Many players will want to exhaust all the possibilities of the gameвЂ™s choices, and The Stanley Parable makes light of this with the parody вЂBroom Closet EndingвЂ™. These multiple endings result in various outcomes for the protagonist, some of which are hilariously inane, such as a four-hour mini-game which asks the player to prevent a cardboard baby from being consumed by flames, while others are downright cathartic or involve chaotic confusion or gleeful resignation.

There are multiple branches which allow the player to affect the gameвЂ™s outcome, and diverge from a linear narrative structure. Through the game, the player can choose from many possible outcomes, ranging from blind obedience to every one of the NarratorвЂ™s orders, to complete disregard of everything he advises the player to do. The Narrator is the storyвЂ™s creator, the ultimate author-god. If the Narrator says Stanley is confused, you wonder why. ThereвЂ™s a fascinating, self-fulfilling quality to the narration. You feel foolish when the narrator points it out, but youвЂ™re still compelled to look down. The narrator often points out oddities of the in-game environments, such as doors automatically closing behind you or the fact that you canвЂ™t see StanleyвЂ™s feet. Of course in The Stanley Parable, itвЂ™s not that straightforward. Through a first-person perspective of a silent protagonist, the player is given more freedom to make their own in-game decisions, rather than act according to the protagonistвЂ™s personality. This is a common trope in video games, the idea being that this allows the player to embody the protagonist and increase immersion. Stanley is a silent protagonist his thoughts, actions and back-story are relayed only through narration. Instead, the game constantly provokes questions: Why is there a disembodied voice narrating game play? Why doesnвЂ™t Stanley ever speak? Why are we so willing to do as the Narrator tells us? No one actually cares whatвЂ™s happened to the other office workers. The player controls Stanley as he investigates the mysterious disappearance of all his co-workers in the office, but the gameвЂ™s plot is more a device to highlight conventions of the gaming medium and subvert the playerвЂ™s expectations. This might be a familiar situation for many gamers. In a classic voice-over by a seemingly omniscient narrator, the player learns about Stanley, an office drone who receives orders on a monitor and spends his life mindlessly pressing buttons. The Stanley Parable begins with a narrated cut-scene, a cinematic sequence in which they player can only observe the video game environment. Some very interesting, not to say entertaining, narrative experiments are happening in the world of video games-we talked about this a bit with game designer and former Structo alum John BjГ¶rling a few weeks ago-and here guest contributor Katalina Watt sets out to illuminate one such experiment.

We canвЂ™t get enough of stories which refuse to play by the rules, or which make us suddenly realise we had no idea what the rules were in the first place.

The stanley parable