Okay. This is a topic I’m extremely normal about (lying).
Loneliness is a theme in all of the TSP games, but it actually evolves throughout each of them.
The first game, the Half-Life 2 mod, is by far the loneliest of them all. There’s just Stanley, The Narrator, Mariella and The Curator. The halls are cramped, narrow, and dimly lit.
The HL2 Mod is a house that’s no longer a home, musty and claustrophobic. It’s more isolation than loneliness.
The second, the TSP demo, is less so. There’s evidence that people were here - papers on the floor, a spilled mug, etc. . But the loneliness is less suffocating because The Narrator is constantly trying to show you these cool new gameplay mechanics (in my mind he’s trying to distract himself from the fact that everyone has gone missing) and is taking you through so many different locations and giving you so many things to do.
The Demo is when you were a kid on a school trip to a museum or expo, and you got separated from the group.
The 2013 HD Remaster is a soft, looming loneliness - the documents left strewn about, the mugs left on desks, computers left open; people were here not too long ago. You get a couple phone calls from your wife, too. In this game, we have Stanley, The Narrator, Mariella, The Curator, Stanley’s Wife, the second Stanley and the Line™️ - there’s also evidence that 432 is still up and about, as a box labelled for them disappears after you leave the phone room in the Not Stanley Ending. Far more populated, yes, but only limited to certain endings and paths you can take.
(Also, to answer your question, it’s confirmed in a Reddit AMA: that’s another Stanley, but he considers you to be the “other Stanley”.)
The 2013 HD Remaster is arriving at an event several hours too late.
TSPUD, when I first played it, blew me away, and continues to do so, because unlike the previous games…it’s so alive.
You walk into the Memory Zone for the first time, and there’s birds. Fucking birds! Real animals! Do you have any idea how much that shocked me? In the Elevator Ending, there’s a rat on one of the chairs.
The reviews in the Skip Button Ending, Settings Person greeting you every time you boot up the game, the Bucket Tape Ending, the man that follows you, the second Stanley, the notes you get from your loved ones in the elevator ending (from Stanley’s wife, from his coworkers, you even get a drawing made by Stanley’s child!), the voice that promotes TSPUD in the New Content Ending, the child variant of the previous one, the voice that sings the Good Job, You Made It To The Bottom Of The Mind Control Facility, Well Done song, the chanting behind the mural in the Bucket Museum Ending, the cars zooming by in the release trailer…
It’s just beyond a wall, or a door. But it’s there. And whoever’s just beyond that wall loves you.
TSPUD is when you fall asleep at a party as a child, and you’re carried to your bedroom, and you can hear the muffled sounds of the party continuing on downstairs. It’s still there.
It’s just beyond that door.
vaporwave
stormborns
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
