![the stanley parable ultra deluxe reaction the stanley parable ultra deluxe reaction](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/39/a2/0d/39a20d9951df0a7c4eeda728ecb560b8.jpg)
Many of its permutations trap you in infinite loops, forced to listen to the narrator pontificate until he deigns to give you another command.
#The stanley parable ultra deluxe reaction series
“My first Stanley Parable experience was a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare where every attempt I made to exercise my power of choice led me deeper to an increasingly rigid, inescapable series of commands that I had no choice but to follow, culminating in my death. In about an hour I found seven different endings, and as soon as I watched someone else play, they found another two that I’d never seen before. Occasionally you’ll make the exact same decisions and something different will happen, as the narrator changes track. What’s impressive is how limited environments and apparently limited choices lead to so many different outcomes.
![the stanley parable ultra deluxe reaction the stanley parable ultra deluxe reaction](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/ONXhtpo0njvjFSl3cPtcET1Zo4YgncXCmtmEoa1t86M.jpg)
The text “the end is never the end” loops across the screen when you find one of these endings, and you are returned to Stanley’s cubicle to start again. I suppose the point of The Stanley Parable, if you feel compelled to find a point to it, is probably to see all of its various endings and permutations, which spiral out from basic choices – like taking the door on the left, or the door on the right – into alternate plotlines with further branching events, fanning outwards to unpredictable conclusions. You think that you’re manipulating the outcome, but really it’s always the narrator manipulating you. My immediate instinct was to disobey the voice in my head, but however you try to subvert it, The Stanley Parable is ready with yet another prepared scenario, another chunk of witty script, at once mocking and rewarding you for attempting to deviate from the set path – although, and this is the crucial point, everything is a set path in The Stanley Parable, and it mocks the illusion of choice. He teases, mocks, gets bored or angry with you, whispers conspiratorially with you and – most importantly – tells you what to do to advance the story as you explore an office that’s terrifying in its dullness, from the uniform carpeting to the marketing platitudes on the whiteboards and generic nature paintings, almost everything stamped with a number. This narrator is not like Dear Esther’s florid, contemplative speaker, with his anecdotes about hermits and goats and poetry. One day, all of his coworkers disappear, leaving him to explore the office alone in the company of an avuncular narrator.
![the stanley parable ultra deluxe reaction the stanley parable ultra deluxe reaction](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/199/367/983.png)
You are Stanley, an obedient salaryman who spends his days obediently typing commands in a grey cubicle. The Stanley Parable starts in a standard cubicle in an artfully bland-looking office, cursor blinking on the screen of a beige monitor. I didn’t, as it happens, but this has a much more sophisticated version of that concept, no longer made of Half-Life assets and greatly expanded by creator Davey Wreden in collaboration with William Pugh. You might know The Stanley Parable from its 2011 iteration as a Half-Life 2 mod. It’s funny, self-referential, surprising, and sometimes uncomfortable to play, a tale told not through one linear story but instead through many different branching paths that twists the illusion of control that video games work so hard to give us. The Ultra Deluxe Edition promises much more content, including new endings.Like Dear Esther and Thirty Flights of Loving, The Stanley Parable is an experiment with interactive narrative, another attempt to find a new form of storytelling unique to video games. There’s humour, absurdities, melodrama, and whimsy. As Stanley, you were tasked with taking part in an ongoing elaborate battle of wits and wills with the Narrator. The original game (the non-Ultra Deluxe Edition one) had players take on the role of titular Stanley. Believe me, if we had one to give away, I would have snapped that up long ago.įor anyone thinking to themselves just what The Stanley Parable is, sit back. Sadly, the prize is not an advanced copy of Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe Edition. Your Spidey Sense is tingling… some news on The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe /d3LvGTyTq4- Crows Crows Crows AugIf you can guess what all three of these delay posters were, you get a special prize!