BENGALURU: The Stanley Parable is the story of a man named Stanley. He works at an office. He always follows orders, till one day there are no more orders to follow. It is a first-person exploration game, where Stanley navigates through cubicles in his office to uncover the reason behind his lack of work.
There are no skill trees. There are few achievements to earn. There is no trophy for finishing the game. In fact, the narrator makes it clear that the point of the game is the simple act of moving. I started playing the game with the slight dread that this hits too close to real life. The key difference is that there is no end to the game — or so the narrator says.
There is a snag in reviewing this game. I tried writing this review many times, in many different ways. There is absolutely no way I could explain this game in a way that would make the reader want to play it. The Stanley Parable is a point-and-click game. But there is truly little pointing and clicking involved. We move around a laid-out outline of an office.
The narrator dictates a route that we must take. Taking any other route would bring the story to several ridiculous and disastrous ends. In the latest iteration of the game: The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, several of these endings involve Stanley in a strange relationship with a steel bucket. After each ending, the game promptly restarts.
Most people like the game because of the omniscient narrator. He has an excellent accent, an expressive voice, and is mostly good company. But after a certain number of replays, the pompousness gets to you. He constantly reminds us that the game is a densely layered web of profound philosophical insights, and is trying to be a serious work of art.
It is annoying that I couldn’t speak back to the narrator while playing the game. At best, The Stanley Parable is a choose-your-own-adventure Goosebumps book. It is an attempt to throw light on the idea that no real choice exists within the boundaries of a video game. But I did really enjoy the game, simple as it is. I rate the Ultra Deluxe edition a 6/6 for its new content.