Monday 4 January 2016

Thoughts on 'The Stanley Parable'

I played the demo, I was super excited about the game... I've heard loads about it and I've even played the other game that the creator put out ('A Beginner's Guide') so I was super pumped to purchase and play this.



On a purely experiential level it's beautifully disorienting. Everything you think you know about gaming, about being a gamer, about participation and agency and "Destiny" and everything is just upended and thrown at you and the only choice you really have is whether to dodge or stand in the way and allow yourself to be hit by it.

This game should be some kind of required playing for any kind of game designer or experience designer in general, to get them to think about these some of these questions for themselves before crafting experiences for others. It would make them more humane designers I think...

I haven't even finished all the endings yet, and maybe I will someday but I just finished playing the ending that makes all the other ones kinda meaningless. The 'Final' ending, if you will. I'm kinda shaking right now as I'm writing this... 'ON' and 'OFF' both want to be free but yet they don't see that they need each other. What would one even be without the other; is something really alive if there is not also the possibility of it's opposite? I'm rambling now...

I think this game should be required playing for people of any kind generally. It would make them more humane I think.



P.S. If you do play it, and reach the ending as I did (and are distressed at all, for any reason), check this out: Clicking on this link is a bit of a spoiler for the game, yea?

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