When I played the Stanley Parable for the first time at my cousin’s house, I was struck immediately by the presence of the prominent narrator who narrates everything I am about to do, rather than what I have just done. The story telling perspective of a work of fiction is usually one of those details that is present in every story, but never thought about by a player. For instance, I have read countless novels in my life without knowing that there is a distinct between first person and third person, and the same holds for details of any field that are neither known nor noticed by a consumer, i.e. non practitioner. But Video Games are almost always either non-narrated or designed in such a way that the in game story tellers recall your past actions and exploits. Because of this homogeneity in narration form, I could tell that something was amiss when I booted up the Stanley Parable, much like when I am on accidentally on a satire site and gradually realize that the reports are not real. Since I am used to believing that I have control when I play video games, I naturally set out to fight the narrator’s decision making at every turn. I absolutely loved this mechanic of the Stanley parable and it kind of broke the ice for me in terms of new forms of art and story telling, kind of like how Bob Dylan or FLCL and many other Anime series tell stories through short references and a bricollage attitude towards synthesizing tales from fragments of culture.
I must say that the Narration Mechanic in the Stanley Parable is one of the most fascinating game mechanics I have witnessed this decade.
