Critical Gameplay: The Stanley Parable

As a first-person walking simulation game, Stanley Parable delivers a pretty novel gameplay experience. First, some introduction to Stanley is due. Stanley is a mundane office worker, who just has to push some buttons on the keyboard. The game is most entirely about the story of Stanley, who explores his office building, only to discover that the building is empty.

One striking characteristic of the game is that the narrator apparently has a story already set in his mind. Although the player is in no way bound to such story choice of the narrator, the player will be given snarky comments if (s)he decides to disobey the narrator. (i.e. You may hear “Stanley entered the door on the left”, but you may as well enter the right door.) At that point, it feels like the player has entered a tug-of-war with the narrator as to who has control of the story’s progressions.

However serious this may sound, the element of humor pierces through almost every single narration you would hear in the game. There are truly many combinations of choices that you can make, and the short gameplay for each possible combination easily allows you to get all the fun you can get from this game. As these types of games are often so, after you’ve tried all the combinations, there’s little reason for you to keep playing the game.

TL:DR : Just like watching an episode of the office. After you watch in one time, you know what people would say, but it’s great fun when you’re watching it ;)