Board 8 > Post here to get the Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

finished ultra deluxe. i went back and forth between the new material and the original game a lot, and while the new stuff has the advantage of being new and more expansive, the original is tighter, which is probably to be expected. overall it's very delightful and funny, though there's a lot more of it so not everything lands. its major topic is the difficulty of sequels and yeah, it's hard to go back given how much of a touchstone the original was and how much has been done in the metatextual space in games over 9 years and not least of all, because the beginner's guide exists.

when pugh and wreden split off and made dr. langeskov and the beginner's guide respectively they kinda split the soul of the stanley parable in two - the gags in the former and the philosophy in the latter, and while i enjoyed dr. langeskov, i was bowled over by the beginner's guide. so ultra deluxe does well on the former but it doesn't quite measure up in the latter, and not just in depth of content (since ultra deluxe is obviously more broad) but in framing and delivery which felt like a step forward in tbg. still! a lot of it is great and i am stopping myself from just describing jokes i liked.

second best adventure game ruminating on the difficulty of sequels of 2022

What is #1 though?

I can only assume Return to Monkey Island

it is indeed Return to Monkey Island.

played a few hours of this tonight and got a bunch of different endings, including the new content ones and the original ending. really enjoyed some of the bits in particular though I'll try to avoid spoiling anything for anyone else. I've done most of what I can think to do on my own and that's about the extent of my willingness to fully explore on my own though - I think I'll check out a guide to do what I presumably need to do to get the true ending tomorrow and that'll be my full experience with the game. Thanks again, plum!

andddd done. wonderful :) happy i consulted a walkthrough to get that final ending though, it would've taken me ages to stumble upon it myself

changmas posted...

andddd done. wonderful :) happy i consulted a walkthrough to get that final ending though, it would've taken me ages to stumble upon it myself

Ah, you got the art ending then. Jk

A few of the endings like outside are pretty hard to find yourself yeah

Okay so I started tonight and got the following endings (spoilers just to be safe): shut down facility, reactivate facility (died though so I assume there's more to solve here), confusion ending, museum of game's development, answer phone, dream/crazy ending, galaxy light show/suicide. I think that's all, some of them kinda blurred together. Also several endings where I just died without fanfare. There's some stuff I can't figure out yet like the elevator in the boss' office and the computer in the second office room that's awaiting input, it increments the first two loops you interact with it on but then vanishes.

Gonna take another crack at it and head through the new content door tomorrow maybe.

Biggest flaw so far is that I fall through the floor, like, a lot. At first I thought it was actually intentional because of where and when it was happening, but then it started happening fairly deep into specific runs which is just frustrating.

Falling through the floor sounds like a bug I have never seen before. I would google that

Same, that is weird the way you described it.

I had it happen once, and thought it was an ending for a while until there was no commentary for a really long time and then an unceremonious restart happened

So, the OG version of TSP has a known glitch kinda like this falling-situation described here in the screens-room. They turned that glitch into two different endings in TSP:UD.

That's not really falling through the floor though. That's climbing over the railings.

Yeah this is straight up falling through the floor Sonic Adventure style lol. It happens the most when entering the second office room at the beginning of the game and immediately when the game starts, but has also happened to me in the stairwell to the boss' office, on the lift to the facility, and other places. Also sometimes I can walk through objects that should be solid (including walls, leading to falling out of bounds). I want to say it's tied to leaving a room too quickly or staying in a room too long, but that's just my perception.

Maybe it's a Steam Deck thing, though it's supposed to be verified. *shrug*

Okay, I put in some more time. I solved the awaiting input puzzle, got the whiteboard ending, checked out the new content, and got an ending with credits. Where you watch Stanley not pick either door from above. I think I got other endings too but it's hard to keep track of what counts as an ending and what doesn't. So far my favorite sequence might be the skip ahead button, it just really appeals to my specific sense of humor.

What I have left is:
-Survive the countdown.
-Find the last figurine (the one in a red and blue place...)
-Other stuff??

But did you get the Broom Closet ending? The Broom Closet ending is my fav'rite.

lol yep I got that one. One of my favorite gags is the broom closet being boarded up if you visit it too much.

I got a couple more endings, the epilogue, and the test achievement so I think that pretty much wraps up the game for me.

I think playing it in 2023 made the original content less poignant? The Ultra Deluxe content feels pretty relevant because it focuses on sequels but idk, there are a lot of meta-commentary games about player choice, and honestly some of them were already years old in 2013. That being said the banter was still pretty enjoyable. Fun game.

I've been playing it this week, the new stuff is fantastic. I think the Skip button section was my favorite so far, it went off the rails in the best ways.

Thanks again for the game!