Gameplay Journal Entry #9

There are few well-known video games that are able to boast on boast on described as an “surreal experience” rather than a common passage of free time. These types of “critical play” games challenge the player through uncommon practices that promote thought-provoking philosophies about certain ideals, such as socialism, activism, and more, but also themes of more subjective roles, such as belief, purpose, or surrealism. One hit indie title from 2013, “The Stanley Parable”, developed by Galactic Café on Steam, became known for the presentation of a more personal theme: existentialism. Taking the role of a silent protagonist named Stanley guided by a British Narrator, you explore elaborate office layouts with branching paths and different endings. However, how and why you attempt these explicit pathways gives a massive impact on how you define the meaning of choice.

“Like the ancients,” Mary Flanagan once said, “who saw games as a way to connect with the powers of fate, chance, and the afterlife, Surrealists believed that games might help everyone — artists, scientists, politician, even farmers, tap into the spiritual realm and the human unconscious.”¹ Throughout the walkthrough provided below², the player is challenged to find the meaning left by the creators on whether you are really in control of the story and of the game itself when every path is already created for you with a preexisting conclusion, such as dying from Nukes, metal plates, or extreme loneliness. The only way to successfully finish said game is to find meaning in your own choices, regardless of whether they may be perceived as right or wrong. In the end credits, without your will guiding Stanley, who essentially acts as the player manifested in this world, he simply stands as an emotionless husk with no motivation to make any choice or creative input. This form of Critical Play aims to show the value of Surrealism; by acting of your own free will, both developer and player can be the center of their own universes and work accordingly to find significance in their own choices. All that’s needed is that first step.

Sources:

-¹Flanagan, Mary, “Introduction to Critical Play” and “Designing for Critical Play” in Critical Play: Radical Game Design, 2009, Pg. 90

- ²Video Walkthrough: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i75ex8yse7_A4OmVdVoq9P2Uu4j7x_pk/view?usp=sharing