I didn’t play this game, but watched part of the gaming walkthrough. To make things easier, I’ll say “play” instead of “watch”, since I pretended playing when watched.
This game drove me crazy at first. In the mad outcome, I was walking in the infinite loop of underground rooms, and could not find a way to get out. We usually play game to satisfy our sense of mastery, but in this game, I can master nothing. I believe the creator brought me powerless feeling intentionally, just could not get why he did this so far. Maybe he just want to say “Do not live a repeating life, make some change”?
Then I keep on playing. Mind Control Facility. I felt weird about this place, because if it was real, how could a common employee get in to such a core place so easily? Whatever, what was ironical was that when Stanley wanted to control the mind control machine, there came the nuclear bomb destroyed everything; but if Stanley wanted to turn the power off, there came a screen displayed a outdoor scene. I don’t think it was saying “Stanley was free forever”! Instead Stanley walked into the world created by the machine. He was controlled again.
I don’t want to make this blog like a diary of events, so discussion about the game process ends here. Let me say something about its game design and narrative. I have to say my favorite part is the narrator. He spoke like a real man, kept telling me the Stanley’s inner thought, describing the environment and so on. When I walked into the cleaning room second time, he said like he knew if he kept pushing me, I’ll be mad and dead again. When I was running around trying to stop the nuclear bomb, the narrator laughed at me just like a real man who was watching me. I like the way this game “manipulate” players instead of we manipulate the game. I can imagine that if we remove narrator’s sound and subtitle, this game will be a boring one. Narrative became the soul of the Stanley Parable.
The creator also trying to express some philosophy ideas. I’ll update this one after I watching the whole walk through.
This game drove me crazy at first. In the mad outcome, I was walking in the infinite loop of underground rooms, and could not find a way to get out. We usually play game to satisfy our sense of mastery, but in this game, I can master nothing. I believe the creator brought me powerless feeling intentionally, just could not get why he did this so far. Maybe he just want to say “Do not live a repeating life, make some change”?
Then I keep on playing. Mind Control Facility. I felt weird about this place, because if it was real, how could a common employee get in to such a core place so easily? Whatever, what was ironical was that when Stanley wanted to control the mind control machine, there came the nuclear bomb destroyed everything; but if Stanley wanted to turn the power off, there came a screen displayed a outdoor scene. I don’t think it was saying “Stanley was free forever”! Instead Stanley walked into the world created by the machine. He was controlled again.
I don’t want to make this blog like a diary of events, so discussion about the game process ends here. Let me say something about its game design and narrative. I have to say my favorite part is the narrator. He spoke like a real man, kept telling me the Stanley’s inner thought, describing the environment and so on. When I walked into the cleaning room second time, he said like he knew if he kept pushing me, I’ll be mad and dead again. When I was running around trying to stop the nuclear bomb, the narrator laughed at me just like a real man who was watching me. I like the way this game “manipulate” players instead of we manipulate the game. I can imagine that if we remove narrator’s sound and subtitle, this game will be a boring one. Narrative became the soul of the Stanley Parable.
The creator also trying to express some philosophy ideas. I’ll update this one after I watching the whole walk through.