story and not what the player can do
36
+
with their controller.</xeblog-conv>
37
+
38
+
Endings that make you look like you had exercised your free will actually boil
39
+
down to your actions being controlled by following the narrator's voices. This
40
+
is absolutely taking the piss out of how most modern AAA game design works,
41
+
guiding you with an invisible hand and making it _seem_ like you had the free
42
+
will to choose what was going on when in fact you were really just following the
43
+
invisible guidance the whole time.
44
+
45
+
However I think one of the best examples of how The Stanley Parable riffs at
46
+
mainstream game design is via the Adventure Line™️ that shows up in one branch of
47
+
the game. The Line™️ is an obvious riff on games like Dead Space where you can
48
+
summon a line to tell you where to go at any time. It shows how _boring_ modern
49
+
game design is by making you _see_ the consequences of it. If you follow the
50
+
narrator's voice, you get boring endings.
51
+
52
+
In many modern AAA games, you have the free will to choose to follow the main
53
+
story and finish all the quests or whatever, but not much else. Consider Call of
54
+
Duty or Battlefield. You are John America and you have to kill the enemies to
55
+
death before they kill you to death by throwing bullets at you. You get to the
56
+
end of the level and blow up the brown people some more or something and then
57
+
it's suddenly a victory for America. But what did you really accomplish? You
58
+
just followed the line. Walk outside of the intended playable area? 10 second
59
+
timer until the game kills you. Shoot a person with the wrong skin color? The
60
+
game kills you.
61
+
62
+
<xeblog-conv name="Numa" mood="delet">I used to be an adventurer like you until
63
+
I took an arrow to the knee! Get it? It's because "taking an arrow to the knee"
64
+
meant "getting married" because being married in Norse times (because Skyrim's
65
+
Nord are basically LARP vikings) really handicapped your ability to move around
66
+
freely, and in those times an arrow injury was basically guaranteed to be fatal
67
+
so it can't be literal (if only because there's so many guards with knee
68
+
injuries walking around effortlessly which is...unlikely at best).</xeblog-conv>
69
+
70
+
However in The Stanley Parable you can defy the narrator and that's where the
71
+
game really opens up. It's great to get in the area where the game is unfinished
72
+
and then have the narrator complain about deadlines, scheduling delays, investor
73
+
funding and them wanting to avoid having to stuff it to the gills with
74
+
microtransactions. You can legitimately glitch your way out of bounds and then
75
+
the game will reward you with a new ending you didn't know was possible. The
76
+
game takes the concept of the illusion of free will and plays with it.
77
+
78
+
The game makes you think about what games _can_ be. It makes you wonder if the
79
+
potted plant soliloquy after the broom closet ending speaks to the mental state
80
+
of the author more than anything. Of all of the artistic endeavors that games as
81
+
a medium _can_ have, we end up seeing very few or none of them in mainstream
82
+
gaming. Sure you get your occasional 4k120fps robot killer waifu with a bow and
83
+
a whacky stick, but none of it really _revolutionizes_ video games as an art
84
+
form. It's all just derivative of the generic "unalive bad guy and save earth"
85
+
trope.
86
+
87
+
<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">If you want some games that really
88
+
revolutionize what games can be, check out
89
+
[Celeste](https://mattmakesgames.itch.io/celeste), [Secret Little
90
+
Haven](https://ristar.itch.io/secret-little-haven), [Baba Is
91
+
You](https://hempuli.itch.io/baba), and [Glittermitten
92
+
Grove](https://twinbeard.itch.io/glittermitten-grove). All of these games really
93
+
challenge what games can be and experiment with radically different kinds of
94
+
art. You never will see mainstream games be as risk-taking as this because art
95
+
is fundamentally risky and capitalism wants line to go up, so they go out of
96
+
their way to make sure that mainstream games are as safe and likely to sell many
97
+
copies as possible.</xeblog-conv>
98
+
99
+
I made up the thing about the potted plant, but if you had played the game then
100
+
you'd probably have started the game up to look for it just to see what was
101
+
there. I wonder if I made someone stand at that potted plant for like 5 minutes
102
+
or something. This game sparks creativity in ways that other mainstream games
103
+
just fundamentally don't. If you've been looking for something different in your
104
+
video game diet, I really suggest you give it a try. Go in as blind as possible.
105
+
I'm not paid in any way to say this, I genuinely think this is really good.