The Stanley Parable, in my opinion, is a definitive example of a “walking simulator” due to how strongly it commits to simplifying the mechanics available to the player. Specifically, the intentionally simplified decision-making mechanics available to the player help create a stream-lined story telling experience through an emergent “decision-making” dynamic these mechanics afford the player in shaping the story. The main “game” of The Stanley Parable can be recreated through just text and a flowchart, but portraying that through a walking simulator is how developer Galactic Cafe creates an immersive and powerful experience.
Overview
Created and published by Galactic Cafe in 2013, The Stanley Parable offers a very unique, non-game like experience. In The Stanley Parable, you play as a normal office worker named Stanley. However, one day, all of Stanley’s coworkers disappear and he is left alone in the office. The only voice in the game is that of the Narrator, who, while narrating the game, has his own distinct personality and serves as the player’s main companion throughout the game. In the game, Stanley walks from room to room, with the narrator filling in the story as different rooms are encountered. The “game” element of The Stanley Parable becomes apparent after Stanley walks into the following room:
Before encountering this room, the game was just a linear walking simulator, meaning that every player takes the same pre-determined path and ends up here the same way. When Stanley enters this room, the narrator says “Stanley entered the door on his right”, however, the player can choose whether or not they follow the Narrator’s instructions, and depending on the choice that the player makes, the story of the game is heavily altered, as is the tone of the game as well as the relationship between the player and the Narrator. Essentially, this game plays kind of like a “choose-your-own adventure” novel, where the office and rooms illustrate the pages of the book, the Narrator serves as the words of the book, and walking around is what turns the page (progresses the story).
Walking: Facilitating the Story
So how does walking in The Stanley Parable, facilitate the telling of the story? Or, to rephrase the question: What does The Stanley Parable gain from being a walking simulator as opposed to a digital book? Both still provide the player the main mechanics through which they “play” the game. My answer is: pacing and immersion.
The Stanley Parable is a first-person game and I would argue that choice is tied with a big goal of the game design, which is to immerse the player as the character Stanley. As we walk through the office spaces and other odd rooms that lie within this building, we do so from the perspective of Stanley. When Stanley enters a huge room, we see it from Stanley’s height, providing scale as to how grand the room actually is. When Stanley jumps off the edge of an elevator, the player can really feel the exhilaration of falling, through the sound design and first-person view. Being able to walk from room to room experiencing all these things within this simulated 3d environment does so much more than a book can do in visually and auditorily grounding the player in Stanley’s world.
The pacing that a walking simulator affords also serves to immerse the player. Since it’s done through the form of a walking simulator, the designer can think about things like “how long will it take for Stanley to walk down this hallway”, since Stanley can only walk as fast as the physics of the game engine allows him to, and he only has one set speed. With that knowledge the designer can then think about what dialogue the Narrator should say during that segment and how long he should talk for.
For example, when I entered this employee lounge (fig 2), the Narrator kept talking and I got bored so I just kept moving along while the Narrator was describing the room. My decision interrupted the Narrator, causing him to change his dialogue in response to my action as the player. This is leveraged again and again in different situations and can only be designed as intricately as it is because of the medium of the walking simulator.
This idea becomes extremely important, as the main immediate response the player gets from their actions is a response from the Narrator, with so many different possible combinations of actions and responses which all come together to create a very intriguing game. This game features many, many different endings some being drastically different from the other, and the game nudges the player to explore these different endings. In doing so, the player walks through the same rooms, again and again, but sometimes the decisions of the player ripple into their next “loop” walking through the building, which, for me, caused a significant emotional response and eerily freaked me out. This is done through pacing, which is afforded through the walking simulator! The player knows how long it takes to get down a hallway, and the player can only walk at a slowish speed. The player becomes intimately familiar with their surroundings as they vividly keep experiencing them through Stanley’s perspective, which makes subtle changes have drastic effects.
