How to evaluate the game "Stanley's Fable"?

First of all, what makes this game special is its dual framework. An ordinary narrative is just the story itself, and the player is the protagonist of the story from beginning to end. But if you can jump around in the narrative, just like Calvino's If it's a Traveler on a Winter Night, the reader will have two identities: the protagonist of the story, the reader of the story, sometimes the former, sometimes the latter, sometimes overlapping, and everything depends on how the narrator guides it. Similarly, in this game, the player also has the identity of Stanley/gamer.

The most difficult thing is not the identity of the player, but the narration, what is the relationship between the narration and the player. First of all, the narrator is the narrator of Stanley's story, and also the game producer who is talking as a player. When he jumped to the status of producer, he was different from the producer in real life, but more like a creator.

Well, that's the basic relationship.

The main concept of Stanley's fable itself is that the game has no ending. Stanley's story has no ending. Everything goes round and round, and there will never be an end. In order to reflect this, the game start screen is the computer setting the computer infinitely, and the text of the loading screen also says: the end is never the end, never the end, never the end ... This sentence means this no matter how broken. Although there are dual identities and different narrative frameworks in the game, the "real world" is not recognized. In other words, Player/Stanley, you are stuck here forever. No matter how hard you try to escape, it is impossible. This is your destiny. Or perhaps in a broad sense, this is the fate of all people represented by Stanley-life is an unavoidable cycle, even death is not the end.

I want to say a few small endings. There are many so-called "endings" in this game, which are not real endings, but different paths and different events. But for the convenience of calling and corresponding to most game strategies, it is still called "ending" here.

The end of freedom: freedom without free will.

In this path, there is no jumping out of the narrative framework, just an ordinary narrative. The player and the narrator only have the single identity of Stanley and the narrator. In narrative, the world narrator in the story does not exist. Stanley himself discovered the shocking secret controlled by thought. He chose to shut down the system and then fled the company to be free. But from their status outside the framework (because the game itself provides the possibility outside the framework), players follow every instruction of the game maker, and Stanley's freedom is at the expense of the player's free will. In the final analysis, the wilderness environment is a virtual free world created by the producers, so this freedom is not freedom at all. Then, the game starts again.

The end of the explosion: the consolidation of the creator's position

If Stanley goes against the narrative intention and turns on the mind control system, it will turn on a time bomb, which cannot be dismantled. It is impossible for Stanley/players to manipulate others' delusions through the mind control system. Because in this world, the narrator is the master, and Stanley can only accept his own destiny, but can't decide or change, let alone master the power to control the world, which is impossible for the creator to allow. So, when Stanley wanted to turn passive into active, the producer destroyed him and the world by the way (anyway, he could start over, but he was not really destroyed).

Family ending: no choice.

You think you have a choice, but you don't. This is what I think this "home ending" wants to say. Stanley broke through many obstacles and was finally sent back to a place similar to an apartment. And his wife (a dummy, who scared me). However, is going home an escape? No, all actions have a fixed procedure, and Stanley can't jump out of this procedure. It's the same every day, which is essentially the same as his job of pressing the command button in the office. So the program begins: to have lunch, please press the X key. Take care of the child, please press the u key. To sleep, please press the @ key. To go to work, please press 9. Go to hell, please press the l key. Every time you press a key, there are fewer homes, and the office of 427 looks a little more. Finally, Stanley returned to the office. The narrator is saying that some people even feel sympathy for Stanley's life unless he chooses. Indeed, Stanley chose it himself. But does he really have a choice?

The chaotic ending: thinking about the end point and existence

After the great adventure under the guidance of the "adventure line", even the narrator is thinking: does the "end point" really exist? The result of his self-questioning and self-answering is that yes, the end point exists. Because wherever you go, where you go is the destination. The essence of life determines that there must be an end. And what is the essence of life? The narrator said: the essence of existence is the by-product of the subjective experience of that existence itself. If my (narrator) experience of your (Stanley/player) existence depends on your subjective experience of this office, then this office is my relatively subjective psychological structure. In other words, I created the world subjectively, but you have to feel it before it exists. In other words, although I am the creator, I also depend on you. You must first enter the world I created, otherwise my world will not exist. In this ending, the player is finally put aside to a "God perspective", or the narrator perspective, but it is an absolute space that the narrator can't perceive. Stanley's soul has been pulled away and he can't make any more choices. He can't perceive the world. At this time, the creator's narrative is helpless, and nothing can be said. Is this the "end point"? Or is the world gone when Stanley's subjectivity is pulled away?

Starlight ending: a mouse

After a series of moves away from the original story line, Stanley came to two doors, one red and the other blue. The narrator has also given up the original story because Stanley can't walk back. However, he wants to prove that I am the master. The commentator said to Stanley, listen to me. I really do it for your own good. You should enter the red door. So Stanley walked into the red door. In this door, there is a rooftop where you can see the virtual universe, starlight and music. For Stanley to finally listen to his reward. Down from the rooftop, it is a closed stairwell. You can take several flights of stairs online, but in the end it's a cliff. Stanley can only jump off a building. The first time I jumped down, the screen was red with pain, but Stanley didn't die. It seems to give Stanley another chance: You see, while enjoying your starlight, you can only jump from the other side, and only a fool will choose, right? It's like training your own dog, "sit down." If the puppy really sits down, you can get a dog food. What the narrator did was actually a mouse experiment. If you follow the right path I told you, you can experience sweetness. On the contrary, it hurts people. Gradually, the mouse will only follow the right path. Some people say that this game is a bit like The Truman Show, but it is still much worse than Truman. In order not to be a mouse, Stanley finally jumped to his death and the game was reset.

Crazy ending: what is real?

In this ending, the game will insert a cartoon video to try to correct the player's "naughty" behavior. The message it conveys is this: people must learn to choose and make rational choices, because rational choices are the healthiest way of life. If a person's choices and words are completely meaningless, then he is not real. The video is over. Ok, now you can choose again. Players still choose to violate the narration, that is, not to make "rational choices." Then, his punishment came. No matter how he walks, he can't walk out of the circular maze, just spinning in the same place. The commentator said that Stanley thought he was dreaming, and when he opened his eyes, it was still a circular maze. However, the maze or dream was obviously built by the narrator, because Stanley didn't make the right choice. The so-called madness is the rational opposite of narration. On the other hand, it's Stanley. As the saying goes, in the eyes of a madman, the rest of the world is a madman. But the setting of this world is that it has a preset right reason, so you can't have any contrary reason, otherwise you are meaningless and you are crazy. Madness is to let you fall into endless nightmares, which become your reality, and then have the ability to create the "I" of things, move its reality to the world, construct reality with my reason, and make rules. Finally, Stanley went crazy and died. It was a tragic death caused by madness in a comfortable realistic environment. This is not the maze of this cycle at all. Stanley's truth was rewritten as untrue. This ending makes me feel the worst.

Actually, I haven't really played this game, because I dare not. Just looking at it is depressing, and I am afraid that I will be completely depressed when I really play. For example, if you want to take the escape route, you can only watch yourself being pushed to pieces. I can't stand it at all. Finally, I want to say that all I have done is not to guess the original intention of the game makers. It's like reading a novel. The same work can be about many things, such as love, class issues, historical situations, and so on. The author may have created these "about" intentionally or unintentionally. However, the works he created brought people these thoughts about it, or his works only had some influence on readers' emotions, or brought some inspiration to some things in their lives. This is the meaning of the work, which varies from reader to reader.

These are the meanings of Stanley's metaphor to me.