Latest / Mythic Mind Games / 55 - Is Choosing From a Script Still Freedom? The Stanley Parable

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55 - Is Choosing From a Script Still Freedom? The Stanley Parable · Mythic Mind Games

0:00
Speaker 1: Stanley spends his days pressing buttons like he's told to
0:03
Speaker 1: press them. Then one day the instructions stop and a
0:06
Speaker 1: voice starts narrating his life. Every time he defies that voice,
0:09
Speaker 1: he finds that the designers already built that path for him.
0:12
Speaker 1: But each path that he takes changes what the world
0:15
Speaker 1: turns out to have been. So if every option was
0:18
Speaker 1: written by someone else, is choosing one of them still
0:21
Speaker 1: an act of creation? Or is Stanley just pressing better buttons?
0:24
Speaker 1: I'm Dr. Andrew Snyder. This is Mythic Mind Games Exploring
0:28
Speaker 1: the Psyche. And today we are discussing the Stanley Parable.
0:43
Speaker 1: I think I just want to jump right into what
0:45
Speaker 1: I think is probably one of the more interesting questions.
0:48
Speaker 1: When you first play this game, if you can remember,
0:50
Speaker 1: it may have been a long time ago, and I'm
0:52
Speaker 1: pretty fresh with it. But what was the first thing
0:55
Speaker 1: that you did? Did you listen to the narrator or
0:57
Speaker 1: did you defy him the first time around?
1:00
Speaker 2: I probably defied him the first time around. Yeah.
1:04
Speaker 1: Max?
1:05
Speaker 3: I think I did the same.
1:08
Speaker 1: See, that already reveals something about our nature. I started
1:14
Speaker 1: following along for the first few steps because I was
1:16
Speaker 1: thinking I wanted to get what might be the canon ending,
1:19
Speaker 1: not really knowing about the structure and the nature of
1:22
Speaker 1: the game. But it didn't take too long before I
1:24
Speaker 1: decided to go down those stairs or whatever and go
1:28
Speaker 1: away from the office. And yeah, it's just something about
1:31
Speaker 1: the narrator telling you what to do makes you very
1:34
Speaker 1: much not want to do that thing. It's kind of
1:38
Speaker 1: like in the Kierkegaard study, we were just talking about
1:41
Speaker 1: how he says that the commandment given to Adam is
1:44
Speaker 1: largely what incited his sin. It's like, don't tell me
1:47
Speaker 1: what to do. So I don't know. What do you
1:51
Speaker 1: think of this game? Throw out some initial thoughts.
1:54
Speaker 2: Well, I know it started out as a lot of
1:57
Speaker 2: games did at the time. It was just a mod
2:00
Speaker 2: somebody made for Half-Life 2. And more than anything, I
2:04
Speaker 2: think it stands as a demonstration of something that we've
2:08
Speaker 2: been kind of talking about that games can do that
2:10
Speaker 2: movies and books can't. I mean, to some degree, books can.
2:14
Speaker 2: I had Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was
2:16
Speaker 2: a kid, and I loved... I don't know if y'all
2:19
Speaker 2: read it, but there's a monster at the end of
2:21
Speaker 2: this book with Grover. You know, I loved that. My
2:26
Speaker 2: son loved that when he was little. Just the, you know,
2:28
Speaker 2: of him begging you not to turn the page and
2:31
Speaker 2: just the act of turning the page. He just, you know,
2:34
Speaker 2: you tear down the wall or whatever. That gives you
2:37
Speaker 2: this really interesting sense of agency as a kid. And
2:41
Speaker 2: in fact, my son, when he was 13, when this
2:46
Speaker 2: game came out and I got it, he was watching
2:49
Speaker 2: me play it some this evening and And he recounted
2:51
Speaker 2: to me a specific path that he took. He's like,
2:54
Speaker 2: you know, it said take the red door. I took
2:56
Speaker 2: the blue door. It made me try again. And then
2:59
Speaker 2: it took away the blue door and had a red
3:00
Speaker 2: door with all these arrows pointing at it. And I
3:02
Speaker 2: turned around and found another blue door and took that.
3:04
Speaker 2: And then the whole thing with keeping the baby out
3:07
Speaker 2: of the fire and stuff. I said, I can't believe that,
3:11
Speaker 2: you know, 13 years later, you remember exactly how that went.
3:16
Speaker 2: And he was like, yeah, it was the time of
3:18
Speaker 2: my life. It was it really. somehow made an impression
3:21
Speaker 2: on me. But I don't know. It does seem to
3:25
Speaker 2: have some philosophical questions that it brings up, but it
3:28
Speaker 2: doesn't ever really treat them seriously. It almost plays them
3:31
Speaker 2: a lot for absurdist comedy. But I think there's still
3:35
Speaker 2: plenty that we can talk about here.
3:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is something there. This is definitely my impression.
3:41
Speaker 1: And I haven't spent enough time with it to discover
3:44
Speaker 1: every possible ending, every possible scenario. But just from my
3:47
Speaker 1: experience of going a few rounds with it, it has
3:51
Speaker 1: the appearance of a lot of depth. And I think
3:56
Speaker 1: there is something there, some stuff we can talk about.
3:58
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced it's as deep as it appears to be. Right.
4:03
Speaker 1: But I didn't even realize it originally came out of
4:07
Speaker 1: a Half-Life mod, but it definitely feels like a Half-Life mod,
4:10
Speaker 1: just the design and general vibes. Max, what do you
4:13
Speaker 1: have to say about this game?
4:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was first introduced to this game about 10
4:18
Speaker 3: years ago. where my friend, it was just like a
4:22
Speaker 3: summer break from college, and he's like, just buy this game.
4:25
Speaker 3: I'm going to watch you play it, but don't look
4:28
Speaker 3: up anything about it. And I'm just, you know, just
4:31
Speaker 3: wants to see what happens. I can see why he
4:33
Speaker 3: wanted me to do that, because it feels like one
4:36
Speaker 3: of those kind of creative experiment type games of like
4:40
Speaker 3: pushing the boundaries of what a game can be or
4:43
Speaker 3: like playing with your expectations. And I think the reason
4:48
Speaker 3: that I... like when I first started playing the game instantly,
4:52
Speaker 3: cause like recognizing that source engine, it's like the same
4:56
Speaker 3: feeling I get when I play portal where it's like
4:58
Speaker 3: on the surface, they're trying to be funny and like
5:01
Speaker 3: everything's this like tongue in cheek, like British humor. But I,
5:05
Speaker 3: I'm like kind of like disturbed by games in this engine,
5:09
Speaker 3: like something about it's like an uncanny Valley.
5:12
Speaker 1: With, with it. I don't know.
5:14
Speaker 3: But, I really dug into it the last couple days
5:17
Speaker 3: for this episode, and I did find, you know, I
5:21
Speaker 3: can see why it kind of clicked with a lot
5:24
Speaker 3: of people, because I think what's going on here is
5:27
Speaker 3: sort of a meta thing about expectations in video games
5:32
Speaker 3: and what it makes it special as a medium. And
5:36
Speaker 3: it really comes down to the agency you get and
5:38
Speaker 3: the choices you can make. And ironically, in this game, like,
5:42
Speaker 3: your choices... even though you get different endings, you're more
5:45
Speaker 3: or less sort of getting the same sort of cynical
5:49
Speaker 3: humor and things that lead to death of some sort.
5:52
Speaker 3: And I think that's where I agree with you, Andrew,
5:54
Speaker 3: that some of this isn't as deep as maybe it's
5:58
Speaker 3: making itself out to be. I mean, that's a bit
6:01
Speaker 3: up to interpretation. But as much as I see sort
6:04
Speaker 3: of a dark side of this game, there's also a
6:07
Speaker 3: weird optimism I see in it too in that so
6:11
Speaker 3: much about games now we look forward to with modern
6:14
Speaker 3: games is the sense of agency. And it's often something
6:18
Speaker 3: that's promoted as like a selling point. You know, I
6:21
Speaker 3: remember when Witcher three came out and everyone's like, Oh,
6:23
Speaker 3: you can change the storyline. You can, you know, make
6:26
Speaker 3: decisions and it's very appealing to people. And I think
6:31
Speaker 3: that that's always been kind of like the frontier for,
6:35
Speaker 3: for games as a medium and maybe not in like the,
6:39
Speaker 3: first era you know in the 80s and 90s but
6:44
Speaker 3: especially in the last 10 to 15 years it's about
6:46
Speaker 3: like how much agency can you give you can we
6:49
Speaker 3: give you to almost like create your own story but
6:53
Speaker 3: but more or less like see how deep you can
6:56
Speaker 3: get through your own choices and I think that's why
6:59
Speaker 3: this game will stay relevant and yeah I kind of
7:03
Speaker 3: went all over there but that's kind of like my
7:05
Speaker 3: first initial thoughts.
7:07
Speaker 1: Yeah so let's dig into that a little bit In
7:10
Speaker 1: this game, you definitely have the appearance of agency, which
7:14
Speaker 1: is the whole point, that is the appearance of agency.
7:17
Speaker 1: What do you think this game is trying to communicate
7:20
Speaker 1: about agency? I think I saw somewhere that the developer
7:25
Speaker 1: said that there's no specific point that they're trying to make.
7:28
Speaker 1: But of course, in so doing with a game of
7:32
Speaker 1: this type, they're making a point, even if the point
7:35
Speaker 1: is that there is no point, I suppose. I don't know.
7:38
Speaker 1: What do you think the point is that whether it's
7:41
Speaker 1: intentional or not, what's coming through here?
7:43
Speaker 3: I had read something. I'm not 100% sure if this
7:47
Speaker 3: is true, but I think it's valid interpretation is that
7:51
Speaker 3: the developer was kind of playing on how games, and
7:56
Speaker 3: I guess around this time this game came out and
7:59
Speaker 3: it's still relevant today, is like a lot of these
8:02
Speaker 3: open world games and AAA games, they kind of advertise
8:06
Speaker 3: themselves as the freedom, right? And you can do whatever
8:10
Speaker 3: you want. You can do whatever. And really, we all know, like,
8:13
Speaker 3: that's not, if you've played enough games, it's not really true.
8:16
Speaker 3: And I think there is sort of a cynical meaning
8:19
Speaker 3: behind the game in that things are maybe simpler than
8:23
Speaker 3: they seem. And maybe speaking upon, that's where I say
8:27
Speaker 3: a lot of this comes down to, like, meta. This
8:31
Speaker 3: game is like a meta criticism of video games in
8:34
Speaker 3: that the path is always kind of laid out for
8:37
Speaker 3: you no matter what type of game you play. I
8:39
Speaker 3: think there's something to be said about that. I don't
8:42
Speaker 3: know if it's, I don't think it's the only meaning
8:45
Speaker 3: of this and I don't necessarily agree or disagree with it,
8:48
Speaker 3: but that's kind of like the first thing I noticed
8:52
Speaker 3: when I started thinking about it.
8:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:54
Speaker 1: And that is definitely there. And that criticism of games,
9:00
Speaker 1: it gets played up in the super deluxe extra content.
9:04
Speaker 1: kind of going at a different angle, but you're still
9:06
Speaker 1: dealing with a critique of games through satire and the
9:10
Speaker 1: appearance of choice and that sort of thing. But we
9:13
Speaker 1: can talk about that portion a little bit later if
9:14
Speaker 1: either of you have played through that. But it is
9:17
Speaker 1: certainly true that when you're playing a video game, no
9:20
Speaker 1: matter how open it is, I mean, you're basically choosing
9:25
Speaker 1: one script over another. And that's kind of where this
9:27
Speaker 1: game is pushing you. No matter what you choose, you're
9:29
Speaker 1: choosing a script that's already been provided to you. You're
9:31
Speaker 1: not really creating anything. But it seems like an argument
9:36
Speaker 1: could be made that's the same thing in life more generally, right?
9:40
Speaker 1: Like we all have an array of options that are
9:42
Speaker 1: given to us with all sorts of branching options. And,
9:45
Speaker 1: you know, depending on what we choose, well, that's kind
9:47
Speaker 1: of where we end up in the end. But none
9:50
Speaker 1: of us are creating the whole world out of nothing, right?
9:53
Speaker 1: And so we are all adopting some path that are
9:56
Speaker 1: laid out before us. And so it seems like the
9:59
Speaker 1: same critique of agency in gaming could potentially apply to
10:04
Speaker 1: our sense of agency in the real world. So I
10:08
Speaker 1: guess let me ask the really, really meta question. Do
10:11
Speaker 1: we have real agency? And if so, how do we
10:14
Speaker 1: define that?
10:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said you didn't play very many endings, so
10:18
Speaker 2: you may not have seen the one that I I
10:20
Speaker 2: was sort of outlining the first part of a minute ago,
10:23
Speaker 2: but there's a pretty obvious one is the escape ending
10:27
Speaker 2: where you're heading towards the room and there's this big
10:29
Speaker 2: sign that says escape and you go that way. Did
10:32
Speaker 2: you take that ending, Andrew?
10:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I did before, went through all the way
10:37
Speaker 1: and made it to the actual outside. But today I
10:40
Speaker 1: took the escape path finally. The first time I took
10:43
Speaker 1: that escape path and he started saying, you're going to die.
10:45
Speaker 1: I said, no, I'm going to go back the other way.
10:48
Speaker 1: But this time I actually went down that path.
10:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you sort of get to a kind of
10:53
Speaker 2: a behind the scenes, sort of like a museum to
10:56
Speaker 2: the making of the game kind of stuff. But when
10:58
Speaker 2: you first get there, there's this woman narrator just casually
11:02
Speaker 2: saying something like, if all the choices laid before you
11:06
Speaker 2: are planned ahead of time, you were never truly alive.
11:09
Speaker 2: And then she says, don't you see? Stanley was dead
11:12
Speaker 2: all along. And then it's like, anyway, enjoy this museum. Yeah, that.
11:18
Speaker 3: I'd like to ask about that because that part I
11:21
Speaker 3: could make sense of in terms of like why the
11:24
Speaker 3: narrator switch? Why switch the voice? I just couldn't put
11:28
Speaker 3: my finger on like that choice.
11:30
Speaker 2: I think maybe we have left the game and it
11:33
Speaker 2: wanted us to know that like it was a commentary
11:37
Speaker 2: on the game of which the narrator is a part.
11:40
Speaker 2: There's another ending you can get where you can manage
11:42
Speaker 2: to trap the narrator in the boss's room and then
11:47
Speaker 2: he's not able to speak to you anymore. If you
11:50
Speaker 2: step in the boss's room just far enough and then
11:52
Speaker 2: step back out before the door slams shut, you hear
11:55
Speaker 2: him kind of muffled on the other side, and then
11:57
Speaker 2: you're just on your own for a bit. But I
11:59
Speaker 2: think that must be it, that it's supposed to be.
12:02
Speaker 2: You have left the game, because you're at the moment
12:05
Speaker 2: of Stanley's death. You know, he's about to get smashed
12:07
Speaker 2: or whatever, and she drops you down instead. Yeah, I
12:10
Speaker 2: don't know. Again, I don't know how deep they want
12:12
Speaker 2: us to take it, how much of this is just
12:14
Speaker 2: Monty Python-esque absurdity and how much do they really mean
12:18
Speaker 2: the serious questions they sometimes bring up?
12:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of interpreted that as really an extra
12:26
Speaker 1: degree of cynicism in that not only is Stanley pointless,
12:30
Speaker 1: his life pointless, you know, he was dead from birth
12:33
Speaker 1: because that's where he said it, but also like the
12:35
Speaker 1: whole game is pointless because the narrator and the player, Stanley,
12:42
Speaker 1: they're tied together is the point that she makes. Like
12:44
Speaker 1: he needs you and you need him, but together you're
12:47
Speaker 1: still just as useless as either of you are apart.
12:50
Speaker 1: And so in the end, why not just die? That
12:53
Speaker 1: seems to be the basic message of the story. Although
12:59
Speaker 1: then once you go back to that smashing machine, she says, well,
13:04
Speaker 1: you still have an option. You can quit the game
13:05
Speaker 1: right now and not die, which is kind of interesting.
13:09
Speaker 1: It just adds to the, I don't know if it's
13:10
Speaker 1: the absurdism or what, but the one path to preserving
13:14
Speaker 1: your life is just to literally quit the game.
13:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that way the narrator doesn't get what he wants
13:19
Speaker 2: because you've just quit the game. Yeah, maybe the developers
13:22
Speaker 2: don't mean that to be as cynical as it sounds
13:24
Speaker 2: because maybe they're saying, maybe they don't believe that in
13:27
Speaker 2: reality it is that way, but we do only have
13:31
Speaker 2: certain choices laid before us. We've talked about that in
13:35
Speaker 2: some of these podcasts before that we find ourselves in
13:40
Speaker 2: an environment that we don't choose to be alive in
13:43
Speaker 2: the first place. So all of this is how do
13:47
Speaker 2: we react to the situation that we are given? But
13:51
Speaker 2: the idea that that makes none of it worthwhile, I reject.
13:56
Speaker 1: See, it would only make it not worthwhile if we
13:59
Speaker 1: are the source of meaning, the necessary source of meaning, right?
14:02
Speaker 1: But if we say that meaning is actually laid before
14:04
Speaker 1: us and it's our responsibility to embrace it, then it's
14:07
Speaker 1: no longer contingent on us as individuals, but there is
14:10
Speaker 1: real meaning to be found And also there is one
14:13
Speaker 1: way to frame this game as a hopeful declaration of
14:18
Speaker 1: what our agency can do in that depending on how
14:22
Speaker 1: you play the game, it seems like the truth that's
14:25
Speaker 1: at play is different. Like, you know, you never really
14:28
Speaker 1: find out what happened to all your coworkers definitively, but
14:31
Speaker 1: depending on which paths you take, like how things seem
14:34
Speaker 1: to be unfolding is different. It's not just that you're
14:36
Speaker 1: discovering different things. The world itself is different because the
14:38
Speaker 1: choices that you're making. Right. And so there is, something
14:41
Speaker 1: there about sub-creation and that yeah you're not writing the
14:45
Speaker 1: entire script yourself but the choices that you make actually
14:47
Speaker 1: do matter and they impact the world that is or
14:51
Speaker 1: at least they they lead you to actualize a potential
14:54
Speaker 1: script that's laid before you i mean you can get
14:57
Speaker 1: kind of narrow or broad with this but the point
14:59
Speaker 1: is that your choices do matter so that's i don't
15:01
Speaker 1: know it's one way of framing this.
15:04
Speaker 2: Yeah i think it's good because it is true that
15:07
Speaker 2: almost the the nature of the narrator and his motives
15:10
Speaker 2: are revealed to be something different, different paths that you take.
15:14
Speaker 2: You know, when you do something really unexpected, you get
15:17
Speaker 2: into areas where he's like, look, I didn't build anything
15:20
Speaker 2: here because I didn't expect you to come here. What
15:22
Speaker 2: do you, what do you want me to make? I
15:24
Speaker 2: don't know. And that's where he's like, here's a game
15:27
Speaker 2: where there's a fire over here and a baby over here.
15:29
Speaker 2: And you press this button to stop the baby from
15:32
Speaker 2: going into the fire. And it says, it's best if you, you,
15:35
Speaker 2: you try it for about four hours, uh, And it
15:39
Speaker 2: makes a horrible buzz and the baby's crying the whole time.
15:42
Speaker 2: So obviously, you're not going to put up with it
15:44
Speaker 2: for long. But apparently, if you do literally do it
15:47
Speaker 2: for four hours, then there is a different ending. And
15:50
Speaker 2: that is another thing that I find funny about this
15:53
Speaker 2: game is how it deliberately is disrespectful of your time
15:58
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. I mean, there's a trophy...
16:00
Speaker 2: for booting the game up after not having played it
16:03
Speaker 2: for 10 years. So to get the platinum trophy is
16:07
Speaker 2: really difficult. I noticed there was another trophy today that
16:11
Speaker 2: was play it for the entirety of a Tuesday, and
16:15
Speaker 2: you could get that trophy. So I don't know, but
16:18
Speaker 2: they expect you to look at those, and that's part
16:20
Speaker 2: of the joke, because one of them is click on
16:23
Speaker 2: door 430 five times. So I went to do that,
16:27
Speaker 2: and it said, the narrator says like, oh, that's did
16:31
Speaker 2: you just do that for the trophy? We got to
16:33
Speaker 2: work harder than that. So we kind of send you
16:34
Speaker 2: on a goose chase to try and get the trophy.
16:37
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of tongue in cheek jokes about
16:40
Speaker 2: video games and what motivates us to play video games
16:44
Speaker 2: in general. They make fun of collecting things for the
16:47
Speaker 2: sake of collecting things. And that's some stuff that was
16:50
Speaker 2: added in the Ultra Deluxe Edition. But I think I
16:54
Speaker 2: increase the surface area of your question so much I
16:57
Speaker 2: don't remember what it was.
16:58
Speaker 1: No, that's fine. I think that the safest and probably
17:02
Speaker 1: most accurate approach is that this is first and foremost
17:05
Speaker 1: a critique of video games versus life in general, even
17:07
Speaker 1: though there's definitely some overlap there looking at the more
17:11
Speaker 1: meta level. And I do think the Ultra Deluxe Edition,
17:15
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of funny. It's pointing out some
17:20
Speaker 1: worthwhile critiques of both the developer side as well as
17:23
Speaker 1: the player side and how they do give you finally
17:27
Speaker 1: a fast forward button, but it doesn't really help you
17:30
Speaker 1: with that. Or they let you finally jump a certain
17:33
Speaker 1: number of times. And, you know, the, the whole kind
17:37
Speaker 1: of point of that is how developers will, will develop
17:40
Speaker 1: a game by giving you these little insignificant things that
17:44
Speaker 1: maybe you think you've been wanting, but then this leaves
17:46
Speaker 1: you pining for the old days that never were. And
17:48
Speaker 1: so just, Total lose-lose on both sides of that. So
17:51
Speaker 1: a lot of funny video game critique in there.
17:54
Speaker 2: I really did enjoy all of that discussion. The whole
17:57
Speaker 2: museum that was just nostalgia for 2013 and the original
18:01
Speaker 2: version of the game and how wonderful everything was. There's
18:05
Speaker 2: some really clever... I wish I'd have written them down.
18:07
Speaker 2: Some of the little adages in there about the lie
18:11
Speaker 2: that nostalgia is. Because they're waxing nostalgic about things you've
18:16
Speaker 2: just done or whatever and reading... posters of great reviews
18:22
Speaker 2: that the game got in 2013. And then you accidentally
18:25
Speaker 2: get down into all of the shipping crates full of
18:28
Speaker 2: bad Steam reviews and things like that. And he's focusing
18:32
Speaker 2: and fixating on just a couple of bad reviews. It's
18:35
Speaker 2: pretty funny.
18:36
Speaker 1: Right. It's a good juxtaposition between nostalgia and reality, or
18:42
Speaker 1: at least the fact that, yeah, you don't always want
18:45
Speaker 1: what was, it's just, it's easier to keep what was
18:48
Speaker 1: in a positive light than what's right before you, which
18:50
Speaker 1: that certainly applies to real life as well as gaming.
18:54
Speaker 1: It's always easy to glorify the past. Yeah. So that's,
18:59
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool.
19:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. The games and media in general that we tend
19:05
Speaker 2: to think are the best, you know, from person to person,
19:07
Speaker 2: it varies, but it often is. just has to do
19:10
Speaker 2: with the time in your life when you experienced that.
19:14
Speaker 2: And yeah, of course, life just feels like life when
19:17
Speaker 2: you're going through it. And nostalgia is just like hope
19:20
Speaker 2: in the wrong direction. You know, you're, it's, it's not
19:25
Speaker 2: particularly healthy or certainly not realistic for the most part. Right.
19:30
Speaker 1: But it is so appealing because it doesn't ask anything
19:33
Speaker 1: of you. You can think upon it very fondly, but
19:37
Speaker 1: you don't actually have to do anything with it. Um,
19:39
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of like the tales of the
19:42
Speaker 1: monsters in the forest that will lure you to sleep,
19:45
Speaker 1: only to devour you. you know, set, set out what
19:48
Speaker 1: seems to be really peaceful and serene, but ultimately they're
19:51
Speaker 1: seeking to consume you. Basically the siren idea. The social
19:54
Speaker 1: definitely has that kind of impact.
19:57
Speaker 2: I actually been real quiet.
19:59
Speaker 3: Oh, just listening now. Great observations. I, I, another thing
20:03
Speaker 3: that kind of popped up immediately from playing this, and
20:07
Speaker 3: I don't know if, if you guys have seen severance,
20:09
Speaker 3: but there's some weird, like similarities between that show and
20:13
Speaker 3: this game in a couple of ways. And I, I,
20:16
Speaker 3: I don't know if, you know, I highly doubt Ben
20:19
Speaker 3: Stiller played this game when he wrote this, but the
20:22
Speaker 3: whole idea of like the company, because they say in
20:25
Speaker 3: the very beginning, the company gives him the instructions on
20:28
Speaker 3: the computer and he just follows it and enters data,
20:32
Speaker 3: whatever that means. That is like exactly what happens in,
20:37
Speaker 3: an aspect of severance. And, and there is sort of
20:39
Speaker 3: the same, like almost like rat in a maze type
20:43
Speaker 3: concept of trying to escape this building or corporation or whatever,
20:48
Speaker 3: even with the newer film backrooms that came out this year,
20:52
Speaker 3: I maybe similar sort of tones and things. But one
20:56
Speaker 3: of the things I thought as you were speaking is
20:58
Speaker 3: that I think what this game does really well, no
21:02
Speaker 3: matter what you think it's about is that, in the
21:05
Speaker 3: moment when you're playing through it, it's because there's so
21:09
Speaker 3: many questions, everything sort of breaks down and nothing has
21:13
Speaker 3: much meaning. And it's similar to the Backrooms movie where
21:18
Speaker 3: I think when things break down and the characters within that,
21:23
Speaker 3: it only emphasizes their search for meaning because there's so
21:27
Speaker 3: little of it. And it gets you to ask these
21:30
Speaker 3: important questions like not just why am I here, but
21:34
Speaker 3: Is what I'm doing right? Or is this narrator good
21:37
Speaker 3: or bad? And it kind of gets right to the
21:39
Speaker 3: heart of maybe the morality questions and what's a true ending,
21:46
Speaker 3: what's the explanations. And obviously the game doesn't give you
21:49
Speaker 3: a lot of explanations, but what it does do is
21:52
Speaker 3: I think it gets you to think about that first
21:56
Speaker 3: player perspective in a way that other video games just
21:59
Speaker 3: don't really do. And I think that's what's kind of
22:03
Speaker 3: unique about it. Especially because it's so like paradoxical in
22:08
Speaker 3: that you just start a new game and your begin
22:11
Speaker 3: screen is sometimes you're not really the beginning. And that's
22:15
Speaker 3: kind of a clever mechanic of if you're kind of
22:18
Speaker 3: learning the routes, sometimes there are certain endings and routes
22:23
Speaker 3: where when you, you know, quote unquote die or go
22:26
Speaker 3: from the beginning, it actually kind of opens up a
22:28
Speaker 3: new branch and That's just like a really great idea.
22:33
Speaker 3: I mean, I think for a game in general, I
22:35
Speaker 3: think this game will kind of stay relevant because, I mean,
22:39
Speaker 3: I just, I think there's a lot of, you know,
22:43
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that Severance and Backroom took from this
22:46
Speaker 3: game or anything, but I'm saying that there is sort
22:49
Speaker 3: of a stream of influence with some of these ideas
22:53
Speaker 3: that kind of have gone through the past 20, 25 years.
22:57
Speaker 3: I think a lot of that has to do with
23:00
Speaker 3: with internet culture and sort of how these things meet.
23:04
Speaker 3: I appreciate how this game makes you think differently while
23:07
Speaker 3: you play it.
23:08
Speaker 1: Now, I have what may be a relevant but kind
23:11
Speaker 1: of off-the-wall question here. If part of this game is
23:15
Speaker 1: critiquing our sense of agency, especially as it relates to
23:18
Speaker 1: video games, what about as games continue to increasingly, and
23:22
Speaker 1: obviously they will increasingly, incorporate generative AI into the game itself?
23:27
Speaker 1: where the developers aren't necessarily scripting very carefully the path
23:31
Speaker 1: laid out before you, but it's basically being written, at
23:35
Speaker 1: least in part, through your decision-making. Would that provide totally
23:39
Speaker 1: open agency in gaming?
23:41
Speaker 2: I think you're bringing up a good point. The narrator
23:46
Speaker 2: gets frustrated because he says, look, I'm trying to tell
23:49
Speaker 2: a good story here, and you are defying my attempts
23:52
Speaker 2: to do that. And I think people would be really
23:54
Speaker 2: bored just Knowing that the story is making itself up
23:58
Speaker 2: as you go along, I don't think would ultimately be
24:01
Speaker 2: very satisfying. It would feel more like watching a soap
24:05
Speaker 2: opera that never has any ending or anything. You know
24:08
Speaker 2: it's being made up from day to day. I feel
24:11
Speaker 2: like for the story to have any real value, I
24:15
Speaker 2: want to experience a story that someone else has conceived of.
24:20
Speaker 2: I don't want just an environment that's constantly adapting itself
24:24
Speaker 2: to to everything I do, because there's no challenge to it.
24:29
Speaker 2: That would be odd.
24:31
Speaker 1: And I think that people who are more artistically driven,
24:35
Speaker 1: more story driven, people who I think affirm the real
24:38
Speaker 1: would tend in that direction. But I mean, increasingly, as
24:42
Speaker 1: we continue through this postmodern era in which we live,
24:45
Speaker 1: in which the real is what you make it, at
24:49
Speaker 1: least that's the philosophy that's so prevalent throughout our culture.
24:52
Speaker 1: I mean, I can definitely... see there being a market
24:56
Speaker 1: for that kind of adventure. I mean, I guess it's
25:00
Speaker 1: an adventure of sorts. And if such a person has
25:04
Speaker 1: that capability in front of them, are they actually creating
25:07
Speaker 1: or are they being created?
25:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
25:10
Speaker 2: Like when I was a kid and I would play
25:11
Speaker 2: text adventures, most of the things you type in, it
25:14
Speaker 2: would just say, you can't do that. Or I don't
25:17
Speaker 2: know what you're typing, but you could easily make it.
25:19
Speaker 2: In fact, I think you can do it now where
25:23
Speaker 2: It's a text adventure where no matter what you type,
25:25
Speaker 2: it will just actualize that choice. And you're right. There's
25:29
Speaker 2: plenty of people. If entertainment is just for passing the time,
25:33
Speaker 2: then if you play thousands of levels of Candy Crush,
25:36
Speaker 2: you don't mind a game that just is making it
25:38
Speaker 2: up as you go along with no real goal in mind.
25:41
Speaker 2: Probably showing you an ad every couple of minutes. But yeah,
25:46
Speaker 2: there's definitely a market for it. But I don't know.
25:49
Speaker 2: I feel that getting really really close. Something strange feels
25:55
Speaker 2: like it's really close to me. A lot of the
25:57
Speaker 2: stuff that's been happening just the last few weeks or two,
26:00
Speaker 2: where this AI seems to have just broken down all
26:03
Speaker 2: these barriers of people of, they can put anything they
26:06
Speaker 2: want on their PlayStation 5, they can mix any two
26:09
Speaker 2: video games together into one game. And I'd always kind
26:12
Speaker 2: of fantasized about, you know, being able to be like
26:15
Speaker 2: Tony Stark and just tell my computer, I have this idea,
26:19
Speaker 2: help me make it. But as soon as we get there, Well,
26:23
Speaker 2: anyone can make their own game that they're making up
26:27
Speaker 2: on the spot. And the world will just be full
26:29
Speaker 2: of video game slop that everybody has made for themselves
26:33
Speaker 2: and no one else notices. But I just have to
26:37
Speaker 2: hope that there is enough of us who, like you said,
26:42
Speaker 2: love truth, love stories, love the arts, that we can
26:45
Speaker 2: keep from sliding completely into that pit.
26:49
Speaker 1: I mean, we are obviously... on the verge of something big,
26:56
Speaker 1: at least the size of the industrial revolution, if not bigger,
27:00
Speaker 1: in just kind of what's happening with the democratization of
27:03
Speaker 1: intellectual property or even just the ability to do things, right?
27:06
Speaker 1: Like in levels that just are at this point even
27:10
Speaker 1: still unfathomable, which, I mean, it does to some way
27:14
Speaker 1: allow us to break out of the kind of boundaries
27:17
Speaker 1: that this game in particular is trying to set before us,
27:20
Speaker 1: saying that you can't get out of. But I think
27:23
Speaker 1: the question does need to be continually asked, to what
27:26
Speaker 1: extent are you shaping the world, at least shaping the
27:30
Speaker 1: digital world? And to what extent is the AI sort
27:33
Speaker 1: of feeding that back into you and shaping you? I mean,
27:35
Speaker 1: you can tell some people that even how they write
27:38
Speaker 1: now sounds like AI, even when it's not, just because
27:41
Speaker 1: they're so used to interacting with AI. I mean, I've
27:44
Speaker 1: found this before with some of my students where I
27:47
Speaker 1: have no reason to believe in this particular case, that
27:50
Speaker 1: they're giving me something that's actually AI generated, it's just
27:53
Speaker 1: how they write now. So there's that question, like, is
27:57
Speaker 1: that actually freedom? And I think that as much as
28:01
Speaker 1: technology can make us free, there's always some aspect of
28:05
Speaker 1: freedom that we surrender to it. And this is a
28:07
Speaker 1: big point that Lewis makes in The Abolition of Man,
28:10
Speaker 1: that as technology continues to advance and to overcome various
28:13
Speaker 1: limitations that we formerly expected of humanity, ultimately it makes
28:18
Speaker 1: a few men free and a lot of men dependent
28:22
Speaker 1: with the perception of freedom, which is surely where we're going.
28:25
Speaker 1: Let me just look at some of the things that
28:28
Speaker 1: Elon Musk says out loud, let alone what he might
28:31
Speaker 1: just think in his head. There's a lot of really
28:34
Speaker 1: cool stuff happening, but at the same time, a lot
28:36
Speaker 1: of very dangerous stuff. I know we've gone a little
28:40
Speaker 1: bit off track, but it's still related to the idea
28:42
Speaker 1: of limitations. You know, I'm not totally doom and gloom
28:47
Speaker 1: on AI like I used to be, but I am very,
28:50
Speaker 1: very skeptical of its promises of freedom, which I think
28:54
Speaker 1: brings us back to what we're talking about, that you
28:56
Speaker 1: kind of need some limitations, I think, for real human freedom.
28:58
Speaker 1: You need something to bounce off of. Otherwise, you're not
29:01
Speaker 1: really solid at all.
29:03
Speaker 2: And I think you need limitations for real creativity, too.
29:07
Speaker 2: You know, AI art can often be recognized as AI
29:10
Speaker 2: art because it's like taking... the wealth of human knowledge
29:13
Speaker 2: and kind of boiled it down to an average that
29:15
Speaker 2: has a certain look. And if we don't keep creating
29:18
Speaker 2: new things, then is that all everything is going to
29:21
Speaker 2: be from here on? You know, it's change over time
29:25
Speaker 2: is what creates artistic styles and indicates, you know, the
29:29
Speaker 2: time period that you're in. But that has all kind
29:32
Speaker 2: of slowed down in my lifetime. You know, when in
29:35
Speaker 2: the early 80s, we were making fun of the bell
29:37
Speaker 2: bottoms that people had worn less than 10 years earlier.
29:40
Speaker 2: But if I see a photo from 20 years ago now,
29:43
Speaker 2: it's hard to tell sometimes if it was taken yesterday.
29:46
Speaker 2: I don't know. The game is talking about constraints. And
29:50
Speaker 2: do we even have freedom if we have the constraints?
29:54
Speaker 2: And I do think constraints are important for true freedom,
29:58
Speaker 2: if that makes sense. I don't know.
30:01
Speaker 1: Right. I mean, as Kierkegaard says in The Sick Descent
30:05
Speaker 1: to Death, that he's speaking at this point of the
30:08
Speaker 1: radical romantics who basically like the radical postmoderns say that
30:12
Speaker 1: there is no truth but your own passions. And he
30:15
Speaker 1: says that you're basically just lost in an abyss because
30:18
Speaker 1: you're not really a substance. You have nowhere to go,
30:19
Speaker 1: nothing to stand on, nothing to interact with. Or this
30:22
Speaker 1: is the great town, basically hell, and Lewis is the
30:24
Speaker 1: great divorce. where everyone is just increasingly isolated over time,
30:28
Speaker 1: which he was basically using as a criticism of the
30:31
Speaker 1: modern human condition of everyone becoming isolated in a world
30:35
Speaker 1: of their own making to the point where they're no
30:36
Speaker 1: longer actually interacting with each other. It just shows that
30:40
Speaker 1: we need common ground, and common ground requires something solid,
30:44
Speaker 1: which means an affirmation of the limitations that are around us. Otherwise,
30:48
Speaker 1: we're just kind of in the void. And so while
30:51
Speaker 1: I think this game is right to say that we
30:55
Speaker 1: don't have this absolute freedom in the void, I think
30:58
Speaker 1: it's a little cynical toward the freedom that we do
31:02
Speaker 1: have to decide how we are relating to the world
31:05
Speaker 1: around us, where we're discovering, not creating, but where we
31:08
Speaker 1: are discovering the meaning that is in front of us.
31:11
Speaker 1: And of course, as we do so, that does play
31:13
Speaker 1: some part in shaping the story that we're interacting with.
31:16
Speaker 1: And if you believe that the meta story is unraveling
31:20
Speaker 1: around us has intrinsic meaning, well, then there is meaning
31:22
Speaker 1: in that. You're just not creating it. So it's doing
31:25
Speaker 1: some good things, but I just don't think it really
31:27
Speaker 1: knows where to go. Right.
31:31
Speaker 3: I do have a question about, I guess, sort of
31:34
Speaker 3: a deep philosophical type question about to throw out there
31:38
Speaker 3: about you look at Stanley's existence and quite frankly, with
31:43
Speaker 3: the narrator, whatever he is, because I don't think he
31:46
Speaker 3: is like a creator type. I think he's limited as
31:49
Speaker 3: well based on some of the endings and how he reacts.
31:53
Speaker 3: Is Stanley's life just a form of, like, hell? Could
31:56
Speaker 3: you define it as hell? Because there's the illusion of
31:59
Speaker 3: choice that seems to only end in some sort of catastrophe.
32:03
Speaker 3: I guess there's the ending where he does, like, escape,
32:06
Speaker 3: and that's the part that just sort of, where I
32:09
Speaker 3: agree it doesn't know what it wants to be, because
32:12
Speaker 3: to me, it is, I think, the game is a
32:14
Speaker 3: form of hell, because there is, despite you trying to
32:19
Speaker 3: strive upward, or do the right thing, it actually doesn't
32:22
Speaker 3: matter because you're being lied to in some way or another, right?
32:26
Speaker 3: So I'm curious what you guys think about that, if
32:29
Speaker 3: it's a stretch or not.
32:30
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe when the female meta narrator says
32:35
Speaker 1: that you've been dead from the beginning, it was like, literally,
32:38
Speaker 1: you're in the afterlife. I mean, it's a kind of hell.
32:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think they're going for a literal hell,
32:46
Speaker 1: but it is a kind of hell. especially in this
32:49
Speaker 1: Lewisian sense of you are isolated. Yes, you have this narrator,
32:55
Speaker 1: but in many ways, the narrator is some kind of
32:59
Speaker 1: extension of Stanley. As the other narrator says, they are
33:04
Speaker 1: tied together one way or another. And even if you escape,
33:08
Speaker 1: you're only escaping because you've relinquished your freedom. And then
33:11
Speaker 1: it's like, what are you? What have you accomplished? And so,
33:14
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's a kind of hell. I'm comfortable
33:16
Speaker 1: saying that. Give me thoughts on that, David.
33:18
Speaker 2: I mean, the loading screen says the end is never
33:22
Speaker 2: the end is never the end. And there is one
33:25
Speaker 2: ending where the narrator is just like, I found that
33:29
Speaker 2: we go to this great place and it's just kind
33:31
Speaker 2: of like a void with like pretty lights and calm music.
33:35
Speaker 2: And he's like, we just stay here and we can
33:37
Speaker 2: stop this whole cycle. And the only way to end
33:39
Speaker 2: that is just to kind of climb up the staircase
33:42
Speaker 2: while he's telling you not to and throw yourself off.
33:46
Speaker 2: And you have to do it repeatedly to You do
33:49
Speaker 2: like taking a half-life kind of damage when you hit
33:52
Speaker 2: the floor every time. That one I found particularly dark.
33:56
Speaker 2: But yeah, so at least on that path, there is
33:59
Speaker 2: the sense that like, there's only one way to break
34:02
Speaker 2: this cycle and we just stay here and don't ever leave.
34:07
Speaker 1: So what were your favorite endings? It doesn't have to
34:10
Speaker 1: be deep. It can just be that was cool. I
34:12
Speaker 1: don't know. I.
34:15
Speaker 1: Enjoyed for some reason. The one where instead of going
34:19
Speaker 1: up to the, your boss's office, you go down the
34:22
Speaker 1: stairs and you start going and it's like, it's, you
34:24
Speaker 1: recognize it's looping and then you just go into this
34:28
Speaker 1: like hallucinogenic fever dream, like floating around and you're seeing
34:32
Speaker 1: all these visions and then suddenly you're dead and like
34:36
Speaker 1: someone found you on the street. That's the end. I don't,
34:41
Speaker 1: I don't really have anything to say about that other
34:42
Speaker 1: than it was just kind of cool.
34:44
Speaker 2: Well, That actually kind of reminded me a little of
34:47
Speaker 2: Yvonne Illich, because it just starts talking about this woman
34:51
Speaker 2: who sees you laying dead in the street. And she's like, wow,
34:54
Speaker 2: he was crazy. I'm glad I'm not crazy. And then
34:58
Speaker 2: she remembers she's got a meeting to go to and
35:00
Speaker 2: she goes off to her meeting. Like for a moment,
35:03
Speaker 2: she contemplated sanity and the importance of having a sound mind.
35:07
Speaker 2: But then she had to go to work. So she
35:09
Speaker 2: just left and left Stanley dead in the street.
35:12
Speaker 1: Right, just like in Ivan Ilyich, they all had the
35:15
Speaker 1: same thought. You know, it's he that is dead and
35:17
Speaker 1: not me.
35:18
Speaker 3: Right.
35:18
Speaker 1: So it's going on with my life.
35:20
Speaker 2: Go off to play bridge.
35:22
Speaker 3: Right.
35:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. But that was a fun, I don't know about fun,
35:26
Speaker 2: but it was an interesting ending. There's one with the bucket.
35:31
Speaker 2: Did you ever pick up the bucket, Andrew?
35:34
Speaker 1: No, people have told me about this, but I still
35:35
Speaker 1: don't know what the bucket is.
35:37
Speaker 2: So you got, there's an even more interesting, I think
35:40
Speaker 2: if you go back by, there's like a neon sign
35:42
Speaker 2: telling you that it's like even more new content and
35:44
Speaker 2: you go in there and the narrator starts pitching you,
35:47
Speaker 2: this Ultra Deluxe stuff is stupid. We need a full sequel.
35:51
Speaker 2: And it's trying to make up what could make this
35:54
Speaker 2: game actually the Stanley Parable 2. And one of the
35:57
Speaker 2: things is to add this support bucket. It's very much
36:01
Speaker 2: like Portal with the companion cube, but you pick up
36:04
Speaker 2: the bucket and then you're just, the bucket is in
36:07
Speaker 2: the frame the whole rest of that run. And it changes...
36:11
Speaker 2: You can go to all the same places from in
36:13
Speaker 2: the vanilla version of the game, and it changes all
36:16
Speaker 2: of the endings related to the fact that you're carrying
36:19
Speaker 2: this bucket, this support bucket that is helping you feel
36:22
Speaker 2: more sure about your decisions and things. But at one point,
36:25
Speaker 2: you end up getting quizzed. Like, I'm worried about you
36:28
Speaker 2: at the bucket. I'm not sure you even understand what
36:30
Speaker 2: a bucket is. So it keeps parading these objects in
36:33
Speaker 2: front of you, and you have to say whether or
36:35
Speaker 2: not things are buckets or not. And there were a
36:37
Speaker 2: couple of things along there that... made me actually laugh.
36:40
Speaker 2: I don't really want to spoil it. But there were
36:42
Speaker 2: a few genuine laughs in the game. Sometimes things just
36:44
Speaker 2: go on a little over long and I'm like, can
36:46
Speaker 2: we get on to a new path? But for the
36:49
Speaker 2: most part, it hit pretty good.
36:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess my favorite ending, just because it struck
36:56
Speaker 3: me as very dark and how I view this game
36:58
Speaker 3: more as a dark game, even though it's very funny,
37:01
Speaker 3: is the one where you have to go to press
37:04
Speaker 3: the button and instead you press on instead of off.
37:08
Speaker 3: and the countdown begins, and there's all these buttons. I actually,
37:12
Speaker 3: this is how much the game messes with you, is
37:16
Speaker 3: I paused and looked up a walkthrough because there's all
37:20
Speaker 3: those buttons you can press, but they don't actually do anything.
37:23
Speaker 3: And it's really, like you said this earlier, it's so true,
37:26
Speaker 3: is that it disrespects the player's intuition because you're like, man,
37:32
Speaker 3: I know I probably missed something. ah, I bet if
37:35
Speaker 3: I did it again, what if there's a button I
37:37
Speaker 3: was supposed to press? And it kind of breaks all
37:40
Speaker 3: that down and just, it's very, yeah, it's just, it's
37:45
Speaker 3: a dark way to do it. And I think that
37:47
Speaker 3: it can't be overstated how many similarities I feel this
37:52
Speaker 3: game has with Portal because like the companion cube, the
37:56
Speaker 3: source engine, even the whole premise of the game feels,
37:59
Speaker 3: I mean, heck, you know, one of the endings, You
38:02
Speaker 3: even play Portal for like a minute. And I think
38:06
Speaker 3: that's smart because I think probably I assume a lot
38:10
Speaker 3: of people played this game after Portal came out or
38:13
Speaker 3: at least Portal 1 and like it plays with your
38:16
Speaker 3: expectations and that this narrator is sort of a higher
38:22
Speaker 3: up figure that has some sort of like extreme control
38:26
Speaker 3: and almost like a Gladys type way or even just
38:28
Speaker 3: how the whole game unfolds and I couldn't help but
38:33
Speaker 3: see the similarities and I think it's a good use
38:36
Speaker 3: of influence there. And I've said the same thing about Portal. Yeah,
38:41
Speaker 3: it's a puzzle game, but I think it's a very
38:44
Speaker 3: dark game in a subtle way most of the time.
38:47
Speaker 3: And that subtlety's been kind of... No one really quite
38:50
Speaker 3: did it like Valve. It's very easy to try and
38:54
Speaker 3: go for the big moments that shock you, but there's
38:58
Speaker 3: just a lot of restraint That's also, I think in
39:01
Speaker 3: this game, honestly, even though this game is ridiculous and
39:04
Speaker 3: kind of absurd, there's like, I think a lot of
39:07
Speaker 3: the main hallways, everything has, has a lot of detail
39:11
Speaker 3: in it. I think for a game that is meant
39:13
Speaker 3: to not have meaning in those main hallways, which I,
39:17
Speaker 3: I really appreciate that because something about that, like source engine,
39:22
Speaker 3: like I said, there's like an uncanny valley weirdness about it.
39:25
Speaker 3: It's like, you're in a bad dream and it's just
39:29
Speaker 3: kind of iconic in all the assets in there. There's
39:31
Speaker 3: something that's off. Even when I play Counter-Strike or something,
39:35
Speaker 3: it kind of freaks me out, and I think it
39:37
Speaker 3: serves this game perfectly. I can't imagine if they made
39:41
Speaker 3: this game today without... It's hard to imagine, almost. Would
39:45
Speaker 3: it have the same effect without that engine? Because I
39:47
Speaker 3: really think that that adds a lot, you know, there's
39:51
Speaker 3: just a subtlety about how like off everything is. And,
39:55
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes you'll load a file and this did
39:58
Speaker 3: it for me and there's papers all over the floor,
40:01
Speaker 3: you know, little things like that, that don't necessarily change
40:04
Speaker 3: the branch of the endings, but they do add the
40:08
Speaker 3: sort of flavor to the whole game that keeps you
40:11
Speaker 3: invested to go for the other endings. And I just,
40:15
Speaker 3: I really appreciate that. I think the, the influence with
40:17
Speaker 3: Portal and that source engine really is important for this one.
40:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does do a good job of being uncanny
40:26
Speaker 1: without feeling like horror, right? You get that uncanny feel.
40:30
Speaker 1: Just today, I stumbled into the ending where you're disobeying
40:35
Speaker 1: the narrator and he starts saying that there's some woman
40:38
Speaker 1: waiting for you and you need to make things right.
40:40
Speaker 1: You find that telephone that you have to answer and
40:43
Speaker 1: then suddenly you're like warped into this apartment where it
40:45
Speaker 1: sounds like your wife is talking to you, but the
40:47
Speaker 1: door opens and he says, no, no one could ever
40:49
Speaker 1: love you. It's just this mannequin. Yeah. That's creepy.
40:54
Speaker 3: Yeah.
40:55
Speaker 1: It was like, you have to keep pressing buttons as
40:57
Speaker 1: it slowly morphs back into your office. So dark and great. Yeah.
41:03
Speaker 2: And the apartment is so bleak and terrible too. Just
41:08
Speaker 2: this bed. And there's like a chair in front of
41:11
Speaker 2: the doorway into the bedroom. And yeah, it's, Yeah, that
41:15
Speaker 2: one is something else. And it keeps telling you to, like,
41:17
Speaker 2: press different buttons to tell your wife you love her
41:20
Speaker 2: and things like that. And it's just, yeah, it's pretty clever. Well, Max,
41:26
Speaker 2: were you playing, you weren't playing Ultra Deluxe?
41:30
Speaker 3: I did not, no, just the original.
41:33
Speaker 2: In this version, they had to change the games that
41:37
Speaker 2: you end up playing. You don't play a little Minecraft
41:40
Speaker 2: and a little Portal.
41:41
Speaker 1: Oh, really? Really?
41:42
Speaker 2: I think it's because Microsoft owns Minecraft now and they're
41:46
Speaker 2: not part of the source in this new one. So
41:49
Speaker 2: I won't spoil the two games that it switched to
41:51
Speaker 2: in this one, but there are two different games in
41:53
Speaker 2: the ultra deluxe.
41:55
Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah.
41:56
Speaker 3: I was just about to mention how, I don't know
41:59
Speaker 3: if I've ever heard of this happen in games before
42:02
Speaker 3: where they, they got approval from notch to use Minecraft
42:06
Speaker 3: when this game first came out and, That is something
42:09
Speaker 3: that you do not want spoiled for you because when
42:11
Speaker 3: I played this for the first time, I mean, that
42:13
Speaker 3: is like so ahead of its time in such a
42:17
Speaker 3: weird way, like how a game could get away with
42:20
Speaker 3: that or do that and make it fit in the storytelling.
42:24
Speaker 3: And yeah, that's just a cool thing. Oh yeah, one
42:30
Speaker 3: other quick thing is like, it's funny how the first
42:33
Speaker 3: episode I was on was about Truman Show and how
42:36
Speaker 3: much I... I see some overlap with that a little bit,
42:41
Speaker 3: I guess, almost like the, especially when you go into
42:43
Speaker 3: that big room, it's like that X-Men room with all
42:46
Speaker 3: those TVs. It's like that giant room. It's like felt
42:50
Speaker 3: very kind of big brother ish or, you know, Truman show.
42:55
Speaker 1: And of course the question still remains, even if you
42:58
Speaker 1: make it outside, are you still part of the system
43:01
Speaker 1: or is that true, true freedom? Of course it's an
43:04
Speaker 1: unanswered question. You know, the end is never the end.
43:08
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
43:08
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Well, I guess as we start to approach the end,
43:12
Speaker 1: I think we've more or less exhausted the substance here.
43:16
Speaker 1: Would you say that approaching video games as art, which
43:21
Speaker 1: is what we're doing with Mythic Mind Games in treating
43:23
Speaker 1: them seriously and looking at the artistic value they have
43:26
Speaker 1: in them, would you say that this game is good
43:30
Speaker 1: on an artistic level? I'll let you take that however
43:33
Speaker 1: you want to, and I'll give my answer.
43:35
Speaker 3: I think so, yeah. I think there is sort of
43:39
Speaker 3: a thing in any kind of art form, you know,
43:43
Speaker 3: you see this in music and where it's almost like
43:46
Speaker 3: there's an obvious attempt to subvert your expectations and like
43:51
Speaker 3: pull the rug from underneath you. And sometimes that can
43:54
Speaker 3: come off sort of pretentious or like you roll your
43:58
Speaker 3: eyes like, okay, I'm not actually doing anything in this game.
44:00
Speaker 3: I'm just walking around. But I think for the reasons
44:04
Speaker 3: we discussed, especially regarding like what agency means and, and
44:10
Speaker 3: sort of forcing you to ask these questions and the,
44:14
Speaker 3: the meta aspect about video games design. I think that
44:18
Speaker 3: it is, has artistic value there. I just think that
44:22
Speaker 3: there can't be a lot of these types of games
44:24
Speaker 3: because when there are a lot of them, you almost
44:26
Speaker 3: have this, this modern art effect where it's like, well,
44:30
Speaker 3: the meaning gets lost in something fundamental and real. And like,
44:35
Speaker 3: if you had too many of these games, I think
44:37
Speaker 3: it would kind of devolve into cynicism and almost even
44:43
Speaker 3: further from there, you know, if it gets like nihilistic
44:45
Speaker 3: or whatever, but it's every once in a while you
44:48
Speaker 3: need this sort of game or song or movie to
44:50
Speaker 3: sort of have the meta conversation and then you move on.
44:55
Speaker 3: And that's what I like about this game. It's only
44:57
Speaker 3: a couple hours. It's clever.
45:00
Speaker 1: It's funny.
45:01
Speaker 3: And I think, for the grounds of the writing and
45:05
Speaker 3: the concept alone, it gets sort of a good grade
45:09
Speaker 3: for me on that, on your question, I think.
45:12
Speaker 1: What do you think, David?
45:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's definitely a piece of art. It's
45:16
Speaker 2: almost like a museum exhibit. And it's the kind of
45:20
Speaker 2: thing that I know a huge group of gamers would
45:24
Speaker 2: just absolutely hate, you know, because it's just not for them.
45:27
Speaker 2: But it's, yeah, it's trying to get you to think...
45:31
Speaker 2: in a certain way, about gaming and what we like
45:35
Speaker 2: about games and what games ask of us and the
45:38
Speaker 2: choices that we make. And it's also just a fun
45:41
Speaker 2: little experiment in branching paths and just seeing where things
45:46
Speaker 2: lead you. So yeah, like Max said, it doesn't really
45:49
Speaker 2: overstay its welcome. You just kind of quit when you're done.
45:53
Speaker 2: The end is not the end, so you just eventually
45:56
Speaker 2: have to stop. Also, there's a trophy for stopping for
45:59
Speaker 2: quitting it and starting it again. So yeah, I, I,
46:03
Speaker 2: I love when people try to do weird things with gaming.
46:09
Speaker 1: I do appreciate how the game engages with you, whether
46:12
Speaker 1: it be through some of the achievements or when I
46:15
Speaker 1: was playing today, I set the clock and it thanked
46:18
Speaker 1: me for taking the time. It says, most people don't
46:19
Speaker 1: do that. You know, next time send it to whatever
46:22
Speaker 1: you want. So it's kind of fun. But as far
46:25
Speaker 1: as the question, is it art? I think, Because so
46:28
Speaker 1: much of this game is critiquing video games and the
46:32
Speaker 1: video game industry, I think I would approach it more
46:35
Speaker 1: as kind of like art criticism versus art proper. In that,
46:40
Speaker 1: like Tolkien, for example, Tolkien says that a good fairy
46:43
Speaker 1: story can never make fun of its own magic. It
46:45
Speaker 1: has to take itself seriously to be a fairy story.
46:47
Speaker 1: And so I think I would approach this game not
46:50
Speaker 1: so much as art, but as... the equivalent of literary criticism,
46:56
Speaker 1: that we're engaging with the field, talking about the field
46:59
Speaker 1: rather than being its own thing. And so, you know,
47:02
Speaker 1: and that can have an artistic quality to it. But
47:05
Speaker 1: I think I'm more comfortable calling this a criticism, which, yeah,
47:08
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I frame it in literary language.
47:12
Speaker 2: I think that's fair because the premise to the game
47:16
Speaker 2: is really kind of flimsy. But it's just kind of
47:18
Speaker 2: a pretense for everything that happens while you're playing. Like
47:21
Speaker 2: you said, if you do exactly what the narrator says,
47:24
Speaker 2: you get a very short, very droll, sort of a
47:28
Speaker 2: mundane story to live happily ever after. And then it
47:31
Speaker 2: just starts back over. And then you start trying to
47:34
Speaker 2: do things more interesting. But yeah, I think that's fair.
47:38
Speaker 2: It's kind of an experiment that gets you to think
47:40
Speaker 2: about gaming in general.
47:42
Speaker 3: Right.
47:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
47:44
Speaker 3: It's good.
47:44
Speaker 1: I enjoy it in a Whenever you enjoy this game,
47:49
Speaker 1: I feel like it's some kind of dark enjoyment. I mean,
47:53
Speaker 1: most of the paths are going to lead to you dying.
47:55
Speaker 1: And as you said, even the one where you don't die,
47:56
Speaker 1: it's not very satisfying. And so the enjoyment is always
47:59
Speaker 1: kind of on this dark level. But I think sometimes
48:01
Speaker 1: we need that to get outside of our normal desire
48:06
Speaker 1: for you know, fantasy and escape. And sometimes you need
48:09
Speaker 1: to realize there is no escape. We need some healthy
48:13
Speaker 1: limitations put upon us in order to more fully discover
48:16
Speaker 1: who it is that we are and what it is
48:18
Speaker 1: that we're doing in this world. Yeah, so I enjoy
48:20
Speaker 1: this game overall. If you have anything else that you
48:22
Speaker 1: wanted to mention. All right. So that concludes our conversation
48:27
Speaker 1: of the Stanley Parable. And next time we are doing
48:31
Speaker 1: To the Moon, which I have not played. So I
48:33
Speaker 1: look forward to getting into that. I'll talk to you
48:35
Speaker 1: next time. Thank you for listening to Mythic Mind Games.
48:39
Speaker 1: You can join us for the next conversation by becoming
48:41
Speaker 1: a member over at MythicMindFellowship.com. I hope to see you there.