Achieving the Unachievable: The Stanley Parable's Elusive "Challenge"

I’ve never been that interested in doors… or clicking… or the number 430, but The Stanley Parable— an interactive comedic walking simulator known for its exploration of choice and obedience, kept me quite entertained as a pressed down on a mouse repeatedly while staring at a dull door.

The “Click on Door 430 Five Times” achievement had me running around a dull office like a circus animal, clicking on inane objects, and obeying the narrator’s nonsensical tasks without question— all just so I could just check another task off my list. Upon completing this series of chores, which both begins and ends with clicking door 430 five times, the narrator congratulates the player while commenting that “only a few minutes ago [the player] believed an achievement was worth five little clicks.”

In that case, what is an achievement worth? If one were to define the worth of an achievement by the amount of effort that the player needs to put in, The Stanley Parable— with its absurd variation in achievements— does not assign clear or consistent worth to its achievements. The game rather deliberately lists all of its 10 achievements through the Steam client quite transparently. Some achievements, such as “Welcome back!” are very clearly defined in their Steam description, with a simple and straightforward method for accomplishing it (in the case of “Welcome back!” one simply has to “[q]uit the game and start it again.”) Whereas other achievements (such as “Speed run,” which requires the player to “complete The Stanley Parable in under 4 minutes and 22 seconds) require a bit of planning and foresight to achieve. If we stick to this definition of an achievement’s worth being tied to its effort, there’s one achievement that, at first glance, seems to stands out as the most valuable.

It is entirely possible to get this achievement.

“Unachievable” invites itself as a challenge and roadblock to completionists. Especially given this game’s capacity for (limited) disobedience, players are especially motivated to achieve the “unachievable.” If one were to decompile the game and examine the physical mechanics behind “Unachievable,” it would seem that it is tied to randomness alongside various other conditions. As such, it is possible (and arguably intended) for the player to achieve this achievement without any intention or conscious effort. Ironically, by the effort definition of an achievement’s worth, this would make the highly coveted “unachievable” practically worthless.

However, in the code, there is also a console (which can be opened up by tweaking with the launch options on Steam for The Stanley Parable) command that triggers the awarding of “Unachievable.” However, this command begins with the tilde character (“~”), which is, by default, disabled in the Stanley Parable console. If one were to type the command without the tilde, the player is warned with a “Hey don’t you even try” warning.

Interestingly, enough, one can go directly into the game files and modify the configurations file where specialized keybindings can be assigned. By adding manually a new keybinding to this file and then rebooting the game, one can achieve “unachievable” with the press of a single button. This all comes with no response from the narrator, perhaps implying that this method for reverse engineering and modifying the game was not intended by the developer.

Considering that this modification of game files doesn't seem to be as directly encouraged or provoked as it is in other games such as Doki Doki Literature Club!, it is interesting to think about whether this form of game manipulation passes as a form of true disobedience within the context of The Stanley Parable. Or perhaps the modification of game files to achieve “unachievable” is entirely provoked, and not too different from the “hacking” found in Watch Dogs. After all, I wouldn’t have even descended down this dark spiral of “cheating” if I had never read the word “Unachievable” on the achievement list. I guess I will have quite a bit of time to think about it in the “Serious Room.”