The Stanley Parable, Part Two
Jan. 8th, 2023 07:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI used a walkthrough to see more endings of The Stanley Parable, and this is what I realized: The people who made this game aren’t necessarily critiquing casuals such as myself (although, in my defense, the first few endings sure make it seem that way). Rather, they seem to be critiquing the sort of “hardcore” or “professional” gamers who make unreasonable demands of developers. Some of the deeper endings seem to be responding to specific patterns of feedback that I can imagine would be genuinely frustrating.
I’m going to spoil two of these endings to illustrate this point.
In one of the endings, the narrator is like, “You’re basically saying that you’re unhappy that this game isn’t exactly like Minecraft. If that’s what you want, here’s Minecraft.” And then the screen transitions to the opening of a new game of Minecraft, which the narrator proceeds to play in the most ridiculous way possible. I maintain that The Stanley Parable isn’t a comedy game, but this ending is legit funny.
In another ending, the narrator attempts to cajole you into stop breaking the game by saying, “You seem like you want to see something interesting and unique. Let me show you something special I created that makes me happy.” He then guides you to a lovely room containing a beautiful skyscape, and he asks you if maybe you wouldn’t be content to chill out with him and enjoy an experience that doesn’t have any of the traditional trappings of a “game.” I like this ending a lot actually.
I resent the fact that the paths to the game’s more compelling endings are somewhat unintuitive if you’re not the sort of person who’s into speedrunning or exploiting glitches or whatever, but the endings themselves definitely make me feel more sympathetic to what the developers are trying to say.
I also learned that The Stanley Parable is $25 only on the Nintendo Switch store. Elsewhere, it’s only $15, which feels much more reasonable. Fucking Nintendo. I’m too shitty of a casual gamer to figure out how to access the “Ultra Deluxe” edition content – maybe you need to reinstall the game and then answer its opening questions in a specific way? – but I hope they added an ending about licensing fees.
I’m going to spoil two of these endings to illustrate this point.
In one of the endings, the narrator is like, “You’re basically saying that you’re unhappy that this game isn’t exactly like Minecraft. If that’s what you want, here’s Minecraft.” And then the screen transitions to the opening of a new game of Minecraft, which the narrator proceeds to play in the most ridiculous way possible. I maintain that The Stanley Parable isn’t a comedy game, but this ending is legit funny.
In another ending, the narrator attempts to cajole you into stop breaking the game by saying, “You seem like you want to see something interesting and unique. Let me show you something special I created that makes me happy.” He then guides you to a lovely room containing a beautiful skyscape, and he asks you if maybe you wouldn’t be content to chill out with him and enjoy an experience that doesn’t have any of the traditional trappings of a “game.” I like this ending a lot actually.
I resent the fact that the paths to the game’s more compelling endings are somewhat unintuitive if you’re not the sort of person who’s into speedrunning or exploiting glitches or whatever, but the endings themselves definitely make me feel more sympathetic to what the developers are trying to say.
I also learned that The Stanley Parable is $25 only on the Nintendo Switch store. Elsewhere, it’s only $15, which feels much more reasonable. Fucking Nintendo. I’m too shitty of a casual gamer to figure out how to access the “Ultra Deluxe” edition content – maybe you need to reinstall the game and then answer its opening questions in a specific way? – but I hope they added an ending about licensing fees.
