PLEASE PLAY THE GAME BEFORE READING FURTHER!
There are many themes and ideas at work in this game, on which I wanted to share my thoughts.
Keep in mind that this is only MY interpretation of the game, I welcome and would love to
hear your own. Please feel free to send me your reactions and interpretations of the game,
whatever unique experience that you had playing it. I can be reached at
dwreden@gmail.com.
That said, here are a few thoughts from the author, in no particular order:
-The idea of branching storylines is not new in video games, but what I wanted to create that
I had never seen before was a game where the multiple branching paths actually *depend* on one
another for meaning. Not just that each ending exists in its own parallel universe, but that
each somehow occupies the same space as all the others, layered on top of one another. To me
it's the juxtaposition of these many storylines that makes the game as a whole interesting,
not simply the experience of any one of them.
-There are 6 total endings. It's also worth noting that only one ending actually contains
the game's full credits (though only for things that apply to that specific playthrough),
and only one ending says "The End".
-Players' experiences are often dependent on the order in which they play the endings. For
example, a friend of mine first played the ending where you engage the generator and a timer
starts, reminding you that you're in a video game. He then played the ending where Stanley goes
crazy and Mariella finds his dead body. He empathized with her, feeling that because of the finite
nature of the game, he only had a brief moment to look into the person's life before it was taken
away. This really depressed him because he had just been reminded that all this was just inside a
stupid game that he didn't control. Obviously that's the kind of thing I can't really design
from the outset, but my goal was always to create endings that were evocative enough that that
kind of emotion was theoretically possible for players to experience.
-When you take the blue door, the narrator sends you off to another level. This is the first
level of Half Life 2, it is literally an entirely different map. I had to manually go through
and gut the entire level of NPCs and other various things. But then later in that map you're
returned to the office, which was a problem because I couldn't exactly have the game reload
the original map, so I had to recreate the entire office within the new Half Life 2 map.
-Almost everyone on their first playthrough takes the left door. Of those players who take
the left door, almost everyone on their first playthrough actually chooses to engage the generator.
For some reason right at that moment a rebellious gene kicks in. The second most popular choice
is to disobey all the way to the end.
-In the boss's office, try waiting around a little while before touching the keypad. The narrator
will express his desire to keep the story moving at a reasonable pace.
-I tried for the longest time to convey to players that the red valve next to the generator
indicated that it would disable the generator, and green indicated it would activate the generator.
I wanted to do it without explicitly putting the words "enable generator" on the screen, so I
tried to 'educate' players, hoping they would infer the meaning of the valves. No one ever got
it. Finally in desperation I slapped a big decal on there that said "ENABLE GENERATOR" and
"DISABLE GENERATOR." Problem immediately solved. Thank god I broke down and just told people
what the hell to do instead of trying to be all implicit and sneaky about it, the clear and
simple solution is almost always the best one.
-The game's multiple endings often seem to disagree about the nature of this world. For example,
one will say that everything here existed just in the head of a crazy person, another will say that
you're really just in a video game, and another will imply that it's possible to 'escape.' I
deliberately wanted players to have to grapple with a contradiction. After all, video games are a
kind of contradiction; you can play in a fantasy world where you appear to be in control while at
the same time your 'real world' life might be full of limitations and practicalities. When you
start asking what life is all about, you immediately start getting contradictory answers, and I
wanted my players to have to deal with that on their own, to come up with an answer that maybe
even I hadn't thought of. Yes, the game seems to be telling you over and over that you're not in
control. But if you as a player can step back and interpret that experience, to make sense of it
in your own unique way, then you've demonstrated that you really are in control. As long as you
continue to play the game you'll get an unsatisfactory answer. Step away and think for yourself,
and maybe you'll come up with something no one's ever thought of before.
-This is also why the ending where you follow all the narrator's orders is intentionally so
unsatisfying. I wanted players to hate that ending because of how expected and unrevealing it is.
Of course it's unsatisfying, you did everything that you were told to. Where's the joy in that?
-The Chinese Room's Dear Esther and Robert Yang's Radiator HL2 mods were both inspirational in
creating this game. I remember playing Radiator, deathly afraid that Robert Yang was going to come
out with an episode that was exactly what I had been working on, except better.
-Obviously this is a game about video games. It's about our limited perception of what story is
in a video game, and how that story can become completely different when we question video gaming
tropes that we now take for granted. From an outside perspective, it might appear humorous that
someone could die over and over and over in a game and yet still complete the mission. Yet we suspend
our disbelief because we want the experience the game is trying to deliver. With the Stanley Parable,
I wanted to make something where actually questioning video game tropes was the experience itself.
That made it tough when I showed it to my parents, who have never played games. They didn't quite
get what was going on...
-Isn't Kevan Brighting, who does the narration, fantastic? I got his sample from a voice casting
site and immediately knew he was perfect. I sent him an email with the script saying I was interested
in hiring him. He responded with a 30 minute recording of all the dialog in the game. 1 take.
-I was sure to leave a lot of buttons that turn on lights and other interesting trinkets in the
generator room so that players would spend some time trying to stop the timer.
-With the Mariella ending, I'm trying to point out that it's all perception. She thinks her life
and problems are so important, but they're just as significant as the crazy guy who saw them all
in his head. On an unrelated note, you probably think your own personal life and problems are
pretty important, don't you?
-When you go through the red door, and commands appear on the screen for you to push certain buttons,
I originally wanted the game to register your button presses and have it actually effect the game.
I tried forever to bind the keys correctly, but it never worked, so to demo it for friends I just
displayed text and the buttons did nothing. This actually got kind of a good reception, it's fitting
in a way that your input has no effect whatsoever on the game. Consistent with the theme of the game,
anyway. I decided to leave it.
-This game took me just over two years to make. It was grueling, and by the end, it felt completely
dead to me. I started out with career ambitions, this game killed most of them. If you're starting out,
do not try to create something as ambitious as this by yourself, you will burn out and crash hard. Find
people to work with, at least people who can keep you in check from time to time, otherwise you're
generally setting yourself up for a world of hurt.
-That said, making this was a great experience and I hope people enjoy it. Thank you for playing!
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