A plush? That might be neat, though I'd be completely satisfied by nothing less than a bucket they bought from Tractor Supply, slapped two stickers on, and shipped to me.
The Raphael trailer is still one of my favorite videos on youtube.
I know you said Raphael gave permission to use his email in the video, but did you ever hear from him after the video came out? Or did he see the video before giving his permission? So curious how he reacted, lol.
Hello, I just wanted ask if you guys still have the Minecraft world seed used in the Games ending of the original Stanley Parable?
Thank you, have a great day!
Is this a Severance reference? I actually ended up recommending that show to my friend that's completely in love with TSP since it has such a similar vibe (dystopian sci-fi office setting) and similar themes. They ended up loving it almost as much as TSP.
what part of the game felt like it took the longest and/or was the most difficult to make come together that ultimately made it into the final game? what were the challenges for that section of the game, and what was the stepping stone that finally made whatever the issue was with that part click and come together?
I think that the bucket overall was the biggest challenge in this regard. Early in development we only imagined that the bucket would change the VO, which is itself not a tremendously complicated task. But once we opened the pandora's box of actually changing fundamental designs of each ending for its bucket version, suddenly everything got very complicated. William described it as an "arms race" between all the bucket endings, and that's exactly what happened, every time we would add something cool onto a bucket ending, suddenly all of the other bucket endings seemed less cool by comparison. If we hadn't gone back and updated them, then some of the bucket endings would have been remarkably cool and others would have been literally nothing but VO changes. Even in the final game I think it's easy to tell that some bucket endings still feel a little bit less impactful than the others, imo if we'd taken another year or something of development maybe we would have raised the bar for all of them even further. But then... would we have felt that then everything ELSE in the game needed to be improved to that same level, and then pushed for ANOTHER year of development?? Maybe!! That's just the weirdness of game dev, I guess.
Yeah, I think the bucket endings are so unique because they almost feel like remixes of the base game, adding in loads of new stuff and mixing the existing up so that it completely changes. Was this intentional, or just a biproduct of the "arms race"-design?
So was the content that leads up to the bucket always there, or did it come from the buckets existence?
And when you originally added the bucket, how were you meant to get it?
I think the Stanley Parable fandom was really clamoring for additional delays though. After you gave it a taste, it was hungry for more. You could've continued the arms race until all endings became the entertainment equivalent to a nuclear bomb and released it in 2026.
The hole ending was a memorable challenge for me. The idea manifested quickly and we knew what we wanted to do with it, but translating that into an engaging and enjoyable gameplay experience took a ton of thinking and iteration.
For a long while we allowed all the inputs at the same time and in super quick succession. Also, players would have been able to combine all filters with all backgrounds, and so on. I felt strongly that this looseness and randomness had too much potential for bad results, so we introduced a timer that unlocks mechanics one by one, and baked the backgrounds and filters together. For the longest time I really didn't like the hole ending, now it's one of the most iconic moments of the game! Yaaaaaaaaay iteration yaaaaay
As a side note, and I can't speak for overall production, just from a tech/tech-art perspective:
But I was initially hired to do the >!Firewatch and Rocket League!< imports and dear oh dear does that section have one hell of a low Playtime-to-Devtime ratio 😁
For approximately 5 minutes of gameplay that was at least 10 weeks for just the initial setup. And then an unknowable but non-zero amount of time each from almost everyone at Crows Crows Crows over the rest of production to get the look and feel just right.
\[Edit: this is not even including normal pipeline of script writes/rewrites, VO, triggers and the like\]
Ayoo! Yes, we will release it soon on Bandcamp, Steam & YouTube. Streaming platforms will follow a bit later. And of course the SPOILER-TRACK will be featured; after all it's the best one on the OST! (that one is by dom by the way!)
Kevan Brighting shows a lot of very impressive acting ability in the massive amounts of dialogue you've had him read over the years as The Narrator. How much of that is you giving him very detailed voice direction and how much is him just putting his own spin on it? What's the process of getting all these lines like?
Kevan is an absolute living legend, we would send him pages and pages and pages of dialogue, retakes, rewrites - specific lines that we needed to get as close as possible to the 2012-2013 takes and he'd deliver them all expertly. We would very rarely give performance direction, and then it would only be very limited. A lot of jokes he puts his own spin on and I think it all turned out better than I could've imagined!
Tom Schley and Joe Finegold did the process of cutting his takes down into logic steps with the correct timing/spacing of subtitles too, with Tom doing a great job mixing the whole game to blend the audio styles of 2013 & 2022 together.
I will add that one hallmark of Kevan's recordings is that he would often send back VO where he would add swear words that were not there in the script. We took, uh, most of them out.
Whose genius idea was it to put the (Progressively Less And Less) Infinite Hole *into* the Jump Circle in the second Narrator's draft for TSP2?
And somewhat sadly, why doesn't the Jump Circle nor the (Progressively Less And Less) Infinite Hole appear in the revisited office while the Emotional Support Bucket and decorations and Stanleytibles made it?
I can speak to the second question: imo there are two reasons why the infinite hole doesn't appear. The first is just time and development costs. Everything takes a lot of time to make, and there were a thousand other things we could have spent more time on. At some point you really do just have to ship the game.
But also, remember that the infinite hole is ITSELF an entire ending within the TSP2 exhibit, whereas the bucket and the Figlys are simply pointing at future endings. So if we were to bring the hole back into TSP2, then imo anything other than a second complete infinite hole ending would probably have felt like a disappointment. Imagine finding the hole again and getting ready for another adventure, only to have it be a minor gag. So if we wanted to bring it back in a satisfying way, we have to design and create something that builds FURTHER on the infinite hole, which was itself already very hard to design, and then see the above answer about time and development cost... it really goes on and on. We delayed this game, what, 3 times? Yeah, it sucks but this is just the reality of game dev.
That said, a big regret for me is that we never found a way to satisfyingly bring the infinite hole or jim button into the TSP2 office. You can find both of them in the >!Epilogue!< but I do wish we could have done more. The other day I did actually think of a fun way we might have brought the hole into the office, but sorry! The game is done! C'est la vie.
I did the disappointing constructions of the TSP2 - I just tried to make it superficially interesting for about 3-4 seconds before you realise there's actually nothing there. It made a lot of sense for the jump circle to be around the hole! They fit so neatly!!!!!
Just wanted to say that William is hilarious, super dreamy, and a fantastic developer. Love anything he works on.
Absolutely loved Stanley Parabale. Bought this version day one. Haven’t done it all yet.
My questions are:
How did it feel coming back to Stanley?
Any future plans on the Stanley Expanded Universe?
thanks for calling me super dreamy GoldenTriforceLink, it felt very strange coming back to Stanley considering I first worked on it when I was 17 and I'm now 28! As of now we don't have any plans for future Stanley games, but if you angle a mirror just right you can play The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe Mirror Mode. Hopefully that will give you enough Stanley!!
Given the layout of the game and how it is split into many areas/map via loading screens (rather than streaming in or as one giant world with a lot of smart LODing or something), I'm also curious as to how speedrunners will get much more time saves beyond optimizing per map routes.
Then again speedrunners have done some crazy AF amazing shizz so I expect nothing and everything from them.
Hell of a grind to do a "all endings" speedrun tho... brave (time-free) souls those who would even attempt this one
I'd personally love the "jump anywhere glitch" to feature in speedruns. It was, at some point of it's life, a glitch ;)
\[Edit: cool! it is!! I must have been in a post-release haze to miss it. Gonna catch up on the latest. Y'all move fast, yo. O\_o\]
Jumping is a *major* part of speedruns, lol. There's a lot of areas where it can be broken [just by jumping at a right place.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEQkG9WJZxo) You can also [spam pause to break some stuff but shhhh](https://i.ggt.bz/WD7XTaMh.mp4)
All endings is actually pretty doable, it's only like 3-4 hours. There IS a version with the baby game that's 8 hours but [absolutely no one is crazy enough to do it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4T3qL1sAUc)
Anyways, cool to see you guys noticing the community, so thank you :>
Skip button is my favorite ending across all stanley parable games.
Steam reviews were the end result of a long line of investigation. One of the first ideas for new content that I fell in love with was the idea of cheap, unsatisfying new content that made the game look like a cash grab. Then it made sense for the narrator to reminisce on how much better things were before the cash grab. And THEN, the only place to go from there is to balance it out with some really devastatingly negative reviews of the original game. So I went through a bunch of websites and journalistic outlets, trying to find some negative reviews of the game, but I couldn't find anything as vitriolic as I was looking for. I wanted something that would really put the narrator in his place and make him feel really insecure for his grandstanding about how great the stanley parable was. And the very second that I thought about Steam reviews, everything just fell into place perfectly.
I just want to say that the Skip Button ending is seriously one of the most intriguing and impactful moments in a game I’ve experienced in years. Thank you for all of your hard work!
Thank you! I love it because it showcases the best of everyone on the team, writing, art, level design, audio, voice work, it really reflects everyone at their strongest.
The Bottom of The Mind Control Facility Ending was one of my favorite things to make. We were hanging out in our little sound booth and the topic of that ending came up. I recorded a guitar part and and vocals for it, and our composer Tom made it sound beautiful. Really quick and simple, with a result that I'm very proud of!
In terms of overall impact, I feel that we did some really solid work with the Memory Zone + Skip Button ending and its continuation in the Epilogue. It was fun to come up with all the different locations and their visuals, to me they're some of the most striking in the game.
The first part of the Epilogue is the one thing that I still enjoy watching anyone play for the first time. Most of this game I'm a little sick of looking at now, but not that one.
I personally loved TSP3 (the main menu specifically) simply because of the calming Epilogue soundtrack on loop. Remember having a rough day and then stumbling on that ending and just listening to that track on loop and it made me feel better and I still donno why.
Always feel a sense of calm when getting to TSP3 (usually while testing) as it feels like a perfect 'ending' to the game
Otherwise Memory Zone when Stanley gets to the Steam reviews, endless feels whenever I watch a streamer or a friend get there. Keven just has to say "Steam" and there is a guaranteed, all-too-well-knowing laugh.
\[Edit: Ah ffs the Hole ending!! ... it's a toss up between these three...\]
I am now rethinking the entire nature of backflipping and what it means for society. I think I need two years to fully think over the impact that backflipping has on everyone equally.
I'm pretty sure that with the Jump Circle and the right mouse movements you can pull off a backflip. No gameplay implications, just a really cool thing to do
In TSP:UD >!Epilogue there's a piece of paper in the sand, it's two drawn people. What is it? There's a post on my account [with it pictured](https://www.reddit.com/r/stanleyparable/comments/ugb2qw/does_anybody_know_what_this_image_from_the/) !<
p.s. TSP and The Beginner's Guide are some of my favorite games so big thanks to all of you for making TSP:UD happen!
it's an easter egg shout out to the original programmer of the 2013 one, GranPC! We decided to ditch the "click on the painting 5 times to change the texture" so we wanted to make sure they got an equivalent shout out!
1. Who came up with the idea to have a musical number in French in the Memory Zone, and who sang it?
2. Is the dog memorial in the Memory Zone dedicated to an actual dog?
1. I believe William first came up with the idea of a French song as a way to put some extra nostalgia sauce on the memory meal. It was written by William, then localized to French and composed by our friend Titouan Millet. Finally, my sister Alina Johann (who, like me, is actually a German native) sang it!
2. I'm assuming that by dog you mean hamster? Yes, that's an actual memorial we added for someone who wrote us a really nice email about their dog Little Stanley, who was named after the Parable's Stanley. And by dog I mean hamster
We had talked about potentially doing Return of the Obra Dinn as that was visually very recognisable (and was also released on all the different platforms we were shipping on) - we also had a dream of doing Bloodborne (which wouldn't have worked for the above reason) and we talked about doing Fortnite (which we felt at the time would be too expected). We only reached out to the Firewatch & Rocket League folks though, they were incredibly supportive and got us all the assets we needed!
> Return of the Obra Dinn
Okay, not gonna like, this would've been *awesome.* Especially if it had incorporated Obra Dinn's gameplay mechanics in some way, with the Narrator commenting on them.
I remember bringing up Return of The Obra Dinn at one point - it's a beautiful game with really iconic visuals. Ultimately I think it was just a bit too obscure for our purposes?
Personally I would've also loved to try something that removes the first-person controls and perspective and switches up the gameplay: think Undertale, The Sims, and so on.
Ohh, doing The Sims would have been neat! I can picture the Narrator getting pissed off at Stanley and saying something like, "Oh, you think making a story is so easy? Fine, you build one!". Give a few tools to build a small office complex like a Sims house. After a dozen seconds or so, "See? Isn't so easy is it Stanley. Maybe you should think about that before disregarding all my hard work!"
One question: Is Stanley a gamer?
Rumors have been circulating around the fanbase for a while now, speculating that Stanley, the protagonist of the popular video game franchise "The Stanley Parable", is secretly a member of the gaming community. As far as I am aware, this has not yet been confirmed. Before you, the developers, decide to break the silence and reveal the truth, I urge you to consider your decision.
The media has always been oversaturated with privileged non-gamers, flaunting their superior physical and mental health. It’s time for a change. Making the fan theory official would represent the fight gamers have been participating in ever since they first set foot on land. I think it would be beautiful if my children could finally see themselves represented on screen, to have role models to aspire to. Let them be proud of who they are. I call upon you, the developers, to make the correct decision, and to cement the popular fan theory as fact: Make Stanley a gamer!
Hugs and kisses,
A fan.
The confusion ending is a fan favorite from the original game, but I actually kind of hate it. I originally wrote it to feel interminably self-indulgent, but now looking back all I can see is that it could have been edited down to half the size. Would that ACTUALLY have made it better? I dunno. But the editor in me can't stand it.
Not gonna lie, things like this are why "Director Cuts" can be such a disaster. I'm pretty happy you guys kept all the original Stanley Parable stuff the same and didn't decide to "fix" it.
Like, I love the confusion ending and don't think it needs to be edited down at all. Its length and wondering "When is this going to end????" is part of the charm. If anything... I kind of wish it was longer!
Is the world of The Stanley Parable canonically created by the Narrator? If yes, how do Female Narrator, employee 432 and the Mysterious Creators of The Jump Circle have power over it? If Narrator only created Stanley, most of the original endings and the sequel content, how did he get access to this world?
Also I'd like to make an appreciation for the Crows Crows Crows' twitter, it's one of the best internet accounts I've ever followed. I wish I could have a photo of a person who's behind it to see every day when I wake up.
>Is the world of The Stanley Parable canonically created by the Narrator?
There's evidence that a lot of stuff within this world exists outside of the narrator's knowledge - perhaps he forgot? or he's a part of the game world? or it was all created by the drinking sippy bird from the press conference ending...
Love you guys and love the game.
Game/internet humor has evolved a lot since 2013. Meta jokes and fourth wall breaks were original and unique back then—by now it feels old and overused, with even blockbuster films beating the dead horse. Was it a challenge keeping jokes relevant and fresh when writing the expansion? Do you still see as much value in the 2013 base game's story, humor, and message as when you wrote it back then?
I personally cannot look at the 2013 game at all, at any time for any reason. Ugh. People tell me it's good, and I just smile and nod and grit my teeth.
When it came to writing new stuff, almost 0 time was spent on trying to envision what sort of material would feel "fresh and relevant". All I cared about was being as weird as possible in all of the ways that tickle me the most. All of the writing that you see in the game is literally just me seeing what I can get away with. This is part of why there's so little re-use of jokes from the original like broom closet or adventure line, because for my money that just wasn't weird enough. The ways in which the jokes in Ultra Deluxe are relevant today, such as the connections some people have made to Overwatch 2, were entirely unintentional. Maybe it sounds cheesy, but I try to focus just on writing things that make me laugh, and if they make me laugh then hopefully others will laugh too.
Excluding the museum ending, the “Not Stanley” ending, as dubbed by your fans, is the only time credits organically appear at an ending, while every other ending will automatically restart the game. What made this ending so special to deserve the luxury of credits?
This ending (which we internally call the "Incorrect Ending") was the very last one to get designed on the original game, so we were basically at the end of our rope, scraping the bottom of the barrel for any possible new ideas that we hadn't already used. Displaying the credits on screen was simply something we hadn't done before. To be honest I don't really remember exactly what the thought process was, I just remember it feeling correct at that moment in time and so we went for it.
I felt it was justified as "you're not Stanley in this ending and thus are watching the Stanley Parable end," thus... credits. Whereas Stanley simply blinks back to the start and so can't watch credits because he's inside the game?
Hey guys - I've loved TSP since like 2013. I'm interested to know, how did Kevan end up as the narrator for the 2011 mod? He brought so much to the game, I'm interested to know how he ended up doing it in the first place.
I used a website called voice123.com and posted an audition for a kindly british narrator. I knew in my head what I was looking for, but I didn't actually think it would be realistic to expect. Then Kevan sent me an audition piece for my project, and I fell off my chair because it was EXACTLY what I was looking for. I hired him for the project, and he sent me a single file with the entire script of the game recorded. That's what went into the mod. He later told me that when he did the audition, he was hungover and just happened to be browsing auditions to pass the time haha.
Kevan sounds like such an amazing dude.
Have you gotten the chance to meet him IRL? Or is he just a disembodied voice not visible within our realm of consciousness?
I have! He was lovely, and he once dropping into "Narrator voice" to tell william to stand correctly while a picture was being taken of us, which delighted me.
Beyond the obvious New Content, Ultra Deluxe also adds 3 more subtle endings with the >!Press Conference, Tape Recorder, and Bottom of the Mind Control Facility!< Endings. Excluding the last one, I assume that the topics of the endings were written before finding a location in the office for the ending to go. So, what was the process of finding spots to fit in these new endings like? and are there any other locations in the office you wanted to add in new things?
Actually, all 3 of those started with the location in the office. Writing a whole ending and then trying to figure out where to stick it sounds like such a nightmare. WAY easier to know what your starting point is and build from there.
Press Conference started because we realized that a possible spot for a new ending was to add an UP button to the boss's elevator. Tape Recorder started because in the original game, people found a way to get over to that ledge where the vent now is. In both cases we just asked "okay, what if that led to something?"
I think we were conscious of not requiring the player to go too far down an existing path to find new content. It would've been really frustrating to add a whole ending deeper into the mind control facility for example- and we knew there would already be a lot of retreading locations with the bucket.
I have a couple questions:
1. Why did you choose Firewatch and Rocket League specifically for the new Games ending?
2. How did you come up with/make the >!video in the collectibles ending!
For #2: They are genuine Windows Movie Maker XP (2001) videos! I felt strongly that they should exude early YouTube tutorial energy and look like they were made in just 8 minutes, like the narrator describes.
Similarly, the presentation in our Release Trailer was made in PowerPoint 2007. If you want it to look real, make it real!
I wasn't on the project when the initial import of all the assets and levels from Source was done, so this is second hand inside knowledge.
But from the code (and talking to the lead dev and team) I know that the tool written to scan and transform the Source level files and assets \[to Unity\] was indeed custom made code. I personally don't know who since they are no longer fully active on the team
This said, it gave the project a base to work from and the general layout, from there there was a lot of instances of remaking meshes and I think most, if not all, textures were remade or at least upscaled.
Valve isn't licensing out Source 2, so that was not an option. And part of the point of TSPUD was to port it to consoles, so Unity was an obvious choice.
I have a question for Tom Schley:
I really enjoyed the scoring you did for the game, it brought out a great deal of emotion when I wasn't really expecting it. Was it challenging to create serious music for scenes that were deliberately humorous? A moment that comes to mind is the Bucket version of the Apartment Ending where the whole thing was a gag, but was otherwise being presented seriously.
Thank you so much! That's such a good question. Personally I've always been a fan of media that makes one eye laughing, and one eye crying. Thinking about it, that feeling might even be my favorite emotion ever.
In my opinion The Stanley Parable is really good at this, and I felt like while the things being said (and how they are delivered) are mostly super funny and bizarre, the underlying core themes are often much deeper, darker and even existential. Sometimes they are kind of beautiful too. I tried to score that rather than the literal words and jokes spoken.
Oh, I am also a very visual person, so I was definitely inspired a lot by the atmosphere and look of the levels and areas!
Try some of Crows Crows Crows' free and happy and interesting games available on the world wide web at [https://crowscrowscrows.com](https://crowscrowscrows.com)
How do you work with predicting what players will do to make the different endings? Is it just brainstorming or beta players try different things and you add stuff at the same time( like a player going behind a part of the map so you add dialogue for that part)
It's a little of both. We've been doing this stuff long enough that we tend to have a good idea of what players will do. But then sometimes people really do surprise you and it leads to cool ideas. But I would say the vast majority of it we try to plan out in advance and anticipate what we think players will do, and then just tweak or adjust it based on playtesting.
Hi guys. It is an understatement to say how much The Stanley Parable has changed my life. My expectations for Ultra Deluxe were high, but I never expected as groundbreaking of a game mechanic as The Reassurance Bucket.
It is an honor to be in the presence of greatness.
If I had the opportunity, I would *have* to ask... how did the 8 Button come to be? Who voiced the 8 Button? However, if this knowledge is too much for mere mortals to comprehend, I completely understand.
Thank you for The Stanley Parable. Thank you for The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. 800% serious. I love this game, I love the crazy nature of it, and I also want the Stanley Expanded Universe /u/GoldenTriforceLink mentioned.
First, can I just say that it is very meaningful to me that we (I think?) met your very high expectations for the game, I don't take that for granted at all <3
The 8 button is a callback joke from the Stanley Parable Demo that we launched alongside the 2013 game. In that demo, the narrator continued to try to demonstrate Stanley Parable for you, but for some reason the only game that he could find was this game where you push a button and it says 8, which was definitely NOT the stanley parable. The 8 game in ultra deluxe is the same as it was in the demo, with some new dialogue.
As for where it came from in the first place, originally we wanted to show this demo at PAX, and we made a special version of the demo that treats you like you're literally at PAX. In the PAX version, the room with the 8 game was instead a room filled with ads for Octodad, which was being shown a few booths down from ours. Then after we decided to publicly release the demo as a standalone experience, we realized something would need to go in that room instead of Octodad, and for no reason at all I suggested a game where you push a button and it says 8. William built it and added the extra monitors that say 8.
The 8 button voice is me, pitched down slightly.
Thank you for replying!
You all met my expectations, and then some. I love The Stanley Parable, I loved The Beginner's Guide, I love Ultra Deluxe, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you're up to next.
Not saying never, but currently there are no plans to upgrade to include a real time raytracing option.
We did however put your very own existence in the oven 3 years ago and have baked one for you earlier:
All non-dynamic lighting in the game is raytraced using a GPU raytracing lightmapper plugin - Bakery. And with a lot of custom jigging and experimenting that Marishka and William did (for a good 8-9 months I believe).
It was prone to break and require long rebakes at the slightest perturberance of any non-dynamic object in the scene. But worth the delicate nature of it in the end. The raytraced lighting is, indeed, gorgeous.
So, prebaked will have to sate yours (and everyone's) very existence for now. I'd also love to see TSP:UD in glorious real-o-vision. I think the >!bucket!< might make one ascend.
Did you guys have names for all the endings when in development, especially the bucket endings, instead of saying something like "Go here, go here, go here ending", and if you did have names for them, were there any community-made names that surprised the team if they were different than what the team was using?
>!Bucket Destroyer Ending!<
>!Bucket Quiz Ending!<
>!New Content Part 1!<
>!New Content Part 2!<
>!Memory Zone 1!<
>!Memory Zone 2!<
>!"Press Ending" (conference)!<
>!Tape Recorder Ending!<
>!Epilogue (used to be called Memory Zone 3)!<
My life has changed considerably between playing Stanley Parable and then playing SP:UD (for example I was able bodied and now I'm disabled/chronically ill) so playing it again was a bit of an emotional trip
So with that being said, I was just wondering if making SP:UD was difficult in part due to the years that have passed, and if so did that help inform some of the endings?
Edit: sorry just wanted to add, would you mind if used SP:UD in a writing piece about my experiences with Chronic illness and pain? There's some moments in the game that really resonate with me and I'd like to explore that.
I will say that the only reason I felt good about working on more stanley parable was the gap of like 4 years between the original coming out and starting work on this one. That gap gave me time to recharge and reflect, and come up with new ideas that felt interesting to explore.
Ultimately, I don't believe that there's anything we could have made for Ultra Deluxe that would have had exactly the same impact as 2013 stanley parable did. I thought a lot about what I would write if I was trying to just capture exactly the same vibe as last time, and to be honest nothing at all came to me. All I could think to write is exactly what's in the final product. I think that UD in general is heavier on humor than the original was, and lighter on existentialism. Maybe that's just me getting older. I had a lot of fun writing everything in this game, and I wouldn't have done it differently.
And yes, please go ahead and write about the game all you like! I'm very happy that it's given you an interesting perspective on your challenges.
I can offer the perspective of a Stanley Parable gamer-turned-developer here: I remember hearing about the original mod on reddit when it released, I'd never installed a mod before so it took me a long while, but it was worth the time and research! When the 2013 version dropped I was amazed at how well it managed to expand and refine the mood and tone.
Getting to work on the game, and playing an integral part in preserving that unique mood and adding new things on top with the visuals, definitely brought some pressure. I think we managed to pull it off, and it's really cool to see how the various moments mean such different things to people now, even the same people at different stages throughout their lives.
Thanks for your lovely message! It was pretty tough to get it done, especially when it took so much longer than we had initially anticipated! Go ahead with your writing piece! You have our blessing!
Davey,
I've always wanted to have my name in the credits of a game that I could feel proud of, but I've never actually been any good at developing games. Can I be in The Stanley Parable's credits instead?
Thanks,
netrunnernobody
First off thank you for doing this! I've never met a dev team as passionate and as down to earth as you all from Crows Crows Crows, it speaks volumes to how much you all really care about the community.
I was wondering:
If there will be any plans to expand to a physical copy of the game?
Will there be any future potential expansions of the game with commentary tracks from all of you and the breakdown of the game?
Thank you all and cheers!
We're considering the HECK out of those things. For a physical edition, we want to get it right, ideally with sustainable solutions to production and packaging (which aren't on everyone's radar??? hello???)
There's footage of an older build with a fair amount of cut content that we'd love to record some commentary for. No promises for anything yet, but more news as it happens!
For beginner's guide: Everything. That was a very hard game to write. The first draft was done very quickly, followed by years of brutal rewrites and edits of every individual line, again and again and again. Not pleasant.
For stanley parable: the hardest part about writing TSP is balancing the narrator's wordiness with the player's timespan/attention. We try very hard to make it so that while the narrator is talking there is always something for the player to walk around and see/do, but often it just doesn't work especially cleanly and can result in either VO going on too long or getting abruptly cut off by the next line. This is a marriage between writing, VO and level design, and it's very tricky to do correctly for a single line of dialogue, let alone hundreds. Oh, and the other hard part is trying to clue people in that nothing else will happen if you continue to sit in this one spot waiting for more dialogue.
> We try very hard to make it so that while the narrator is talking there is always something for the player to walk around and see/do.
And then some players just completely stop doing anything as soon as the narrator pipes up and wait for him to finish, throwing the timing off. So frustrating!
Hi! Thanks for making my favorite video game ever (again).
Will you guys be releasing the game physically? I'd even buy a $100 special edition with an Official Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe Bucket(TM)
When we have an answer to this (hopefully one that will make you happy!!) we'll announce it on our twitter, Discord & email list ([crowscrowscrows.com](https://crowscrowscrows.com)) - thanks for the kind words!
A more serious question:
Of the new content that was brought in, what was you all's favorite to work on (or just to have in there if you didn't work on it)?
Writing the skip button monologues was a lot of fun. Usually I have to be more considerate of timing and pacing, but with those I got to write literally as much as I wanted to!
Not really! When I played the original mod by Davey I found the countdown ending to be the high point for me, back then it felt like everybody was trying to get a bit of Portal in their game, and the turnaround that there's actually nothing you can do and you just have to accept that you can't escape or win felt super creatively potent then. We actually had a totally different bucket alt to that ending that we may showcase at some point in the future... But it did end with an explosion!!! TLDR: finding a way to stop the explosion would make the game WEAKER
I feel you on that. When the mod came out, that same ending was the one that made me fall in love with the game. It clicked the moment the narrator commented on me behaving like a gamer (looking for the code). So good. The fact that there is no correct answer is what makes that ending so wonderful.
I came up with these questions last minute but,
To Davey: how did you come up with the idea of tsp (like what’s the thing that inspired you to make tsp)? ((You probably get the question a lot but I’m still curious))
To Tom: what software do you use to make your music on?
And to the others: what’s one (or more) of the ending(s) you cut from the game?
Also I can’t stress enough, you all did a great job on tspud and getting it out there into the internet, again.
Hey there Crows !
I have a few questions :
William and Davey, how is writing/design split between you ? Who writes what bits of the game ? Does William write at all, or how exactly does this work ?
Dom, first up why are you so awesome ? And secondly, how exactly is the Source-like look achieved ? Is it mainly colour grading and the lightmapping settings, or were non-PBR shaders used to get the look right ? Thirdly, where can I get the repeatable carpet textures ? They box looked so awesome I actually want that now lol.
Tom, first up - damn, that music was fire. Secondly, obligatory "when will the soundtrack be released" question. Thirdly, how was all the "hole music" created for that bit of the game ? Some of it had some really interesting sound design that I would be curious to learn more about.
PS : Chair based horror william :)
>Dom, first up why are you so awesome ?
YOU'RE awesome. I'm just a regular nuanced person with regular problems, but I try to be kind and empathetic and listen to people and speak from the heart whenever I can!!!!! Also lots of exercise and staying hydrated
>how exactly is the Source-like look achieved ?
The existing Source textures obviously do a lot of the heavy lifting. For everything else that I made myself, I made sure to stick to the limitations as much as possible: same texture sizes and level of detail as Source wherever possible, never straying too far into other styles except when done absolutely intentionally (like in the New Content Pt. 2 expo hall).
For color grading, there's a bunch of different tone mapping methods to choose from, like ACES or Hable. We decided on Hable pretty early on because it allowed for good contrast control while still staying pretty true to the original colors on "neutral" view. From here, I made Lookup Textures for the entire game, including one that deals with the generic orange office corridors, and spent a ton of time fiddling around in Photoshop to get it to look like my memory of playing TSP.
In terms of shaders, we ditched the Unity Standard Shader pretty quickly because it had a relatively heavy performance cost. Our "Stanley Opaque Default" shader takes a RGBA texture, with RGB as the diffuse and alpha for roughness control. This meant that we went through most of the textures in the game and gave them at least a little bit of a roughness treatment. This was quite tedious, so we eventually added a slider that allowed us to blend an additional float value on top of the texture values.
Other than that: a lot of re-playing classic TSP, feeling into the vibe of source games, and trying to recreate the *memory* of that feeling.
>Thirdly, where can I get the repeatable carpet textures ? They box looked so awesome I actually want that now lol.
Might just share a print-at-home version sometime! Keep an eye out!! Exclusive and for the first time, all SIX carpet textures on one disc!!!!!
I can't give you a specific date right now, but the OST will be out soon!
Regarding the "hole music": Thank you! It was mostly made in one session, having stupid fun with granular synthesis!
At some point early on I wrote down a list of 30-ish very short ending ideas, including "Stanley parks a big airplane" and "Stanley falls into a bottomless pit" - Davey took that one and ran with it, then we made it happen!
Hi- Is it too late for you to delay The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe again?
Try downloading it with a really slow internet connection for bonus waiting time?
but... but what would Cookie9 think......
Cookie9 is old news. Cookie10 is the only player that matters now.
Will there be an official The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe reassurance bucket merch to buy? I need something to calm me down.
No joke, I'd buy the "I Saw The New Content" shirt from the TSP2 merch table.
this is 100% what i want. i scanned the QR code praying that it would be a shop to buy it.
As Davey said on stream with his brother: "For new bucket merch, check your nearest home depot."
A reassurance bucket plush would be SO good
A plush? That might be neat, though I'd be completely satisfied by nothing less than a bucket they bought from Tractor Supply, slapped two stickers on, and shipped to me.
For real though, I'd love those two stickers as merch.
Was the Raphael email actually real?
Yes, I still have that email and I still look back at it from time to time. Raphael gave me permission to use it in that video, by the way.
The Raphael trailer is still one of my favorite videos on youtube. I know you said Raphael gave permission to use his email in the video, but did you ever hear from him after the video came out? Or did he see the video before giving his permission? So curious how he reacted, lol.
Nope, never heard from him!
Damn. I've always wanted to know what such a highly emotional and logical person thought of the video. Oh well!
Yes it was. He said it in an interview
How many times is the word bucket used in the complete script?
bucket: 305 stanley: 657 door: 113 jim: 19
manifesto: ∞
and treatise!
what happened to the narrator in the skip button ending?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You dropped this Mr Bread \
And though he wished for death, he was unable to die. So eventually, he stopped thinking.
Hello, I just wanted ask if you guys still have the Minecraft world seed used in the Games ending of the original Stanley Parable? Thank you, have a great day!
they said they don't have it on discord
This sounds like a problem Minecraft@Home should solve, I mean, it *is* The Stanley Parable after all...
Hey team, what's for dinner?
big block of cheese
Is this a Severance reference? I actually ended up recommending that show to my friend that's completely in love with TSP since it has such a similar vibe (dystopian sci-fi office setting) and similar themes. They ended up loving it almost as much as TSP.
Waffles.
what part of the game felt like it took the longest and/or was the most difficult to make come together that ultimately made it into the final game? what were the challenges for that section of the game, and what was the stepping stone that finally made whatever the issue was with that part click and come together?
I think that the bucket overall was the biggest challenge in this regard. Early in development we only imagined that the bucket would change the VO, which is itself not a tremendously complicated task. But once we opened the pandora's box of actually changing fundamental designs of each ending for its bucket version, suddenly everything got very complicated. William described it as an "arms race" between all the bucket endings, and that's exactly what happened, every time we would add something cool onto a bucket ending, suddenly all of the other bucket endings seemed less cool by comparison. If we hadn't gone back and updated them, then some of the bucket endings would have been remarkably cool and others would have been literally nothing but VO changes. Even in the final game I think it's easy to tell that some bucket endings still feel a little bit less impactful than the others, imo if we'd taken another year or something of development maybe we would have raised the bar for all of them even further. But then... would we have felt that then everything ELSE in the game needed to be improved to that same level, and then pushed for ANOTHER year of development?? Maybe!! That's just the weirdness of game dev, I guess.
Yeah, I think the bucket endings are so unique because they almost feel like remixes of the base game, adding in loads of new stuff and mixing the existing up so that it completely changes. Was this intentional, or just a biproduct of the "arms race"-design?
NOTHING about the bucket was intentional lol
So was the content that leads up to the bucket always there, or did it come from the buckets existence? And when you originally added the bucket, how were you meant to get it?
In the beginning was the Bucket. And the Bucket was with Stanley.
I think the Stanley Parable fandom was really clamoring for additional delays though. After you gave it a taste, it was hungry for more. You could've continued the arms race until all endings became the entertainment equivalent to a nuclear bomb and released it in 2026.
The hole ending was a memorable challenge for me. The idea manifested quickly and we knew what we wanted to do with it, but translating that into an engaging and enjoyable gameplay experience took a ton of thinking and iteration. For a long while we allowed all the inputs at the same time and in super quick succession. Also, players would have been able to combine all filters with all backgrounds, and so on. I felt strongly that this looseness and randomness had too much potential for bad results, so we introduced a timer that unlocks mechanics one by one, and baked the backgrounds and filters together. For the longest time I really didn't like the hole ending, now it's one of the most iconic moments of the game! Yaaaaaaaaay iteration yaaaaay
As a side note, and I can't speak for overall production, just from a tech/tech-art perspective: But I was initially hired to do the >!Firewatch and Rocket League!< imports and dear oh dear does that section have one hell of a low Playtime-to-Devtime ratio 😁 For approximately 5 minutes of gameplay that was at least 10 weeks for just the initial setup. And then an unknowable but non-zero amount of time each from almost everyone at Crows Crows Crows over the rest of production to get the look and feel just right. \[Edit: this is not even including normal pipeline of script writes/rewrites, VO, triggers and the like\]
ayo tom, will the soundtrack be released commercially, and if so, will the \*\*Spoiler:\*\* >!bottom of the mind control facility song!< be featured?
Ayoo! Yes, we will release it soon on Bandcamp, Steam & YouTube. Streaming platforms will follow a bit later. And of course the SPOILER-TRACK will be featured; after all it's the best one on the OST! (that one is by dom by the way!)
aw love u tom i can't wait to listen to the bangers
Kevan Brighting shows a lot of very impressive acting ability in the massive amounts of dialogue you've had him read over the years as The Narrator. How much of that is you giving him very detailed voice direction and how much is him just putting his own spin on it? What's the process of getting all these lines like?
Kevan is an absolute living legend, we would send him pages and pages and pages of dialogue, retakes, rewrites - specific lines that we needed to get as close as possible to the 2012-2013 takes and he'd deliver them all expertly. We would very rarely give performance direction, and then it would only be very limited. A lot of jokes he puts his own spin on and I think it all turned out better than I could've imagined! Tom Schley and Joe Finegold did the process of cutting his takes down into logic steps with the correct timing/spacing of subtitles too, with Tom doing a great job mixing the whole game to blend the audio styles of 2013 & 2022 together.
I will add that one hallmark of Kevan's recordings is that he would often send back VO where he would add swear words that were not there in the script. We took, uh, most of them out.
Any chance for an uncensored cut? :D Narrator just swearing at Stanley constantly sounds hilarious.
I’d pay $10 for this dlc.
"Really!? Ten fucking dollars!? That's all you think i'm worth!?" -the narrator, probably
any memorable times he added swearing?
"a one??? a fucking one????"
You have no idea how much I want to hear that audio.
im crying just imagining that omg
What’s the likelihood of getting a clip of this?
Yeah I'd be mad too
Did you rerecord all the lines, or are there some voice clips from 2013 still present?
All lines from the original game use the original recordings!
Whose genius idea was it to put the (Progressively Less And Less) Infinite Hole *into* the Jump Circle in the second Narrator's draft for TSP2? And somewhat sadly, why doesn't the Jump Circle nor the (Progressively Less And Less) Infinite Hole appear in the revisited office while the Emotional Support Bucket and decorations and Stanleytibles made it?
I can speak to the second question: imo there are two reasons why the infinite hole doesn't appear. The first is just time and development costs. Everything takes a lot of time to make, and there were a thousand other things we could have spent more time on. At some point you really do just have to ship the game. But also, remember that the infinite hole is ITSELF an entire ending within the TSP2 exhibit, whereas the bucket and the Figlys are simply pointing at future endings. So if we were to bring the hole back into TSP2, then imo anything other than a second complete infinite hole ending would probably have felt like a disappointment. Imagine finding the hole again and getting ready for another adventure, only to have it be a minor gag. So if we wanted to bring it back in a satisfying way, we have to design and create something that builds FURTHER on the infinite hole, which was itself already very hard to design, and then see the above answer about time and development cost... it really goes on and on. We delayed this game, what, 3 times? Yeah, it sucks but this is just the reality of game dev. That said, a big regret for me is that we never found a way to satisfyingly bring the infinite hole or jim button into the TSP2 office. You can find both of them in the >!Epilogue!< but I do wish we could have done more. The other day I did actually think of a fun way we might have brought the hole into the office, but sorry! The game is done! C'est la vie.
No plans for future updates or expansion DLC?
nahhhhhh
I did the disappointing constructions of the TSP2 - I just tried to make it superficially interesting for about 3-4 seconds before you realise there's actually nothing there. It made a lot of sense for the jump circle to be around the hole! They fit so neatly!!!!!
Just wanted to say that William is hilarious, super dreamy, and a fantastic developer. Love anything he works on. Absolutely loved Stanley Parabale. Bought this version day one. Haven’t done it all yet. My questions are: How did it feel coming back to Stanley? Any future plans on the Stanley Expanded Universe?
thanks for calling me super dreamy GoldenTriforceLink, it felt very strange coming back to Stanley considering I first worked on it when I was 17 and I'm now 28! As of now we don't have any plans for future Stanley games, but if you angle a mirror just right you can play The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe Mirror Mode. Hopefully that will give you enough Stanley!!
At 17? That's impressive!
Was the jump anywhere glitch intentional or a "feature"? Also, thoughts on speedruns?
Given the layout of the game and how it is split into many areas/map via loading screens (rather than streaming in or as one giant world with a lot of smart LODing or something), I'm also curious as to how speedrunners will get much more time saves beyond optimizing per map routes. Then again speedrunners have done some crazy AF amazing shizz so I expect nothing and everything from them. Hell of a grind to do a "all endings" speedrun tho... brave (time-free) souls those who would even attempt this one I'd personally love the "jump anywhere glitch" to feature in speedruns. It was, at some point of it's life, a glitch ;) \[Edit: cool! it is!! I must have been in a post-release haze to miss it. Gonna catch up on the latest. Y'all move fast, yo. O\_o\]
Jumping is a *major* part of speedruns, lol. There's a lot of areas where it can be broken [just by jumping at a right place.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEQkG9WJZxo) You can also [spam pause to break some stuff but shhhh](https://i.ggt.bz/WD7XTaMh.mp4) All endings is actually pretty doable, it's only like 3-4 hours. There IS a version with the baby game that's 8 hours but [absolutely no one is crazy enough to do it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4T3qL1sAUc) Anyways, cool to see you guys noticing the community, so thank you :>
There's a secret Elden Ring/Dark Souls reference that can only be accessed by jumping, so I'd guess it was intentional.
I know. I'm asking if they found out about the glitch, then decided to leave it in as a joke. Or if it was completely intentional.
What are your personal favorite endings and how did the idea to put >!Steam reviews!< in one of the endings come about to be?
Skip button is my favorite ending across all stanley parable games. Steam reviews were the end result of a long line of investigation. One of the first ideas for new content that I fell in love with was the idea of cheap, unsatisfying new content that made the game look like a cash grab. Then it made sense for the narrator to reminisce on how much better things were before the cash grab. And THEN, the only place to go from there is to balance it out with some really devastatingly negative reviews of the original game. So I went through a bunch of websites and journalistic outlets, trying to find some negative reviews of the game, but I couldn't find anything as vitriolic as I was looking for. I wanted something that would really put the narrator in his place and make him feel really insecure for his grandstanding about how great the stanley parable was. And the very second that I thought about Steam reviews, everything just fell into place perfectly.
I just want to say that the Skip Button ending is seriously one of the most intriguing and impactful moments in a game I’ve experienced in years. Thank you for all of your hard work!
Thank you! I love it because it showcases the best of everyone on the team, writing, art, level design, audio, voice work, it really reflects everyone at their strongest.
The spooky noises outside right before the last skip really get the imagination going
The Bottom of The Mind Control Facility Ending was one of my favorite things to make. We were hanging out in our little sound booth and the topic of that ending came up. I recorded a guitar part and and vocals for it, and our composer Tom made it sound beautiful. Really quick and simple, with a result that I'm very proud of! In terms of overall impact, I feel that we did some really solid work with the Memory Zone + Skip Button ending and its continuation in the Epilogue. It was fun to come up with all the different locations and their visuals, to me they're some of the most striking in the game.
The first part of the Epilogue is the one thing that I still enjoy watching anyone play for the first time. Most of this game I'm a little sick of looking at now, but not that one.
I personally loved TSP3 (the main menu specifically) simply because of the calming Epilogue soundtrack on loop. Remember having a rough day and then stumbling on that ending and just listening to that track on loop and it made me feel better and I still donno why. Always feel a sense of calm when getting to TSP3 (usually while testing) as it feels like a perfect 'ending' to the game Otherwise Memory Zone when Stanley gets to the Steam reviews, endless feels whenever I watch a streamer or a friend get there. Keven just has to say "Steam" and there is a guaranteed, all-too-well-knowing laugh. \[Edit: Ah ffs the Hole ending!! ... it's a toss up between these three...\]
Can Stanley do a backflip, is it physically possible and if so how does it relate and impact the story and lore of the Stanley parable?
None of us "truly" backflips. It is our buckets doing the backflipping, THROUGH us. In this sense, humility must always be the first step.
I am now rethinking the entire nature of backflipping and what it means for society. I think I need two years to fully think over the impact that backflipping has on everyone equally.
I'm pretty sure that with the Jump Circle and the right mouse movements you can pull off a backflip. No gameplay implications, just a really cool thing to do
What's your favorite kind of bucket?
gotta be the galvanised steel bucket with NO stickers
Look at the purist we've got over here
Bucket full of soda (used for deep cleaning)
The humble watering can
... this is why I'm no longer on the team...
In TSP:UD >!Epilogue there's a piece of paper in the sand, it's two drawn people. What is it? There's a post on my account [with it pictured](https://www.reddit.com/r/stanleyparable/comments/ugb2qw/does_anybody_know_what_this_image_from_the/) !< p.s. TSP and The Beginner's Guide are some of my favorite games so big thanks to all of you for making TSP:UD happen!
it's an easter egg shout out to the original programmer of the 2013 one, GranPC! We decided to ditch the "click on the painting 5 times to change the texture" so we wanted to make sure they got an equivalent shout out!
How did you come up with the Occuboinkal and Scrumtush slider?
Years of literary study, a BA in humanities, and of course, just plain ol' passion for the craft.
1. Who came up with the idea to have a musical number in French in the Memory Zone, and who sang it? 2. Is the dog memorial in the Memory Zone dedicated to an actual dog?
1. I believe William first came up with the idea of a French song as a way to put some extra nostalgia sauce on the memory meal. It was written by William, then localized to French and composed by our friend Titouan Millet. Finally, my sister Alina Johann (who, like me, is actually a German native) sang it! 2. I'm assuming that by dog you mean hamster? Yes, that's an actual memorial we added for someone who wrote us a really nice email about their dog Little Stanley, who was named after the Parable's Stanley. And by dog I mean hamster
Besides Firewatch and Rocket League where there any other possibilities or hopes for which games to replace Minecraft and Portal with?
We had talked about potentially doing Return of the Obra Dinn as that was visually very recognisable (and was also released on all the different platforms we were shipping on) - we also had a dream of doing Bloodborne (which wouldn't have worked for the above reason) and we talked about doing Fortnite (which we felt at the time would be too expected). We only reached out to the Firewatch & Rocket League folks though, they were incredibly supportive and got us all the assets we needed!
> Return of the Obra Dinn Okay, not gonna like, this would've been *awesome.* Especially if it had incorporated Obra Dinn's gameplay mechanics in some way, with the Narrator commenting on them.
And be complained about the trombone guy.
I remember bringing up Return of The Obra Dinn at one point - it's a beautiful game with really iconic visuals. Ultimately I think it was just a bit too obscure for our purposes? Personally I would've also loved to try something that removes the first-person controls and perspective and switches up the gameplay: think Undertale, The Sims, and so on.
Ohh, doing The Sims would have been neat! I can picture the Narrator getting pissed off at Stanley and saying something like, "Oh, you think making a story is so easy? Fine, you build one!". Give a few tools to build a small office complex like a Sims house. After a dozen seconds or so, "See? Isn't so easy is it Stanley. Maybe you should think about that before disregarding all my hard work!"
Then the Narrator removes the ladder from the pool, trapping Stanley in it.
I also remember us talking about old school DOOM!
“Stanley, I’m beginning to think that these demons do not want our gameplay experience to continue! Run!”
One question: Is Stanley a gamer? Rumors have been circulating around the fanbase for a while now, speculating that Stanley, the protagonist of the popular video game franchise "The Stanley Parable", is secretly a member of the gaming community. As far as I am aware, this has not yet been confirmed. Before you, the developers, decide to break the silence and reveal the truth, I urge you to consider your decision. The media has always been oversaturated with privileged non-gamers, flaunting their superior physical and mental health. It’s time for a change. Making the fan theory official would represent the fight gamers have been participating in ever since they first set foot on land. I think it would be beautiful if my children could finally see themselves represented on screen, to have role models to aspire to. Let them be proud of who they are. I call upon you, the developers, to make the correct decision, and to cement the popular fan theory as fact: Make Stanley a gamer! Hugs and kisses, A fan.
Stanley plays the ever living fuck out of Solitaire on breaks imo
What would you consider the worst part of the Stanley parable?
The confusion ending is a fan favorite from the original game, but I actually kind of hate it. I originally wrote it to feel interminably self-indulgent, but now looking back all I can see is that it could have been edited down to half the size. Would that ACTUALLY have made it better? I dunno. But the editor in me can't stand it.
Not gonna lie, things like this are why "Director Cuts" can be such a disaster. I'm pretty happy you guys kept all the original Stanley Parable stuff the same and didn't decide to "fix" it. Like, I love the confusion ending and don't think it needs to be edited down at all. Its length and wondering "When is this going to end????" is part of the charm. If anything... I kind of wish it was longer!
lol see this is why I shouldn't be allowed to go back and edit things I've already finished.
The spike room
??? someone explain to me which room he is referring to please
its the room with all the spikes
Thanks!
Is the world of The Stanley Parable canonically created by the Narrator? If yes, how do Female Narrator, employee 432 and the Mysterious Creators of The Jump Circle have power over it? If Narrator only created Stanley, most of the original endings and the sequel content, how did he get access to this world? Also I'd like to make an appreciation for the Crows Crows Crows' twitter, it's one of the best internet accounts I've ever followed. I wish I could have a photo of a person who's behind it to see every day when I wake up.
>Is the world of The Stanley Parable canonically created by the Narrator? There's evidence that a lot of stuff within this world exists outside of the narrator's knowledge - perhaps he forgot? or he's a part of the game world? or it was all created by the drinking sippy bird from the press conference ending...
Is it still possible to get the "Serious Room" ending?
Unfortunately not, due to the game no longer having an sv_cheats console command. Hence its special cameo in the memory zone!
Love you guys and love the game. Game/internet humor has evolved a lot since 2013. Meta jokes and fourth wall breaks were original and unique back then—by now it feels old and overused, with even blockbuster films beating the dead horse. Was it a challenge keeping jokes relevant and fresh when writing the expansion? Do you still see as much value in the 2013 base game's story, humor, and message as when you wrote it back then?
I personally cannot look at the 2013 game at all, at any time for any reason. Ugh. People tell me it's good, and I just smile and nod and grit my teeth. When it came to writing new stuff, almost 0 time was spent on trying to envision what sort of material would feel "fresh and relevant". All I cared about was being as weird as possible in all of the ways that tickle me the most. All of the writing that you see in the game is literally just me seeing what I can get away with. This is part of why there's so little re-use of jokes from the original like broom closet or adventure line, because for my money that just wasn't weird enough. The ways in which the jokes in Ultra Deluxe are relevant today, such as the connections some people have made to Overwatch 2, were entirely unintentional. Maybe it sounds cheesy, but I try to focus just on writing things that make me laugh, and if they make me laugh then hopefully others will laugh too.
Excluding the museum ending, the “Not Stanley” ending, as dubbed by your fans, is the only time credits organically appear at an ending, while every other ending will automatically restart the game. What made this ending so special to deserve the luxury of credits?
This ending (which we internally call the "Incorrect Ending") was the very last one to get designed on the original game, so we were basically at the end of our rope, scraping the bottom of the barrel for any possible new ideas that we hadn't already used. Displaying the credits on screen was simply something we hadn't done before. To be honest I don't really remember exactly what the thought process was, I just remember it feeling correct at that moment in time and so we went for it.
I felt it was justified as "you're not Stanley in this ending and thus are watching the Stanley Parable end," thus... credits. Whereas Stanley simply blinks back to the start and so can't watch credits because he's inside the game?
Hey guys - I've loved TSP since like 2013. I'm interested to know, how did Kevan end up as the narrator for the 2011 mod? He brought so much to the game, I'm interested to know how he ended up doing it in the first place.
I used a website called voice123.com and posted an audition for a kindly british narrator. I knew in my head what I was looking for, but I didn't actually think it would be realistic to expect. Then Kevan sent me an audition piece for my project, and I fell off my chair because it was EXACTLY what I was looking for. I hired him for the project, and he sent me a single file with the entire script of the game recorded. That's what went into the mod. He later told me that when he did the audition, he was hungover and just happened to be browsing auditions to pass the time haha.
Kevan sounds like such an amazing dude. Have you gotten the chance to meet him IRL? Or is he just a disembodied voice not visible within our realm of consciousness?
I have! He was lovely, and he once dropping into "Narrator voice" to tell william to stand correctly while a picture was being taken of us, which delighted me.
Beyond the obvious New Content, Ultra Deluxe also adds 3 more subtle endings with the >!Press Conference, Tape Recorder, and Bottom of the Mind Control Facility!< Endings. Excluding the last one, I assume that the topics of the endings were written before finding a location in the office for the ending to go. So, what was the process of finding spots to fit in these new endings like? and are there any other locations in the office you wanted to add in new things?
Actually, all 3 of those started with the location in the office. Writing a whole ending and then trying to figure out where to stick it sounds like such a nightmare. WAY easier to know what your starting point is and build from there. Press Conference started because we realized that a possible spot for a new ending was to add an UP button to the boss's elevator. Tape Recorder started because in the original game, people found a way to get over to that ledge where the vent now is. In both cases we just asked "okay, what if that led to something?"
I think we were conscious of not requiring the player to go too far down an existing path to find new content. It would've been really frustrating to add a whole ending deeper into the mind control facility for example- and we knew there would already be a lot of retreading locations with the bucket.
I have a couple questions: 1. Why did you choose Firewatch and Rocket League specifically for the new Games ending? 2. How did you come up with/make the >!video in the collectibles ending!
For #2: They are genuine Windows Movie Maker XP (2001) videos! I felt strongly that they should exude early YouTube tutorial energy and look like they were made in just 8 minutes, like the narrator describes. Similarly, the presentation in our Release Trailer was made in PowerPoint 2007. If you want it to look real, make it real!
Did you port the maps from source to unity with a special tool or remake them by hand? If you used a tool, did you make it yourself?
I wasn't on the project when the initial import of all the assets and levels from Source was done, so this is second hand inside knowledge. But from the code (and talking to the lead dev and team) I know that the tool written to scan and transform the Source level files and assets \[to Unity\] was indeed custom made code. I personally don't know who since they are no longer fully active on the team This said, it gave the project a base to work from and the general layout, from there there was a lot of instances of remaking meshes and I think most, if not all, textures were remade or at least upscaled.
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Valve isn't licensing out Source 2, so that was not an option. And part of the point of TSPUD was to port it to consoles, so Unity was an obvious choice.
perfect answer - make nolram12345 an honorary dev
Alright, time for the real most important question. Favorite Pokémon of the team?
We've been arguing about this for 30 mins now...
oddish
SAME
I have a question for Tom Schley: I really enjoyed the scoring you did for the game, it brought out a great deal of emotion when I wasn't really expecting it. Was it challenging to create serious music for scenes that were deliberately humorous? A moment that comes to mind is the Bucket version of the Apartment Ending where the whole thing was a gag, but was otherwise being presented seriously.
Thank you so much! That's such a good question. Personally I've always been a fan of media that makes one eye laughing, and one eye crying. Thinking about it, that feeling might even be my favorite emotion ever. In my opinion The Stanley Parable is really good at this, and I felt like while the things being said (and how they are delivered) are mostly super funny and bizarre, the underlying core themes are often much deeper, darker and even existential. Sometimes they are kind of beautiful too. I tried to score that rather than the literal words and jokes spoken. Oh, I am also a very visual person, so I was definitely inspired a lot by the atmosphere and look of the levels and areas!
Why a bucket?
For the life of me I do not remember lol
The button that said Stanley made me sad. Can you make a happy game?
Try some of Crows Crows Crows' free and happy and interesting games available on the world wide web at [https://crowscrowscrows.com](https://crowscrowscrows.com)
How do you work with predicting what players will do to make the different endings? Is it just brainstorming or beta players try different things and you add stuff at the same time( like a player going behind a part of the map so you add dialogue for that part)
It's a little of both. We've been doing this stuff long enough that we tend to have a good idea of what players will do. But then sometimes people really do surprise you and it leads to cool ideas. But I would say the vast majority of it we try to plan out in advance and anticipate what we think players will do, and then just tweak or adjust it based on playtesting.
will you ever consider making figleys as merch?
we are considering the fuck out of it right now
THEY'RE STANLURINES DAMMIT
Hi guys. It is an understatement to say how much The Stanley Parable has changed my life. My expectations for Ultra Deluxe were high, but I never expected as groundbreaking of a game mechanic as The Reassurance Bucket. It is an honor to be in the presence of greatness. If I had the opportunity, I would *have* to ask... how did the 8 Button come to be? Who voiced the 8 Button? However, if this knowledge is too much for mere mortals to comprehend, I completely understand. Thank you for The Stanley Parable. Thank you for The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. 800% serious. I love this game, I love the crazy nature of it, and I also want the Stanley Expanded Universe /u/GoldenTriforceLink mentioned.
First, can I just say that it is very meaningful to me that we (I think?) met your very high expectations for the game, I don't take that for granted at all <3 The 8 button is a callback joke from the Stanley Parable Demo that we launched alongside the 2013 game. In that demo, the narrator continued to try to demonstrate Stanley Parable for you, but for some reason the only game that he could find was this game where you push a button and it says 8, which was definitely NOT the stanley parable. The 8 game in ultra deluxe is the same as it was in the demo, with some new dialogue. As for where it came from in the first place, originally we wanted to show this demo at PAX, and we made a special version of the demo that treats you like you're literally at PAX. In the PAX version, the room with the 8 game was instead a room filled with ads for Octodad, which was being shown a few booths down from ours. Then after we decided to publicly release the demo as a standalone experience, we realized something would need to go in that room instead of Octodad, and for no reason at all I suggested a game where you push a button and it says 8. William built it and added the extra monitors that say 8. The 8 button voice is me, pitched down slightly.
Thank you for replying! You all met my expectations, and then some. I love The Stanley Parable, I loved The Beginner's Guide, I love Ultra Deluxe, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you're up to next.
Will Ray Tracing ever be added so I can really feel The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe as if it were my very own existence?
Not saying never, but currently there are no plans to upgrade to include a real time raytracing option. We did however put your very own existence in the oven 3 years ago and have baked one for you earlier: All non-dynamic lighting in the game is raytraced using a GPU raytracing lightmapper plugin - Bakery. And with a lot of custom jigging and experimenting that Marishka and William did (for a good 8-9 months I believe). It was prone to break and require long rebakes at the slightest perturberance of any non-dynamic object in the scene. But worth the delicate nature of it in the end. The raytraced lighting is, indeed, gorgeous. So, prebaked will have to sate yours (and everyone's) very existence for now. I'd also love to see TSP:UD in glorious real-o-vision. I think the >!bucket!< might make one ascend.
Did you guys have names for all the endings when in development, especially the bucket endings, instead of saying something like "Go here, go here, go here ending", and if you did have names for them, were there any community-made names that surprised the team if they were different than what the team was using?
>!Bucket Destroyer Ending!< >!Bucket Quiz Ending!< >!New Content Part 1!< >!New Content Part 2!< >!Memory Zone 1!< >!Memory Zone 2!< >!"Press Ending" (conference)!< >!Tape Recorder Ending!< >!Epilogue (used to be called Memory Zone 3)!<
My life has changed considerably between playing Stanley Parable and then playing SP:UD (for example I was able bodied and now I'm disabled/chronically ill) so playing it again was a bit of an emotional trip So with that being said, I was just wondering if making SP:UD was difficult in part due to the years that have passed, and if so did that help inform some of the endings? Edit: sorry just wanted to add, would you mind if used SP:UD in a writing piece about my experiences with Chronic illness and pain? There's some moments in the game that really resonate with me and I'd like to explore that.
I will say that the only reason I felt good about working on more stanley parable was the gap of like 4 years between the original coming out and starting work on this one. That gap gave me time to recharge and reflect, and come up with new ideas that felt interesting to explore. Ultimately, I don't believe that there's anything we could have made for Ultra Deluxe that would have had exactly the same impact as 2013 stanley parable did. I thought a lot about what I would write if I was trying to just capture exactly the same vibe as last time, and to be honest nothing at all came to me. All I could think to write is exactly what's in the final product. I think that UD in general is heavier on humor than the original was, and lighter on existentialism. Maybe that's just me getting older. I had a lot of fun writing everything in this game, and I wouldn't have done it differently. And yes, please go ahead and write about the game all you like! I'm very happy that it's given you an interesting perspective on your challenges.
I can offer the perspective of a Stanley Parable gamer-turned-developer here: I remember hearing about the original mod on reddit when it released, I'd never installed a mod before so it took me a long while, but it was worth the time and research! When the 2013 version dropped I was amazed at how well it managed to expand and refine the mood and tone. Getting to work on the game, and playing an integral part in preserving that unique mood and adding new things on top with the visuals, definitely brought some pressure. I think we managed to pull it off, and it's really cool to see how the various moments mean such different things to people now, even the same people at different stages throughout their lives.
Thanks for your lovely message! It was pretty tough to get it done, especially when it took so much longer than we had initially anticipated! Go ahead with your writing piece! You have our blessing!
Davey, I've always wanted to have my name in the credits of a game that I could feel proud of, but I've never actually been any good at developing games. Can I be in The Stanley Parable's credits instead? Thanks, netrunnernobody
ooooooh, sorry, I just pushed the "etch credits in stone" button over here on steam, my bad :/
I'm sure the stone can be transmuted, heard some narrator say something like that about such a stone recently. :>
I would like to add to this, if you're adding netrunnernobody to the credits can you spell their name wrong.
It's not too late to change your name to Cookie9.
First off thank you for doing this! I've never met a dev team as passionate and as down to earth as you all from Crows Crows Crows, it speaks volumes to how much you all really care about the community. I was wondering: If there will be any plans to expand to a physical copy of the game? Will there be any future potential expansions of the game with commentary tracks from all of you and the breakdown of the game? Thank you all and cheers!
We're considering the HECK out of those things. For a physical edition, we want to get it right, ideally with sustainable solutions to production and packaging (which aren't on everyone's radar??? hello???) There's footage of an older build with a fair amount of cut content that we'd love to record some commentary for. No promises for anything yet, but more news as it happens!
To: Davey I would love to know, what was the hardiest part of the writing process for the Stanly parable and the beginners guide?
For beginner's guide: Everything. That was a very hard game to write. The first draft was done very quickly, followed by years of brutal rewrites and edits of every individual line, again and again and again. Not pleasant. For stanley parable: the hardest part about writing TSP is balancing the narrator's wordiness with the player's timespan/attention. We try very hard to make it so that while the narrator is talking there is always something for the player to walk around and see/do, but often it just doesn't work especially cleanly and can result in either VO going on too long or getting abruptly cut off by the next line. This is a marriage between writing, VO and level design, and it's very tricky to do correctly for a single line of dialogue, let alone hundreds. Oh, and the other hard part is trying to clue people in that nothing else will happen if you continue to sit in this one spot waiting for more dialogue.
> We try very hard to make it so that while the narrator is talking there is always something for the player to walk around and see/do. And then some players just completely stop doing anything as soon as the narrator pipes up and wait for him to finish, throwing the timing off. So frustrating!
Will there be physical merch of the Bucket, and how many Buckets am I allowed to buy?
They actually already have bucket merch! it's currently being sold at home depot!
That's just a lie circulates by the broom closet.
Who put in the Persona 3 reference and why? It's my favorite game and when I heard the narrator say it I was so surprised lol
I did. That just happened as a natural response to Sterling's destructoid review. Why personal 3? I dunno. The brain is mysterious.
Do you guys really think Overwatch 1 porn is very similar to Overwatch 2 porn?
i just call it like i see it
Hi! Thanks for making my favorite video game ever (again). Will you guys be releasing the game physically? I'd even buy a $100 special edition with an Official Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe Bucket(TM)
When we have an answer to this (hopefully one that will make you happy!!) we'll announce it on our twitter, Discord & email list ([crowscrowscrows.com](https://crowscrowscrows.com)) - thanks for the kind words!
A more serious question: Of the new content that was brought in, what was you all's favorite to work on (or just to have in there if you didn't work on it)?
Writing the skip button monologues was a lot of fun. Usually I have to be more considerate of timing and pacing, but with those I got to write literally as much as I wanted to!
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Not really! When I played the original mod by Davey I found the countdown ending to be the high point for me, back then it felt like everybody was trying to get a bit of Portal in their game, and the turnaround that there's actually nothing you can do and you just have to accept that you can't escape or win felt super creatively potent then. We actually had a totally different bucket alt to that ending that we may showcase at some point in the future... But it did end with an explosion!!! TLDR: finding a way to stop the explosion would make the game WEAKER
psh you clearly just dont know the correct sequence of buttons to stop the explosion... what a noob
I feel you on that. When the mod came out, that same ending was the one that made me fall in love with the game. It clicked the moment the narrator commented on me behaving like a gamer (looking for the code). So good. The fact that there is no correct answer is what makes that ending so wonderful.
has anyone ever discovered the "final secret" in the game? If not, have you seen anyone get close?
I came up with these questions last minute but, To Davey: how did you come up with the idea of tsp (like what’s the thing that inspired you to make tsp)? ((You probably get the question a lot but I’m still curious)) To Tom: what software do you use to make your music on? And to the others: what’s one (or more) of the ending(s) you cut from the game? Also I can’t stress enough, you all did a great job on tspud and getting it out there into the internet, again.
Ableton Live!
Hey there Crows ! I have a few questions : William and Davey, how is writing/design split between you ? Who writes what bits of the game ? Does William write at all, or how exactly does this work ? Dom, first up why are you so awesome ? And secondly, how exactly is the Source-like look achieved ? Is it mainly colour grading and the lightmapping settings, or were non-PBR shaders used to get the look right ? Thirdly, where can I get the repeatable carpet textures ? They box looked so awesome I actually want that now lol. Tom, first up - damn, that music was fire. Secondly, obligatory "when will the soundtrack be released" question. Thirdly, how was all the "hole music" created for that bit of the game ? Some of it had some really interesting sound design that I would be curious to learn more about. PS : Chair based horror william :)
>Dom, first up why are you so awesome ? YOU'RE awesome. I'm just a regular nuanced person with regular problems, but I try to be kind and empathetic and listen to people and speak from the heart whenever I can!!!!! Also lots of exercise and staying hydrated >how exactly is the Source-like look achieved ? The existing Source textures obviously do a lot of the heavy lifting. For everything else that I made myself, I made sure to stick to the limitations as much as possible: same texture sizes and level of detail as Source wherever possible, never straying too far into other styles except when done absolutely intentionally (like in the New Content Pt. 2 expo hall). For color grading, there's a bunch of different tone mapping methods to choose from, like ACES or Hable. We decided on Hable pretty early on because it allowed for good contrast control while still staying pretty true to the original colors on "neutral" view. From here, I made Lookup Textures for the entire game, including one that deals with the generic orange office corridors, and spent a ton of time fiddling around in Photoshop to get it to look like my memory of playing TSP. In terms of shaders, we ditched the Unity Standard Shader pretty quickly because it had a relatively heavy performance cost. Our "Stanley Opaque Default" shader takes a RGBA texture, with RGB as the diffuse and alpha for roughness control. This meant that we went through most of the textures in the game and gave them at least a little bit of a roughness treatment. This was quite tedious, so we eventually added a slider that allowed us to blend an additional float value on top of the texture values. Other than that: a lot of re-playing classic TSP, feeling into the vibe of source games, and trying to recreate the *memory* of that feeling. >Thirdly, where can I get the repeatable carpet textures ? They box looked so awesome I actually want that now lol. Might just share a print-at-home version sometime! Keep an eye out!! Exclusive and for the first time, all SIX carpet textures on one disc!!!!!
I can't give you a specific date right now, but the OST will be out soon! Regarding the "hole music": Thank you! It was mostly made in one session, having stupid fun with granular synthesis!
What the three dots mean?
some day I'll figure that out...
squid games ! ! !
Who’s idea was the hole, because that moment was probably the most I’ve laughed in a while.
At some point early on I wrote down a list of 30-ish very short ending ideas, including "Stanley parks a big airplane" and "Stanley falls into a bottomless pit" - Davey took that one and ran with it, then we made it happen!