This is the story of a man named Stanley.
Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee #427. Employee #427's job was simple. He sat at his desk in Room #427 and pressed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order. This is what Employee #427 did every day, of every month, of every year. And although others might have considered it soul-wrenching, Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for this job.
And Stanley was happy.
The Stanley Parable
Original Story by Davey Wreden
Novelization by the Poor Sap Advocate
Chapter 1
And then one day something very peculiar happened. Something that would forever change Stanley. Something he would never quite forget. He had been at his desk for an hour when he realized that not one, single, order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow. No one had shown up at his desk to give him orders, call a meeting, or simply say hi. Never in all his years at the company had this happened, this complete isolation. Something was very clearly wrong. Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself unable to move for the longest time. But as he came to his wits and regained his senses, he got up from his desk and stepped out of his office.
All of his coworkers were gone. What could it mean? Stanley decided to go to the meeting room. Perhaps he had simply missed a memo.
When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he opened the door on his...oh. On his right.
This was not the way to the meeting room, and Stanley knew that full well. Perhaps he wanted t stop by the employee lounge first, just to admire it.
Ah yes. The coveted employee lounge. Truly a room worth admiring. It had really been worth the detour after all, just to spend a few moments here in this immaculate, beautifully constructed room. But eager to get back to business, Stanley too the first open door on his...oh, no wait a second. He detoured through the maintenance section, walked straight ahead to the opposite door, and got back on track.
Or he got onto the elevator and into the basement. Because Stanley didn't want back to the office, he wanted to wander about and get even further off track. So now in order to get back he needed to go um...uh...from here it's um...left.
Stanley started to go to the left, but oh, no. No. It was to the right. My mistake.
Stanley started to go to the right—no! Not the right! Why would I ever say it was to the right!
It's clearly...oh dear, would you hold on for a moment, please? Now let's see...we went, um, right, left, down, left, right...Ah yes! Okay, okay, yes! The story is absolutely, definitely, directly behind Stanley.
So Stanley took a few steps backwards and walked through the lower levels of the building. He found himself entering a dark hallway. Eventually, the hard cement turned to metal catwalk, and the path began to wind down Stanley found himself overlooking a large room comprised of a set of screens and-
No! No no no no no! This isn't right! You're not supposed to be here yet! This is all a spoiler! Quick, Stanley, close your eyes! Hit the page down button on your keyboards!
Okay, okay, we just need to get back to, um...oh, who am I kidding? It's all rubbish now. This whole story; completely unusable. How about rather than wasting my time trying to salvage this nonsense, we;ll just restart the story from the beginning. And this time, suppose we don't wander so far off-track, hm, Stanley?
Okay, from the top!
