Stanley Parable Dev Showcase: Making Mistakes
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.
This week: Admitting that you've made mistakes
Almost everyone is human, which means that almost everyone makes mistakes. Sure, the pain of making a mistake so wretched and vicious it's nearly unbearable, but it's even more painful to have to admit your mistake to others. Today I'm going to show you how to communicate your errors to your teammates in a healthy and graceful manner.
First let's look at the mistake I made. The texture on this floor needs to be carpet instead of wood. It's a simple change.
Instead, I accidentally delete the entire map.
In a blind panic, I save the file. Everything is lost.
I've made a mistake. Again, it's important to remember that everyone makes mistakes and you are still normal and that I love you.
But it's also important to regain composure and handle the situation with precision if you want to do any damage control. This can be resolved if we stay calm. Let's think about the situation logically:
- Everything that was lost was inside the map file
- If the map file doesn't exist, no one will know you deleted everything in it
The only logical answer is to delete the map file.
Perfect! Or is it?
Look closer. Isn't is suspicious that that's the only missing map file? Weren't you supposed to be editing that particular map? If anyone sees that this file is missing they'll know without a doubt that it was you who fucked up.
Our only option is to delete the rest of the maps as well.
Good, this is much better.
But I'm still uneasy. I'm not worried about being caught, I'm thinking about what kind of man I am. I'm a real man, I own a real shirt, I built a house once. When I start something I follow through, and right now this feels to me like a half-assed job. That just doesn't sit right in my stomach.
I think I'm going to delete every file in the entire game.
Be sure to empty the recycle bin!
Outstanding! You've just permanently erased every file from your team's shared Dropbox.
High five yourself.
Uh oh, here's William, the lead level designer on Stanley Parable. It seems he's discovered my “mistake” and wants to talk. As a team leader, this seems like a good opportunity for me to discuss the game's radical new direction with him.
It seems he's exhibiting a “negative” response to the news. Let's do some damage control: what can we say that will convince him there's no possible way you could have been responsible for erasing the game?
Well played.
Shit, he's catching on. Damage control.
SAVED!
Next week, we'll talk about hiring new team members.
God, these are just fantastic! They always make me laugh so damn hard, how many more can we expect?
Hopefully until the game’s launch! Or as long as I’m able to keep up the momentum
Fantastic
keep up the good work, can’t wait for the release 
That sounds like if you don’t wanna see any more of those in this context xD
I don’t think I did this right. I set about correcting a mistake I made in a map I was doing as per these instructions, then looked away, and when I looked back, my computer was gone.
The problem is that you do not exist. Try unthinking yourself out of non-existence and boot the map up again.
I just read this post and the previous post and now I can’t stop laughing.
Thank you.
You sir, continue to amuse greatly. Though even joking about deleting uber important files makes me cringe horribly, ha. As if it wasn’t already evident before, you are clearly an expert of mind games.
Don’t forget to boot all others from the Dropbox folder and delete your Dropbox account so that no one can revert all deletions.
Or alternatively, you could use Dropbox’s “Restore Previous Version of File” feature to get all the files back.
But that wouldn’t be nearly as funny, now would it?
how is it possible to delete a entire map when you only want to take out a texture on a floor, or the whole floor for that matter??!! i am a mapper, so i know the difference between the 2.
that said, even when you should delete the entire map, then still nothing is lost, just your last 15 min of mapping, just go bac to the map in the autosave folder. still, you never should rely on that. one of the first things you learn as a mapper is that you need to save your map each time you did build something to it, under a different name (map1, map2, etc)/. so should something go wrong, then you always just go back to the earlier version.
quit a beginners mistake when i may say so, when you save each time with the same mapname, and not know that you level is also autosaved. just really surprice me to read this here!!!
Leon
(SPYmaps)
Hello SPYmaps, I believe you may have missed the joke. Though I appreciate your concern for the project
Quite surprised you guys aren’t using proper version control. Git anyone?
In a way, Dropbox can be used as a simpler version of Git… painless to set up, still keeps all the revisions and it’s really user-friendly. Nowhere near as powerful though
Well I just tried to use this technique with my project manger and he gave me the ending response that if I’m not real, I’m fired… I am unsure how to continue this. Do I delete him and then his family or do I keep trying the I do not exist approach?
I love this in every imaginable sense of love. Probably even a few more than that.
Am I the only one who read “It’s a simple change.” In the same voice as the “Making of SP” video saying “It’s a futile task. (Bees, Can’t read.)
Halp, they restored the file from backup on dropbox. I tried to delete dropbox but I couldn’t get rid of the server without stopping all the routers and now the internet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAQu0ngfs_8
it’s okay don’t worry everything will be
first you should
then
after
okay, now simply stop doing the problem and everything should be fixed!
The Stanley parable hd remix looks like the best game ever…
[...] Making Mistakes [...]
Whenever I read these, I read it in the narrator’s voice… strange…
“Say ‘hi’ to the Internet, William!”
Calm under pressure with the damage control *claps*