The Stanley Parable Helpful Development Showcase: Forklifts

The Stanley Parable Helpful Development Showcase is our way of connecting you to the development of The Stanley Parable by giving you a small look at what's been going on behind the scenes. Each week we'll give you a tiny peek into what it takes to make a game like The Stanley Parable, the creative challenges we come up against in the course of development, and how to not judge yourself as a person for the quality of choices you've made in your own life. These are just a few of the topics we'll cover in this incredibly useful blog series.

Let's take a piece of reader mail, this one comes to us from Franklin I. of Michigan:

I'm starting to learn game design and the biggest hurdle I keep running into over and over is knowing how many forklifts to put into my game. Could you give me a specific number? It would be a huge help, thanks!

-Franklin

Hey Franklin, let's get one thing straight: There is no “specific number.” The appropriate number of forklifts is an art, you hear me? What I do is art. I'm an artist.

Okay! So now that we've gotten that out of the way let's dig a bit deeper into the correct amount of forklifts to place have in your game. First, open up your map.

So far your game is pretty terrible. That doesn't necessarily mean you are terrible as a person, but it wouldn't hurt to lose some sleep thinking obsessively about it.

Now let's add a single forklift.

Right now you're probably thinking:

One forklift looks pretty good, time to add a second!

Woah there cowboy! What did I just say about the number of forklifts being an art? You can't just rush into a decision like that.

Why don't we take some time simply to be with the number of forklifts that are currently in the game? Let's feel it out by meditating on it our current game for one week.

Okay! One week should have passed since you were last here, so let's return to our map and see how we feel about it now.

You're right, it does need more forklifts.

Again, it's important to take some time to feel out the emotional weight of this decision. Let's take another week of reflection and deep self discovery.

Hm.

In that week that just passed, something stirred in me.

Something profound. I feel...affected.

Is it the intangible nature of our mortality?

Is my spirit swelling, ballooning the fabric that holds the universe together?

Who am I?

What is my purpose?

Life is so short.

…

I don't yet know what this all means, but there could be no better way to express it than through the act of creation. I feel like I finally see what this map is trying to become, let's take it there now:

I'm an artist.