ah, it's kinda cool and affecting. A bit too on the nose with its themes and you can sort of see why the media have lapped it up, given the subject matter directly relates to people who publish work. Cool piece.

That's an interesting reading and an interesting topic for discussion. Sadly, I didn't really get that or anything of much interest from the game.

Most of my frustrations stemmed from the narrator. I really didn't enjoy the way the existential crisis was presented. It was like having a drunk friend unload on you, but he wasn't a friend so my sympathies were low, especially as he was wittering on about the difficulties of making Source levels, which I quite enjoy. The Stanley Parable had weaknesses in it's writing but some of it was great, I though that this was mostly drivel, despite having had such crises myself.

I also didn't find the 'games' interesting. There were a few nice visual touches but the only interesting mechanic was the walking backwards game. Which is fair enough, except the narrator holds them up as being symbolic and profound when they're pretty dull and take most of their interesting features from elsewhere. As you say, I was forwarned of this, and I bought it because I'm keen to encourage games that are on the edges. I loved Proteus, bought Paranomical recently, blah, blah, blah.

Ultimately it's a very personal game, so I'm glad it exists and that others are enjoying it and don't begrude him the money. Sadly though I found it to be an intensely irritating experience, not because of the lack of game but because of the disparity between the narrators opinion of what was unfolding and my own experience.

And that fucking song at the end. It feels like he was trying to say something profound but it really didn't resonate with me at all. Glad it's working for others though.