All the rules are broken in The Stanley Parable.
Many games offer players choices, and many of those games also guide players’ choices. So just what is the meaning of choice? Imagine you’re placed into an environment and just left to explore as a narrator attempts to guide you toward your fate. Giving too much away in The Stanley Parable ruins the experience, something developer Davey Wreden knows. The game, originally a mod for Half Life 2, is out on Steam today and has a launch trailer eager to make you want to know more.
The game’s “about” page describes The Stanley Parable best: “You will play as Stanley, and you will not play as Stanley. You will follow a story, you will not follow a story. You will have a choice, you will have no choice. The game will end, the game will never end. Contradiction follows contradiction, the rules of how games should work are broken, then broken again. This world was not made for you to understand.”
A narrator, voiced by Kevan Brighting, acts as Stanley’s companion, guide, foil – whichever description suits you best as you play. You explore your surroundings, and the narrator will do his job and narrate your actions, instructing you where to go, but not necessarily where you should go. He has a relaxing voice, as you can hear in the launch trailer, but he doesn’t sound very nice for long.
The Stanley Parable is available through Steam for PC. It costs $11.99 until Oct. 23 when it will increase to $14.99. For those who have already experienced the mod, the game has new content not in the 2011 Source mod.
Source: Steam
