The Stanley Parable

I can hardly put into words how much I adore this game. It's rare for a piece of art so thoroughly make use of what only this medium allows you to do – and to do so in a way that feels effortless despite how meticulously it is put together. It took me a while to actually fall in love with it, though: All the way back in 2019 I gave it a go after hearing all the praise – I got through it relatively quickly and felt like I was missing something. I did realize that there was more to it than first meets the eye even back then, but it didn't [i]click[/i] yet. And so I wasn't very motivated to spend much more time with it. After enough time had passed that I was in the mood to revisit it, I "could" not do so – 2019 was well before I had decided to try and 100% every game I play. With so much time since I had first tried the game, I was now well underway to the infamous "Go outside" (having a five [i]year[/i] break between launching the game). So I kept waiting until 2024 – and while I had gotten a renewed curiosity about the game itself through the years, my main motivation was mostly just to complete the achievements. Doing so naturally required me to encounter almost everything the game had to offer, and by the time I was done with everything I was completely obsessed. I almost forced some of my friends to play it as well because I just [i]needed[/i] to talk to someone about this experience. (Yes, I felt a bit like [url=https://xkcd.com/606/]this xkcd[/url].) It goes so far beyond what you initially suspect, it is so well written and voice-acted, it plays so amazingly with the constraints and rules of the medium and genres. An absolute delight – experiences like this are what makes life worth living.