Ahead of The Stanley Parable‘s launch in 2 days time, I decided to speak with independent developers, William Pugh and Davey Wreden (Galactic-Cafe). They are both incredibly excited about the release and some of their answers continued to make me really wonder what the game was about.
Despite me asking them and them answering, I am still at a loss as to what the game is actually about. This is exactly what they’ll want leading up to release and they’ve done incredibly well. We’re still speculating and wondering.
All I truly know, is that you’re Stanley, or not; you might not even be Stanley. I do know that you make your own choices and they’re loads of different endings. I think.
The demo has been well-received, with the likes of PewDiePie saying it is the greatest demo he has ever played and NerdCubed thinking the same. But neither of the two are willing to speculate on how the game may do once released. The price of the full game is also coming upon launch. Without further waiting, here is the interview with developers William and Davey!
Firstly, what is The Stanley Parable?
Davey: The Stanley Parable is hard to explain! Do you like to be surprised? Do you like your identity? Do you like video games? Do you hate video games? Then the Stanley parable may be just the game for you!
William: The Stanley Parable is probably a video game.
Davey: Probably not.
William: It is a thing that exists. We think it exists.
Where did the idea come from?
Quoted from George Lazemby
“Art is the material thing that happens when someone manages to release the pole around which, to a selfish person, the entire universe seems to rotate. You feel your own sense of importance slip away as your grip on that pole loosens. That loss-of-self is right at the heart of any kind of performance. This is why people who are good at it frequently come across as simple-minded or pretentious when asked to explain how they do it. They don’t know, because they weren’t there.”
How many hours were spent working on the game?
William: We can split that into two parts really.
There’s the discussion and then there’s the actual process of writing/making it. I’d say Davey and I have spent about 2 to 3 hours every day talking and problem solving issues that come up, and a lot of the script editing happens there. I can’t speak on how long Davey spends just writing, but it’s a long time! I spend probably about 10 to 16 hours a day doing the actual building of the game. We’ve built a bunch of stuff that’s not even in the final version.
So, looking at those figures; do you both do Galactic-Cafe full-time or do you work elsewhere?
William: Galactic Cafe’s been it for me for the past year or so.
Davey: I used to work bars and restaurants, but for last year I’ve also been full time on this.
Do you work together or are you at different points around the world?
William: We’ve actually never met! I’m in England and Davey’s in the United States.
Davey: And we’ve talked every day on Skype for almost 2 years!
How’re you expecting it The Stanley Parable to do?
Davey: We’ve known for a while that how well the game does is really none of our business, so we don’t put a lot of energy into speculation.
Have you worked on other games in the past?
William: I predominantly came from the source mapping community, I made maps for Team Fortress 2, Left for Dead and Portal 2. Davey’s done a few other smaller projects with Galactic Cafe, though The Stanley Parable mod was his first proper venture. Neither of us have worked on a game this size before.
Have you considered any future projects, once The Stanley Parable is released?
William: We’ve both got things in mind for Galactic Cafe, but we’ve been entirely focused on Stanley for quite a while now, so we’ve not been talking about future projects, we’re leaving that for after Stanley’s released.
Davey: Not really, we have talked around it a little bit but more than anything we want to be surprised.
And finally, what is your favourite games?
William: Banjo Kazooie!
Davey: Yoshi’s Island for me
William was also keen to add another quote, this time from his old chemistry teacher, Mrs Roberts.
“Art is the material thing that happens when someone manages to release the pole around which, to a selfish person, the entire universe seems to rotate. You feel your own sense of importance slip away as your grip on that pole loosens. That’s it! Stop playing with the gas taps! Get out of my class!”
It seems as though neither of them plan on giving anything away leading up to their October 17th release, whether it is the price or what the game really is. I am quite interested by their working arrangements, both men are at different spots around the world and together they have still produced an incredible game.
I will certainly be buying the game on the 17th, I expect you will be too. Let me know your thoughts below.
You can visit the Galactic Cafe here: www.galactic-cafe.com
You can check out the game on Steam here: http://store.
You can follow William here: https://twitter.com/
And Davey here: https://twitter.com/
Interview conducted by Regan Williamson. Regan is a new contributor to BagoGames.com. If you have any questions for him feel free to comment below.
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