Have You Played... The Stanley Parable?

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.

The Stanley Parable deposits you in an office building accompanied by a narrator. You're free to choose which paths to take through the game, negotiating an often-prickly relationship with the storyteller as your choices come into conflict what he apparently had planned for you.

The Stanley Parable is smart, truly funny and loves to wrongfoot its players. Individual run throughs don't take long so it's very much something you can come back to at odd moments and explore a new option. It's also surprisingly screenshottable.

Ugh. I've made myself want to try a new ending. I hate HYPs because they keep making me reinstall things.