The Stanley Parable came out just about nine years ago, and so I don’t feel like I’m really spoiling anything by talking about it… but yeah. If you don’t want The Stanley Parable spoilers leave now, because in order to talk about Reventure, I want to talk about The Stanley Parable.
If you were to look at screenshots of the two, it would be hard to think they’re related. Reventure is a 2D pixel art side scroller, and The Stanley Parable started as a source mod, and as such, it’s fully 3D modeled in a nice 3D environment. However, I’d consider the intention of the two to be very similar: to subvert the players expectations of how stories are told.
Video games are on the whole, fairly linear. Unless you’re playing a game where the “Story” is created by interlocking systems, such as Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld, the narrative arc of the game is pre-created. In some cases, you might have games with a good or bad ending, or even something like Undertale where you have two massively divergent stories that are told in the same game. Even something like Mass Effect, while allowing the player a great deal of choice, doesn’t necessarily allow the players to change where the story goes. You can choose how to climb the mountain, but as long as you keep going up, you’ll end up at the top.
The reason I mention this is because both The Stanley Parable and Reventure feel like they’re trying to subvert and exploit this fact by creating endings for every single thing the player can possibly do. In the case of The Stanley Parable, part of this is played out via confrontation with the narrator, who grows increasingly frustrated with Stanley, and also the player, based on if they choose to ignore his instructions or advice. While the actual gameplay of the The Stanley Parable is very linear, it works because of the narrator, and the narrator’s response to everything you do, while at the same time having a very weird set of meta-narratives going on.
The one specific ending I want to talk about in the The Stanley Parable in relation to Reventure is the Countdown Ending. The Countdown ending is the most grim, as it ends with the player being put in a room, a countdown to a nuclear explosion ticking down, as the narrator mocks the player for thinking they have the ability to escape, while the room is full of buttons, levers, and doors, and all sorts of other things to interact with. The interesting thing to me is that the mockery and derision isn’t directed at Stanley so much as it is at the player of the game themself, and mocking them for thinking there is still a way out of the situation. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t replay the area multiple times, finally trying to use cheats to figure out how to win.
The truth of the area is the following, though: there is no way to stop the countdown, and no matter what you do, the game will end with the player dying. It’s an incredibly frustrating and aggravating sequence, and I wouldn’t necessarily call it fun.
I mention all of this, because there are a ton of moments in Reventure that feel like this, except I don’t think it’s intentional this time.
So, now that we’ve written way too much about The Stanley Parable, lets talk about Reventure. Reventure wants to do something similar, in that it wants there to be endings for everything. Kill the king? That’s an ending! Kill the guard? Another one! Kill the wise old man who gives you a sword? Yet another!
These are the gimmicky and slightly less than clever ones. Reventure also has one other really promising mechanic, so lets talk about that: scattered around the world are items. Because you are a hero, you want to pick them up. However, each item you pick up drops the maximum jump height on your character. If you pick up 5 at once, you get another ending where your character just gets squashed under the weight. So instead, you have to be clever. Do you really need the shield? Is there a way around without bombs? Is picking up the nuke (No, really) actually going to do anything for us this run?
For me, this was the most fun part of the game. Trying to solve this massive routing puzzle, to actually “beat” the game. I’d also say this is where Reventure starts to fall apart: as you start to learn and pick apart the systems at work in the game. The game has quite a few items, a grappling hook, a darkness stone, a time whistle, bombs, a sword, a shield, but very few of them actually get used if you’re trying to “beat” the game and save the princess.
So what does this mean? Well, it means a few things. One, unless you know what you’re going for with a run, runs start to feel very samey, and you can easily end up in what feels like an adventure game. What if I stab this guy? What if I wait here? What if I jump here? Etc, etc. And for many things, the answer is, “Actually, nothing special happens if you do this.”
I have one other big gripe with the whole game, and it has to do with the game failing at its core premise. What makes The Stanley Parable work is that it really does anticipate everything the player could do. Jump out a window? We have dialog, and a hidden area. Press a button several hundred times? Yeah, we made an achievement. Stand still at the start? We can see you. The whole premise of the game, that someone is really watching, that someone is really paying attention works because of that detail.
Reventure does not have that. I’m going to use a single encounter to illustrate this: the one with the dragon underground. There are several ways to interact with the dragon. You can kill it, love it, try to fight it, try to fight it with a flame proof charm or shield, or both.
Trying to do any of these things, though, ends the run, including, and this is important to me, killing the dragon. What happens if you do this? Well, the game tells you that “Oh, you starved to death since you didn’t have a way to get out.” Here’s the thing. It does this even if you bring the grappling hook. It does this EVEN THOUGH there is a secret passage that launches you right to surface almost immediately near the dragon. It ends if you try to fight the dragon, if you kill the dragon, and if you bring a bunch of gear and try to kill the dragon.
This is where the game fall apart for me, because it makes something very clear: the dragon is not an obstacle to overcome, it’s a end point to be reached and interacted with. And all of a sudden, all the clever thinking feels very pointless. Most items in the game are straight up useless or worthless, and the reduction in the player’s jump height is almost always a terrible trade for whatever benefit the item gives. It’s not about trying to find a clever way around puzzles, it’s about picking up a few random things and using them and seeing what happens.
This is the part where I stopped playing Reventure. Steam says I have about 66 of the 100 or so endings you can apparently get. After I stopped, I looked up a few more to see if I was missing something great. And honestly, I don’t think I am. (Many of the endings are just silly Easter eggs, like, “OMG, it’s the Fortnite Battle Bus,” and such.)
Now, you might be wondering, if I don’t like the game, why did I write so much about it? Here’s the thing: Reventure feels very promising at first. The whole idea of, “Hey, not all gear is good, try to figure out how to use it to solve the puzzles, and beat the game, with lots of variable routes” is fun. But when you realize that most of the items are more or less red herrings, finding new treasure becomes boring. Exploring starts to feel pointless, because you won’t find anything that will be interesting or help. And the game’s insistence on having so many stupid gimmicky endings means you end up playing the same sections of the game over and over.
Reventure felt like some sort of grand puzzle when I started playing, but looking at it now, it feels like some sort of old point and click adventure game where the solutions are obtuse and annoying.
I would not recommend Reventure. Go play The Stanley Parable instead.