The Stanley Parable is an interactive storytelling and walking simulator video game designed by American developer Davey Wreden. The game is presented to the player from the first-person perspective. The player can move around and interact with certain elements of the environment, such as pressing buttons or opening doors, but has no other controls. The story is primarily presented to the player via the voiceover of the game’s narrator, who explains that the protagonist Stanley works in an office building, tasked to monitor data coming on a computer screen and press buttons appropriately without question. One day that screen goes blank. Stanley, unsure what to do, starts to explore the building and finds it devoid of people. At this stage, the story splits off in numerous possibilities, based on the player’s choices. The narrator continues the story, but when the player comes to an area where a choice is possible, the narrator will suggest which route Stanley will take. The player can opt to go against the narrator and perform the other action, forcing the narration to account for this new direction which may return the player back to the target path or create a new narration. For example, the first choice the player makes in the game is at a set of two open doors, with the narrator stating that Stanley chose the left door; the player can choose to follow this narration, which keeps the narrator’s story on track, or may choose the right door, which causes the narrator to adjust his story to get the player to return to the ‘proper’ path. Because of this, much of the story is considered thought-provoking about the nature of choice and decisions. The narration also breaks the fourth wall on several occasions in handling the player’s decisions.

The Stanley Parable System Requirements

Minimum:

• OS: Windows XP/Vista/7/8
• Processor: 3.0 GHz P4, Dual Core 2.0 (or higher) or AMD64X2 (or higher)
• RAM: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: Video card must be 128 MB or more and should be a DirectX 9-compatible with support for Pixel Shader 2.0b (ATI Radeon X800 or higher / NVIDIA GeForce 7600 or higher / Intel HD Graphics 2000 or higher – *NOT* an Express graphics card).
• Storage: 3 GB available space