First Impressions: The Stanley Parable

Wow.

The Stanley Parable is full of moments that make me say: 'This is the greatest game I have ever played.'

On the other hand, I've also had many moments where I've thought: 'Maybe this game isn't all its cracked up to be.' Fortunately, shortly after thinking that, I am usually rewarded with something clever and delightful.  

The best quote I ever heard about the Stanley Parable was "I'd describe the Stanley Parable to you, but that would be spoiling it."   This is true.  Please feel free read on, acknowledging that every detail may spoil the game a little bit for you.  Perhaps you should play it first.

I do think there is enough interesting content in the Stanley Parable that it would be tough to spoil completely. However, I've enjoyed playing so much that I would like to preserve the newness of experience for others.  Please come back after you have played the game.


The Original Stanley Parable
Here's a link to download the original Stanley Parable.  Turns out the version I've been playing is a 2013 update to the game.  I'll draw comparisons after playing through this one.  In the meantime, perhaps you'd like to play this, completely free to download version of the game?


Moving on, have you played it yet?  You really shouldn't be reading this if you haven't.  

The Stanley Parable is easily the most 'meta' game I have ever played. The narration is fantastic, isn't it?  You know, because you've played the game before, like I asked you to.

I love the way the narrator messes with the player, but even more, I love the way that sometimes I can mess with the narrator through the choices I make.  It's pretty great.  Love the broom closet!

Some obvious (to me) comparisons are Groundhog day for repetition, Portal for oppositional narrator and underbelly of gaming, Bastion for smart narrator and Thomas was Alone for British Narrator and inclusion of the name of the main character in the title.  I'm sure there are more comparisons I should make, but I just haven't got the time right now.  Onto the next paragraph.

I have found two approaches to playing this game so far, first: to save at every choice, and to avoid restarting the game.  second:  to restart the game frequently or to play through after any of the auto-restarts.

Essentially, the Stanley Parable is a choose your own adventure book, as a video game.  The design, writing, performance use of sound and visuals are all top knotch.  Fantastic game, Bravo!

-D

It's A Sad Thing That Shadowgate Only Had Two Games to it's Name!!

Ahhhh...... Shadowgate.  Or is it supposed to be Shadow Gate?  Nope, it's the name of the castle.

I don't recall the first time I ever played Shadowgate.  I'll just guess that it was over at Dr. Potts' place sometime around 1990.  Anyway, the exact time doesn't really matter.  What matters is that this game was played.  Was it beaten?  Hell, no.  I think I was only able to solve a handful of puzzles the entire time I had it (stupid shark).  I was, on the other hand, able to get myself killed in more ways than I had thought descriptively possible.  

Coming across these types of descriptive deaths was uncommon, if not unheard of in Nintendo games in 1990, and could possibly be rated a high "Teen" in todays market.  This kind of material was golden.  It was as if the game was challenging you to find out how often and in how many ways you could die!  Dying no longer was something to fear, as you had to get over it quickly because it was going to happen very often. 

The music too, dear god man, the music!  This was another early game that I fell in love with the music.  And it didn't help that I couldn't beat the game and find out who the composer was; remember, no access to the internet in 1990.  And even with the internet, it took a while to find out that the composer/programmer was Hirojuki Masuno.  Just give, what I consider to be the quintessential Shadowgate theme a listen, although the track is titled "Entranceway."  Even the music that was played when you were dead was as interesting to listen to as the rest of the music in the game.

So Shadowgate was a point-and-click adventure style game that was very text heavy, as you can tell from the death images above.  Only two other games that I know of, Déjà Vu and Uninvited, used a similar/identical format.  At the age of 10 (and even now really), it was like reading an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure book that came with it's own soundtrack.  I didn't extensively play Univited, and I only dabbled around with  Déjà Vu  when they were out on the NES.  When Shadowgate Classic came out on the Gameboy Color in 1999 (wow, only 9 years after first playing the original, it seemed a lot longer than that), I bought it and made a considered effort to beat the game, which I ended up doing, with some help from the internet to solve some of the harder puzzles, like how to stop dying.

That same year that Shadowgate Classic came out, Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers was released on the N64.  I rented that game from the video rental store I worked at, at the time and had a blast playing it.  It was a similar game, compared to the original, as in a point-and-click type adventure, except that since it was on the N64, the game was in a three dimensional space and played similar to an FPS minus the shotgun and automatic rifles.  Like the original though, you still wandered from room to hallway to room, trying to solve puzzles without killing yourself.  It was a pretty fun game, from what I remember.  The music wasn't as catchy as the original, but listening to the soundtrack on it's own, the music is more atmospheric and more like a film score than a video game soundtrack.

There were also plans to release a sequel to Shadowgate 64 titled Shadowgate: Rising, but the rumors say that it was in development for the N64 as the Gamecube was coming out and production ceased.  There was also an online comic that I followed for a while that was going to lead into Shadowgate: Rising

Now at the end of this article, I have to ask the obligatory question: Why aren't more indie game companies making point-and-click style adventures?  In theory they don't seem too difficult to create as it's mostly just script writing and then a series of images.  Yes, I understand that it's a pretty dated concept, but it falls into the whole nostalgia phase.  So if anyone reading this either knows someone in any form of game company or is in one themselves, you now have a new project on your hands.  I'll be looking forward to the end result.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Awaiting the Masses to Join the Call