Critical Play — The Stanley Parable (Demo)

For my critical play, I played the demo for The Stanley Parable. Having never played a walking simulator before, I had no idea what to expect. The game guides you through a series of rooms, with a narrator guiding you throughout the course of the demo. The narrator expresses his goal to give the player a taste of what “the Stanley Parable is about,” but due to a series of mishaps, leaves the player not knowing (deliberately) what the “Stanley Parable” actually is. However, the demo serves its purpose by introducing the player to the overall style and feel of the game, including its humor and visual design.

My favorite aspect of the demo, along with the humor, was the emotional responses I felt purely as a result of each room’s design. The use of many corridors, often with 90 degree turns, never showing the next room ahead of time, gave me a sense of uneasiness and nervous anticipation for what would come next. Other rooms were designed very deliberately for specific purposes. For example, there is a room containing a dark catwalk, with what seems to be infinite darkness below it. At the end of the catwalk, two brightly lit buttons are placed, accompanied by a giant digital sign asking “Do you like The Stanley Parable?” When the player first approaches the buttons, a gate is rapidly (and loudly) shut in front of their face.

Many rooms throughout the game are slowly revealed in dramatic fashion, but often contain something slightly unexpected and humorously disappointing. Even without using cutscenes or relying on the narrator, The Stanley Parable’s demo successfully engages the player emotionally by presenting things in interesting and often funny ways. Overall, I was very impressed by the game’s demo, and hope to play and finish the full game soon.