The Stanley Parable is a game that’s been talked and talked about for a few years now by many different outlets. And even from one playthrough, it’s very apparent why. In fact, it’s a game I quite enjoy and got the demo for pretty early on. However, almost every discussion of the game centers around the idea of player choice and how the game frames the inevitable discussion about it that follows a play session. And it’s not like this is a bad thing; the game does tackle this topic in a fun and incredibly clever way. I think this has left one of the game’s best qualities a little under appreciated, though – the visual direction and how the narration plays against it.
This is where I’m going to throw up the warning that I will be discussing large portions of this game, so if you haven’t managed to play it over the last 4 years and some odd months, you may want to bail out of this review now. Plus, the game is like $10. It’s excellent, and you really have no reason to have not played it yet. Anywho, conversations about Stanley Parable almost always focus around the perceived struggle of player vs. narrator in determining how the sequence of events is going to play out. While this is the meaty part of the experience, we can learn a lot about level design by examining how it accentuates the struggle here. In fact, let’s take a look at the first 30 seconds to a minute of the game and see what we can learn.
This first room may not seem particularly relevant, but it’s actually very important here that the level design forces the player along a direct path with no branches. The player gets some breathing room and has a moment just to pay attention to the narrator and explore the environment without getting overwhelmed by moving straight into the primary elements of play. This isn’t uncommon in level design (I brought up the area outside Peach’s Castle in Mario 64 in a previous review), but here it’s especially important not because it lets the player feel their way around the game and understand what’s coming up, but rather because it creates a contrast with the content they’re about to encounter. Additionally, the portion of the game immediately before this is a cutscene, and having heavy narration during this period informs the player that the narrator will continue to be an important element through the rest of the game. Now, in a move that will be fairly common throughout this review, I want to present a couple of images side-by-side.
Another seemingly small choice, here the level design displays something that will come up fairly frequently; restriction of information through perspective. Before getting this close to the door in the hallway, it appears there is no door directly ahead, which helps prevent the player from considering the decision they’re about to make before the narration kicks in, maintaining its effectiveness. This imparts upon the player that decisions are largely meant to be split-second in this game, with the player operating on instinct. And getting into the nitty-gritty of this particular decision, it’s imperative that the player’s instinct is given a chance to kick in since it’s been shown fairly conclusively that at least in the US, people tend to prefer paths that go to the right. By instructing the player to go left, assuming supermarket pathing decisions translate, the narrator is acting against the player’s natural inclinations. Through thorough understanding of how a player moves through a space and interprets visual cues on a subconscious level, the designers have already created a tension between the driving forces of play. Let’s take a quick look at another segment that uses this technique effectively.
It may be a bit difficult to tell in those screenshots due to the lighting, but the word “Escape!” along with an arrow pointing away from the primary path is only really visible once the player nears the end of this section. By this point, the player is used to being presented with options, so in order to make the decision feel weighty the player needs to be “surprised” in a different way. In this scenario, the designers have made it so that only once the player has probably committed to the linear path before them will another option present itself. At this point, the player is in conflict not only with the narrator’s instruction, but their own forward momentum through the space. Again, it may not seem all that significant, but once a player has committed to an action it can be fairly difficult to change course.
But visual design isn’t used only to reinforce the central conflict, but also to subtly clue the player into secret paths. For instance;
The framing of this shot, which occurs just as the player enters the boss’s office, is reminiscent of other instances where the player is forced to make a decision. The placement of the doors directly opposite one another is very deliberate, and it hints to clever players that there may be more options here than are initially present. Additionally, since this is something like a third of the way through a path where the player follows all the narrator’s directions, there’s plenty of context to base this assumption on. And while I joked about the decorations above, it’s actually another conscious decision; because this room is so visually different from the rest of the office, it’s likely that the player will remember this moment for subsequent playthroughs and be more prepared to look for secrets upon return.
One more thing I’d like to point out before I wrap this up is the very last room of the main path, in which the player is presented with a simple choice of button presses;
This section is set up to be a near-mirror of the very first choice of doors presented by the narrator. Keen observers will even notice that the directional layout has been preserved; the option dictated by the narrator appears on the left, while the alternate option is placed on the right. A key difference, however, is that the approach to this console offers a full view of what’s to come. Also, the narrator begins speaking about which option the player is “supposed” to take well before the player can reach the console. With this, the designer has built up tension in a way that is completely unique to this moment of the game. There’s more to it than this being the final decision, though. To reach this point, the player must have followed almost all of the narrator’s directions. For a run that ends in this area, this would mark the final opportunity for the player to rebel against the narrator. In a game that is obviously about choice, this last chance for the player to become independent is drawn out so the player has plenty of time to contemplate what their upcoming choice will say about them.
To be sure, The Stanley Parable is a wonderful little game about how much agency we allow players in virtual spaces, and that’s its strongest element. But as I said earlier, it would be a shame to overlook just how well the rest of the game is made in service of that theme. For a game that only costs $10, it’s kind of amazing to dig down and see how much effort and care was poured into this game on every level. As far as recommendations go, I strongly recommend that anyone with even a passing interest in video games either as a form of entertainment or as an artistic medium grab this game (though I suspect you’ve probably already done so; this isn’t exactly news). General gaming audiences will be entertained by the narration and the level of antagonism they’re allowed to engage in, while the artists and designers out there can learn a treasure trove of lessons ranging from the superb level design to the excellent voice casting.
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