The Stanley Parable

"All of his co-workers were gone. What could it mean? Stanley decided to go to the meeting room; perhaps he had simply missed a memo."

"Stanley just stood there doing nothing at all. He seems to think I have nothing better to do with my time than to sit around and describe every fascinating little detail of his inability to do anything."

"When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left."

"[After repeatedly disobeying the narrator] Stanley was so bad at following directions it was incredible he wasn’t fired years ago."

"Stanley decided to go to the meeting room to check on his co-workers. He never functioned well by himself, and constantly needed support and guidance from others. So the thought of total solitude was terrifying to him."

"“How long was I sitting there?” Stanley wondered to himself. “Minutes? Days? Centuries? Did something crucial happen while my senses were turned?” He made a note to be more careful with time from now on."

"A soft wind blew outside, and perhaps rain started. And, if it did, it stopped shortly after. Stanley hoped he would one day see weather."

"Someone was following Stanley, he was sure of it. If he checked over his shoulder now he would surely catch them. It was only a matter of time."

"Even now, Stanley's office was a distant memory. What had it looked like? There was a computer perhaps, and a painting? Was it a painting or a photo? He could no longer recall."

"Already this was uncomfortable. And Stanley decided that as soon as he found a new space he felt safe in that he would never leave it again in his life."

"Stanley had never seen the office this brightly lit. Was it a sign of something? He hoped it was, he hoped very much that it was."

"“Wait,” Stanley thought to himself. “Am I sure that the orders stopped coming in? “How is that possible, they've never stopped. Surely I was mistaken.” No, no, the orders were still missing. For now."

"“I can't wait to tell this story to my co-workers,” Stanley thought. “How amusing they'll find it! Oh, won't we all just laugh and laugh at the time I thought everyone had gone missing!”"

"Stanley knew the office layout like the back of his hand. It was only a matter of time before he found the others, wherever they were. Only a matter of time."

"Stanley's Wife: Hi Stanley! I just wanted to leave you a message to let you know there's a few things I need you to pick up on your way home from work today. We need milk, cereal, dish soap, spaghetti, get a thing of sugar, some bread, and coffee beans - which ever ones you like. I'll give you a call if there's anything I forgot. Thanks sweetie, see you tonight!"

"Pre-recorded Message: Hello. This is a recorded message scheduled either by you or a person in your place of work. The purpose of this message is to warn you about the dangers of recorded messages. If at any time you believe you are listening to a recorded message, please terminate it immediately and cease all flow of information from the recorded message into your perceptual sphere. Thank you, and have a pleasant day."

"The Future Happiness Foundation: Good morning! Thank you for contacting the Future Happiness Foundation. We are confirming your shipment of 1327 cardboard boxes to your place of work. Can you verify that this is correct?"

"But Stanley simply couldn't handle the pressure. What if he had to make a decision? What if a crucial outcome fell under his responsibility? He had never been trained for that! No, this couldn't go any way except badly."

"Stanley waited. Hours passed. Then days. Had years gone by? He no longer had the ability to tell. But the one thing he knew for sure, beyond any doubt was that if he waited long enough, the answers would come. Eventually, some day, they would arrive. Soon, very soon now, this will end. He will be spoken to. He will be told what to do. Now it's just a little bit closer. Now it's even closer. Here it comes."

"Where had his co-workers gone? How had he been freed from the machine's grasp? What other mysteries did this strange building hold? But as sunlight streamed into the chamber, he realized none of this mattered to him; for it was not knowledge, or even power, that he had been seeking, but happiness. Perhaps his goal had not been to understand, but to let go. No longer would anyone tell him where to go, what to do, or how to feel. Whatever life he lives, it will be his, and that was all he needed to know. It was, perhaps, the only thing worth knowing."

"Stanley felt the cool breeze upon his skin, the feeling of liberation, the immense possibility of the new path before him. This was exactly the way, right now, that things were meant to happen. And Stanley was happy."

"What's that? You'd like to know where your co-workers are? A moment of solace before you're obliterated? Alright. I'm in a good mood, and you're going to die anyway. I'll tell you exactly what happened to them. I erased them. I turned off the machine; I set you free. Of course, that was merely in this instance of the story. Sometimes when I tell it, I simply let you sit there in your office forever, pushing buttons endlessly and then dying alone. Other times, I let the office sink into the ground, swallowing everyone inside, or I let it burn to a crisp. I have to say this, though: this version of events has been rather amusing. Watching you try to make sense of everything, and take back the control wrested away from you - it's quite rich. I almost hate to see it go! But I'm sure whatever I come up with on the next go around will be even better."

"Oh dear me. What's the matter, Stanley? Is it that you have no idea where you're going or what you're supposed to be doing right now? Or did you just assume when you saw that timer that something in this room was capable of turning it off?"

"You're only still playing instead of watching a cutscene because I want to watch you for every moment that you're powerless, to see you made humble. This is not a challenge. It's a tragedy."

"You just tried to activate server cheats, which, of course, runs the risk of breaking the entire game. You've got no respect for the strict order of scripted narrative events and I just can't have that."

"Stanley, this is me being serious. In fact, this is my serious room. It's where I come to be serious. That table is the most serious table I could find. I looked at many, many tables. Hundreds of tables! It's possible I looked at over a thousand tables, I honestly don't know. The specific number isn't as important as the understanding that of all the tables that I looked at, this one is the most serious."

"It's time to get serious, Stanley. No jokes, no games. Outside of this room, I might be more tolerant of those things, but now we're in the room. Which is why I'm subjecting you to the most serious punishment I can think of: one hundred million-billion-trillion years, standing here in the serious room. Perhaps after that, we can talk about the severity of your actions, and whether you've learned anything. But, until then, serious room, GO."

"Again, the point of this story is to convey how serious I feel this cheating issue is. And I'm sure you'll agree with me when you've fulfilled your new punishment: Infinity years in the serious room! I generally have trouble reading human emotions, but I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that you're devastated by this crippling new punishment. As well you should be. It's the most serious I could think of. Can you get more serious than that? No. You can't. Don't try."

"Hmm, still no effect. The problem is clearly the serious room; it isn't serious enough. That's on me, Stanley. I apologize. I'm going to the store to look through more tables. Hopefully I find one that conveys how wrong what you're doing is."

"It was baffling that Stanley was still just sitting in the broom closet. He wasn't even doing anything. At least if there were something to interact with he'd be justified in some way."

"Maybe to you, this is somehow its own branching path. Maybe, when you go talk about this with your friends, you'll say: [mockingly] "Oh, did you get the broom closet ending? The broom closet ending was my favourite!" ... I hope your friends find this concerning."

"Stanley was fat and ugly, and really, really stupid. He probably only got the job because of a family connection; that's how stupid he is. That, or with drug money. Also Stanley is addicted to drugs and hookers."

"At this point, Stanley’s obsession with this room bordered on creepy and reflected poorly on his overall personality. It’s possible that this is why everyone left."

"Stanley sat around waiting for more dialogue; but when a long time had passed and there was no more, he decided that the game was trying to send him a message."

"The lounge was grand, majestic... perhaps too majestic. Like a combination of a much smaller version and a much larger version of this exact room. It all made Stanley uncomfortable, and he started to bleed a little. This made him smile— at last, proof that he was human."

"Stepping into his manager's office Stanley was once again stunned to discover not an indication of any human life. Shocked, unraveled, Stanley wondered in disbelief who orchestrated this. What dark secret was being held from him. What he could not have known was that the keypad behind the boss's desk guarded the terrible truth that his boss had been keeping from him. And so the boss had assigned it an extra secret pin number 2845."

"The moment he entered his manager's office, Stanley froze in his tracks. Not a living soul anywhere. Could he really be all alone? This was too much for Stanley to take; too much for any man to take! He fell to his knees, bursting into half-moans, half-sobs. The guttural retching of life from a man denied any hope, any reason to keep going. Here on the floor, he lay prone, paralyzed by fear for nearly a full hour. But when at last he began to move about and survey the situation he found a keypad behind the boss's desk. What could it mean? Was it a sign of hope for Stanley's future? Alas, it was not. For although this keypad guarded the terrible secret of Stanley's past it had been assigned a four-digit code so devious and so random that no man could ever hope to guess it 2845."

"Stanley simply began entering random codes into the keypad knowing full well the sheer statistical unlikelihood that this would ever result in a correct combination. If he knew that the combo was 2845, it would be another story entirely. But no. No, this is what he's going to do instead."

"Yet incredibly, by simply pushing random buttons on the keypad Stanley happened to input the correct code by sheer luck. Amazing."

"[After the player correctly activates the keypad before The Narrator can finish their dialogue] Stanley was in such a rush to get through the story as quickly as possible, he didn’t even have a single minute to just LET THE NARRATOR TALK."

"But Stanley didn't want to get back to the office, he wanted to wander about and get even further off track. So now in order to go back, he needed to go, um... uh... hm hm hm hm hm, from here it's... um... left. Oh, no. No, it's to the right, my mistake. No! No, no, no! Not the right! Why would I have ever said it was to the right? What was I thinking? It's clearly...oh dear, would you hold on for a minute, please? [papers rustling] Now, let's see... we went, um, right...left...down...left...right... Ah yep! Okay, okay, yes! I've got it now! This story is absolutely, definitely, this way."

"NO! No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! This isn't right at all! You're not supposed to be here yet, this is all a spoiler! Quick, Stanley, close your eyes! Okay, okay, okay, okay, we just...we just have to get back to, um... oh... who am I kidding? It's all rubbish now. The whole story...completely unusable."

"Now this... well I'll be honest, I don't recognize this place at all. Is this the story? I don't think so. I can't quite recall, but I believe my story took place in an office building...is that correct? Hm...do you remember, Stanley Well, you know what, since I've completely forgotten what we were supposed to be doing, how about this: YOU WIN!! Congratulations! I know you put in a lot of hard work, and it really paid off, so, good job! Oh, no. No. I don't feel right about this at all. We both know you didn't put in any actual work for that win. Some people win fair and square and this was not one of those situations."

"You see? The Line™ knows where the story is, it's over in this direction! Onward, Stanley, to destiny! Though, here's a thought: wouldn't wherever we end up be our destination, even if there's no story there? Or, to put it another way, is the story of no destination still a story Simply by the act of moving forward are we implying a journey such that a destination is inevitably conjured into being via the very manifestion of the nature of life itself? Okay, Stanley, I need to follow this train of thought for a minute, just stick with me. Now we can both agree that the nature of existence is, in fact, a byproduct of one's subjective experience of that existence, right? Okay, now if my experience of your existence rests inside of your subjective experience of this office, is this office, in fact, the skeleton of my own relative experiential mental subjective construct? Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. Hang on, that got a bit weird back there. Well, I'd like to apologize. Not sure where I was going with all that."

"Go back and look at that fern. Stanley, this fern will be very important later in the story. Make sure you study it closely and remember it carefully."

"Wait, we're...we're back at the office?! No! No, no! Line™, You™ do know we're looking for The Stanley Parable, right? The story? Is any of this ringing a bell?"

"You know what, Stanley? I say forget The Adventure Line™, what has It™ ever done for us! We're intelligent people, right? Why can't we make up our own story? Something exciting, daring, mysterious... Oh, this all sounds perfectly doable, why don't we simply start wandering in, well, I don't know...how about...this direction! Now! Yes, this is exciting! Just me and Stanley, forging a new path, a new story! Well, it could be anything! What do you want our story to be? Go wild! Use your imagination. Whatever it might be, Stanley, I'm ready for it!"

"Okay, so I know that each door has to lead somewhere, which means that somewhere at the place we're trying to go there must be a reverse door that leads here. And that, in turn, means that our destination corresponds with the counter-inverted reverse door's origin! So starting from the right, let us ask: will taking the right door lead us to where we're going? And since the answer is clearly 'yes,' then by all accounts, the door on the right is the correct one! Another victory for logic. Come, Stanley, our destiny awaits!"

"Oh, hold up, what's this? Hmm... hmm, the confusion ending? You're telling me...that's what this is? It's all one giant ending? And we're supposed to restart the game... what... eight, eight times? That's really how all this goes?! It's all...determined? So now according to the schedule I restart again, then, what... am I just supposed to forget? Well, what if I don't want to forget! My mind goes blank simply because it's written here on this... this... thing! Wall! Well, who consulted me? Why don't I get to decide? Why don't I get a say in all of this! Is it really-No, it can't be. I don't want it to be. I don't want the game to keep restarting. I don't want to forget what's going on. I don't want to be trapped like this. I won't restart the game. I won't do it! I won't do it! I won't do it. And the timer... uh, stopped? Does that mean... did we do it? Did we break the cycle? The, um... whatever it is that made this schedule? How would we even know? Will someone come for us? Will something happen? So... okay. [sigh] I guess now we just wait. You know, I suppose in some way, this is a kind of story, wouldn't you agree? I'm not quite sure if we're in the destination or the journey, though, they're always saying that life is about the journey and not the destination, so I hope that's where we are right now. We'll find out, won't we? Eventually. Well, in the meantime, if you do happen to-"

"This is the story of a man named Stanley. Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee Number 427. Employee Number 427's job was simple. He sat at his desk in Room 427, and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order. This is what Employee 427 did every day of every month of every year; and although others might have considered it soul-rending, Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for this job… and Stanley was happy. And then one day, something very peculiar happened, something that would forever change Stanley, something he would never quite forget. He had been at his desk for nearly an hour; he realized that not one single order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow. No one had showed up to give him instructions, call a meeting, or even say “hi”. Never in all his years at the company had this happened; this complete isolation. Something was very clearly wrong. Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself unable to move for the longest time; but as he came to his wits and regained his senses, he got up from his desk, and stepped out of his office."