In my first play-through of Stanley, I gave the game the benefit of the doubt and did absolutely everything it told me to do; the game’s voiced-over narration explains which path to take, and I did what I was told. The result is a boring, cliché videogame narrative that takes only a few minutes to complete: the protagonist, Stanley, has been mind-controlled by a mysterious machine, and when he discovers this, he turns the machine off and escapes to the real world. The game ends with Stanley outside, finally “free” of having been told what to do … the irony being that I, the player, have done exactly what I was told to do by the narrator in order to achieve this result.
Yin Wah Kreher on 09 Jan 15"While technology is still at the core of the model, the kernel in the center of that core is games and "game-like" learning. In the process of finding its feet, Quest ditched the "school for digital kids" tagline and replaced it with "Challenging students to invent their future." A "challenge," in fact, is a key component of any game, one of many game terms that all Quest students master. Game-related activity - such as creating an overarching narrative for a unit of study, inventing a board or other "analog" game or performing a dramatic role-play exercise - is the container for all curricular content, from algebra and sex education to memoir writing and conflict resolution. "
