Context of Practice Indie Research: The Stanley Parable

Another absolutely brilliant game is The Stanley Parable. It is a unique game that follows the life of Stanley as he walks around his work to attempt to find out where everyone is and what has happened to them. The whole game relies on choices to be made at doorways, in which you are presented with two, or at least two ways to go, and you must choose which one to go through. The plays choices can then be influenced by the voice over that follows you through the entire game making the decisions about where you have to go. Your job as the player is, do you listen or do the opposite?

Many of the decisions made throughout the game later on  lead to a number of different ending that depend on where you go as a character. Longer gameplay can be done by following the confusing paths that lie ahead and this can then lead to different scenarios and obviously different endings. Along with the interesting gameplay the voice over that accompanies it is where this game truly shines above and beyond as the narration is not only informative, directive, story-driven but a humorous tale that draws you and confuses you greatly before eventually spitting out the conclusion. Never the less, it takes you on a fantastic journey around this very simple office environment and shows it off immensely with its fantastically witty commentary. The whole environment as you walk around it brings together a picture of Stanley's world and how he operates inside of it and does a wonderful job at merely asking you to go either left or right.

The reason why I wanted to look at this game for this module is because for me it is a perfect example of how environmental story telling can be used appropriately and creatively. It immerses the audience greatly, must like similar game Gone Home does, and shows very clearly that you do not need anything but movement in a game to make it amazing and brilliantly entertaining. As previously said, for me, the highlight of the game is the voice over and could be something that I would want to add to my own version of a game as it really does add a lot of character to the environment and can really help to bring it alive and make it exciting and so unique, but also appeal to a number of different audiences at the same time.