It’s episode 12 of Indiescovery and this week we’re being a bit cheeky as we dive into which indie game characters we’d love to do a pub crawl with. Who are we getting sloshed with? Who’s not making it past pre-drinks? Who are we sharing our end-of-night chippies with? All that and more this week! Summer has well and truly arrived here in the UK, but wherever you are, grab your sunnies, sip a pina colada, kick back, and have a listen.
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]]>Several years later than planned, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe finally has a release date: April 27th. It's an "expanded re-imagining" of the surprising and funny and first-person explorer about an office worker who ends up on a surreal adventure probing strange depths and crashing through the fourth wall. Now, his adventure will be even bigger. The devs claim that "the script for the new content is longer than the script for the original game."
]]>The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is now "content complete" and will launch in early 2022. This news comes by way of developers Crows Crows Crows and a new trailer that pokes fun at themselves for the development delays thus far.
]]>Crows Crows Crows, the folks working on The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, have revived their ridiculous browser MMO replacement for the Game Developers Conference and it's just as surreal as before. Oh, is it your first time at CDC? Don't worry, it's just like every other conference. You walk around trying to make small talk with people you probably don't know and everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like a bad Mad Libs sheet.
]]>Looks like we'll be waiting a little longer to roam the new trippy corridors of Stanley's office building, because The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe has been delayed again. It was originally expected in 2019, then this year, and now we won't be seeing it until at least 2021. The co-developers at Crows Crows Crows revealed the bad news on Twitter by, uh, borrowing some corporate 'our game has been delayed' images and slapping their own info over the top.
]]>We've missed the Thursday mark, but there's still time to snag some free games over on Epic's shelves. This week, the house of Sweeney are giving away The Stanley Parable and Watch Dogs. One is a sprawling, meta-textual comedy narrative about control and the nature of stories themselves. The other has a bloke with a neat cap. You've got until next Thursday to grab 'em for free, at which time they'll be replaced by Figment and Tormentor X Punisher.
]]>It’s Friday the 13th, the day of Saint Badluck, patron saint of ladders and casinos. And it is a fabulous holiday. Out there, parades are getting ready to be rained on, and children are looking forward to tonight’s shenanigans, when they will dress up as mirrors and knock on doors, declaring: “sweets or I’ll smash myself”. I love Friday the 13th. So many cherished memories. So many splinters of reflective glass.
So, Happy Bad Luck Day. Here’s a list of the 9 unluckiest characters in videogames. Spoilers for pretty much every game mentioned. So, watch out.
]]>Is that a tingling in my ears? Has Kevan Brighting's soothing voice returned to comfort my lobes? The Stanley Parable's narrator is back in a new trailer, and he's got some concerning news regarding the development of the upcoming Ultra Deluxe edition. Reluctantly, regrettably, and due to popular demand, it appears the labyrinthine adventure's second remake won't be launching as planned this year.
]]>Indie developer Crows Crows Crows, whose founder William Pugh is one of the developers behind The Stanley Parable, has released a free browser-based MMO. It is described as "a mix between Journey, RuneScape and that time U2’s new album got auto-installed on everybody’s iPhones." The Club - a blocky 90s-Internet styled multi-player discothon whose name is surrounded by the animated GIF flames of a Geocities fan page, and whose club tracks sound like a DJ set by David Lynch - is a mission-less, non-competitive, online music listening game. It is hell. It is perfect.
]]>Davey Wreden isn't done making you sad. He co-designed The Stanley Parable and directed The Beginner's Guide, and now he's heading up a new team with the aim of producing games "that are beautiful, meditative, thoughtful, and sad". So like the games he's already worked on, but with fewer jokes.
Details about the next game are thin on the metaphorical, 'probably a big allegory for something' ground, but let's have a rummage through these two job ads. Look, it's gonna be third-person. That's a start.
]]>If you’ve choosed-and-adventured through Bandersnatch, the recent Black Mirror thing on Netflix, and aren’t already a fan of experimental interactive fiction: I envy you. It means you’re able to play actually good examples of interactive fiction for the first time.
Sure, Bandersnatch has funny lines, surprises and scene stealing performances from Will Poulter doing a “pretty much exactly how I, the writer, talk in real life” voice. But as a whole, video games have been iterating deeper on the main themes of control, authenticity, forced choice, meta-recursion and non-linearity for years, without also including an unhelpful portrayal of paranoid schizophrenia. When you love enough people who hear voices and suffer from castigatory delusions, maybe you become less enthused about media which depicts sufferers committing murders or throwing themselves off buildings. Fix it, Brooker. The same plotpoint was in White Christmas and it was shit back then.
]]>Splendid walk-o-laffer The Stanley Parable is being revisited and expanded again in an Ultra Deluxe edition. This will bring new endings, new choices, and I'm sure so very many new secrets. The main goal of Ultra Deluxe is to bring the game to consoles but hey, it'll come our way too so we all win. Have a peek at Stanley's anguish in the announcement trailer.
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>When we meet the creators of fictional worlds, we often want to kill them. Whether its Bioshock's Andrew Ryan and his deadly Rapture, GlaDOS and the sadistic test chambers of Portal, or Kirin Jindosh and the Clockwork Mansion. The urge to destroy these builders is partly down to the nature of their constructions - deathtraps and mazes that make the architect a cruel overseer - but there is perhaps more to it than that. With spoilers for the above, Hazel Monforton investigates the role (and the death) of the author in a medium that invites the audience into the action.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
The Beginners Guide, aka, the sad one. After the Stanley Parable warmed the innards of human animals across the world, the two creators went their separate ways. One of them resurfaced a couple of years later holding a free game with a superbly long name called Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist. The other appeared with The Beginner’s Guide. Both were good, but for completely different reasons.
]]>We already chose 13 of our favourite games in the current Summer Steam sale, but more games have been discounted since. So, based on the entirely correct hypothesis that you all have completed every single one of our first round games and are now thirsting for more, here are 18 more to throw your spare change at. Everyone on the RPS team has picked three stone-cold personal favourites, making for a grand old set of excellent PC games: here's what we chose and why.
]]>Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist is the new game from the new studio from William Pugh, co-developer of The Stanley Parable. It starts British comedian Simon Amstell, and could arguably be said to maybe possibly feature a grappling hook. It's free, and out now, and here's whether it's worth your precious, precious time.
]]>The Stanley Parable creator, Davey Wreden, is back two years later with a solo project, The Beginner's Guide [official site]. Released under his new development name, Everything Unlimited, this is an abstruse wander through a mysterious collection of games and game ideas, quite unlike anything else you've played. Does it work? Here's wot I think:
]]>I can't imagine a more daunting development task than having to follow up on The Stanley Parable. The truly stunning meta-game was a deserved phenomenon, catapulting developers Davey Wreden and William Pugh into the heights of indie fame. A game that pulled at the threads of gaming, seeing how they'd unravel, makes for a very tough act to follow. But that's what Stanley creator Wreden is aiming to do with his solo project, The Beginner's Guide [official site].
Described as "a narrative video game", pretty much no other details are being announced ahead of its release on Thursday (1st Oct). But there are some screenshots to be confused by in the meantime.
]]>The co-creator of splendid Adult Swim cartoon Rick and Morty (also the voice of their words and belches) Justin Roiland is planning some sort of virtual reality game thing for HTC Vive, working with folks including one of the Stanley Parable chaps. It's a bit of a mystery for now but he's a funny chap and Stanley's pal William Pugh is too, so that's nice. One preliminary design looks like... some kind of space prison game, maybe?
]]>What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 9 of the sale.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
The Stanley Parable was big when it came out. Its sense of humour, its impossible architecture, its multiple narration strands all came together to form a wonderful breath of fresh air with a wide-ranging appeal.
But it turns out there are at least, like, eight people who didn't play it, either as a Source mod or as a standalone game. It is at those eight that this HYP is aimed.
]]>About a year ago I interviewed Davey Wreden and William Pugh about the architecture of The Stanley Parable but never published the article. I'd been thinking about how the game intertwines narration and level design for a while, but it was a gif which finally converted solo pondering into getting the pair on Skype. Here's what happened when Wreden and Pugh dug into the ideas behind The Stanley Parable's disorienting and utterly impossible building.
CAUTION: There will be spoilers.
]]>Struggling with success is always a hard sell for empathy. It’s all too easy to dismiss such expressions with an easy, “Oh, you poor rich thing.” But it is, of course, far more complicated than that.
Davey Wreden, co-creator of The Stanley Parable, has already written in detail about how phenomenon of his game has personally affected him, in an eloquent blog post last month. Since the release of The Stanley Parable, and its remarkable success, the lives of both of its creators have been turned upside down. At 25 and 20 years old, Davey Wreden and William Pugh, haven’t had an easy time. I spoke with them about their last six months, how the reaction to the game has affected them and their partnership, and how they're dealing with it all. And Pugh's desire to create a rivalry with Steve Gaynor.
]]>RPS is at GDC! It's a match made in heaven because both of our acronyms are three letters long. Each day of the conference is jam-packed with formidable amounts of intrigue - far more than any single person could take in on their own without suffering catastrophic brain combustion. And so, I have elected to gather cadres of knowledgeable humans each day this week to discuss the best, most important goings-on. Expect very special guests shouting over each other and probably using words like "cultural zeitgeist" and "doodieface." Today, somewhat belated and also very bad at staying on topic: John, Cara, Hayden of PCWorld/my floor infamy, and myself all gathered on John's hotel bed for an uncomfortably salacious chat about This War Of Mine, The Stanley Parable's emotional aftermath, SoundSelf, weeping American eagles, hedonism, and Cara's refusal to stop posting PORNOGRAPHY on our virgin website that's exclusively for children.
]]>As we continue our way through the interviews with the PC-focused finalists in this year's IGF Awards, we will of course have to include some barely known, minority interest games. So it is today, as we talk to the creators of something called "The Stanley Parable". Probably raising awareness about the dangers of knives, I imagine. Sounds overly worthy.
We spoke to creator Davey Wreden and his cohort William Pugh, about their little project.
]]>It's all been a bit Massively Mainstream Games About Aliens today, so it's something of a relief to instead turn my gaze to some of the indie highlights of the last and upcoming year. Though that said, the finalists list - the finalistlist - for the 16th annual Independent Games Festival is, while awash with truly splendid games, somewhat short on surprises, which may add fuel to the fires of those who consider the competition to not quite be what it could. Existent huge successes Papers, Please and The Stanley Parable dominate, with Don't Starve also snagging multiple nods, as does the sadly mobile-only Device 6. Take a look, see if you feel you're being exposed to new stuff or just reminded of what you already know is ace.
]]>Sundays are for boarding up the windows, counting the canned goods and panic buying videogames. Also, for doing things for the first time.
- Every year the Interactive Fiction competition attracts inventive entries in the words-you-play genre. Every year, Emily Short writes smart-words-you-read about the entries she likes, and it's worth spending a day diving through the round-up of her favourites, before playing the games for yourself.
Not bad going for a game that that's so very difficult to describe, eh? Galactic Cafe - aka Davey Wreden - have managed to flog over 100,000 copies of affectionate choice'n'consequence skit The Stanley Parable to date. Did he achieve this by following the rules and doing everything he was expected to, or did he choose another path, going his own way despite the nurturing wisdom of onlookers. I reckon the latter, given he put out a demo, which lots of money-hungry men in suits claim is commercial suicide despite repeated evidence to the contrary.
]]>The Stanley Parable is strange. The Stanley Parable is smart, calculated. The Stanley Parable is pure chaos. The Stanley Parable is about so very, very many things - at least, until it decides to be not about them at all, often in the same breath. I'll be straight with you: reviewing this thing in any conventional fashion is more or less impossible. Yes, at heart it's a first-person adventure born of a highly acclaimed Half-Life 2 mod, but it's also far, far more. A tangled web of surprises and secrets, a madman's ransom collage of endings and fresh starts. And so, in the spirit of The Stanley Parable, I have decided to let you choose how you'd like to see the game reviewed. Well, if you'd even call these meaningful choices, let alone important ones. Er, sorry about that. Been playing too much Stanley Parable. You know how it is.
]]>I'm not going to explain it, because that would be madness. But you must. The full game is out on the 17th, and, look, just play this. Trust me. Don't not play it. Don't think that you're saving it up to play the full thing next week. That's not the right choice. Playing this is the right choice.
]]>This Stanley Parable trailer is definitely my favourite game trailer of the second Wednesday Thursday (this post was written yesterday, time fans) of September of the year 2013. The developer has embraced popular culture and asked Youtube game talker-over Chilled Chaos to make one of those Let's Play things, but all is not as it seems. Watch as the boring corridors slowly lull the gabbing gamer into a comfortably mundane meandering. In that mindset, when the walls of a corridor become the warm centre of the universe and everything is recognisable and safe, change can send a man mad. It's really funny.
Everyone, it's OK. You can calm down now. Put away your finely honed rioting tools and carefully calibrated bludgeoning instruments. Octodad: Dadliest Catch, you see, finally got the Greenlight go-ahead to haphazardly fling itself in Steam's general direction. After flopping and flailing about in hilarious frustration for 30 or so minutes, it also managed to affix 20 other games to its tentacles - which it will now nonchalantly drag onto the storefront with it. Or maybe they were just greenlit the normal way as well, but this is how I choose to interpret the information I've been given.
]]>The Stanley Parable - that extraordinary Source mod from last year - is to receive a reinvention as an independent game, hoping to find its way to Steam via the Greenlight thing. And there's a new trailer to prove it.
]]>“Level with Me” is a series of conversations about level design between modder Robert Yang and a level designer of a first person game. At the end of each interview, they collaborate on a Portal 2 level shared across all the sessions – and at the very end of the series, you’ll get to download and play this “roundtable level.” This is Part 5 of 7.
When Davey Wreden made The Stanley Parable, a Source mod about the dissonance between game narrative and free will (among other things), it quickly went viral and surprised a mod community that thought Source mods were already dead. Now, he's currently collaborating on an extended remake / reboot of The Stanley Parable and other projects.
]]>Okay, Internet! Okay. I'll play The Stanley Parable. Jeez, I'll play so you'll stop hassling me. I've got tea to drink and stuff, y'know. I mean so what, yes, it is my kind of thing. And I do like wry and creepy first-person games, and The Stanley Parable is one of those peculiar story-driven, non-linear, thought-provoking, brilliant-constructed, acutely clever, well-written mods that we love to post about, but some of us want to sit about watching Chinese action movies at ten o'clock at night, and totally don't have time to download 450mb of Half-Life 2 mod (which you only actually need Source SDK to play) and then wander through corridors figuring out what the hell is going on, and smiling all the while at that incredible voiceover.
It's brilliant. Exquisite, even. I can't spoil it by talking about it, but there's a trailer below, if you want to take a look. But you shouldn't look. You should play it.
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