The Stanley Parable is a special type of game, throwing the player into a world where they are somehow both the main character and not at all. The world around you, ever changing and confusing, becomes a character in its own right, and the narrator talks about you as though you’re an idiot. 

Giving players choices that would take them on a new path, or at times even potentially ‘break’ the game, The Stanley Parable became a phenomenon and spawned a whole new genre of games. These games don’t try to fix bugs, but rather create them as intended features, and almost all of them feature a narrator who seems to hate you.

And like the masochists that many gamers are but claim not to be, we flock to these games that belittle us and challenge us to break the game as much as humanly possible. 

These are the types of games that tell you not to do something, knowing with absolute certainty that you’ll do it anyway. They challenge you not to play them, at times actively beg you not to. They put temptation in front of you, like the apple in the Garden of Eden. They ask the question, “How far are you willing to go to unlock some achievements?” 

In a way, these could be considered ‘anti-games’. Maybe that should be the name of the genre.

If you’re looking for something to play that offers the same vibes, here are some epic indie games like The Stanley Parable. 

Do Not Buy This Game

Do Not Buy This Game is a walking simulator with a narrator who switches between begging you not to touch anything to throwing roadblocks in your way. The aim is to press a button, but the creator (voiced by Mike Regan) is not going to make this easy on you, and you’ll need to persevere if you want to make it to the end. 

Weirdly, Do Not Buy This Game gets surprisingly deep, diving in to the concept of fear and determination in the middle of this nonsensical linear walk. You suddenly find yourself questioning your own fears, and how you can push through them. It feels like it comes from nowhere, and as those moments often do, it can leave you feeling strangely affected. 

Do Not Buy This Game is currently being developed by Kingsblade Games and has no release date for the full game, but there is a demo available to download and try through Steam.

Title_Pending

In Title_Pending, you’ve signed up to playtest the latest game by JMC Gaming Enterprises, which as yet does not have a name. You’re the only playtester who signed up, and things very quickly start to go wrong. Unlike many of the other games on this list, this “anti-game” includes puzzles to solve, all of which take you off in new directions. 

The more secrets you find, the more wrong ways you turn, the more the game breaks down around you. Congratulations, you’ve become what is either the worst or the best playtester in history, depending on how you look at it. 

Title_Pending was developed by DEVBEEF and released in its entirety in 2022, so you can play the full game now. If you want to try it out first, there’s a demo to play with its own achievements to unlock. 

An Unfinished Game

An Unfinished Game is a strange mixture of 3D platformer and “anti-game” (I have no idea what I’m supposed to call these games, so I’m going with my self-given genre, here). In An Unfinished Game, you’re a crash test dummy tasked with finding bugs across various levels, and those bugs are physical collectibles. 

There is no narrator in An Unfinished Game, but it still gives off the same vibes as the other games on this list. The game looks and feels like it’s in the early stages of development, and that’s the entire point. It’s charming, funny, and surprisingly difficult to complete some of the levels. 

An Unfinished Game was developed by Vinzzi and was released on June 19, 2025, so you can go and hunt down all of those physical bugs right now. There’s also a demo to try if you’re uncertain whether you want to commit. 

A Simple Job

A Simple Job is another game that gives you a button and tells you not to push it, although this button comes with the threat of nuclear apocalypse for the world, because it controls a missile within a silo. Still, you’re the nightshift attendant, so what could possibly go wrong?

A Simple Job is free to play and has a ton of achievements to unlock through doing things slightly differently each time. Drink the coffee or don’t, press the button or don’t, find the one button that works in a room full of buttons, that kind of thing. There’s a fully voice-acted and fed-up sounding narrator in this one as well, and a suspicious yet highly memorable theme song in the trailer. 

Developed by Dream Studios and Saturn 91, A Simple Job was fully released on June 5, 2025, and, as it’s free to play, you have no reason not to try it. There’s also an Airlines DLC coming at some point in Fall 2025.

When the Darkness Comes

When the Darkness Comes takes the concept of ‘anti-games’, with the narrator, game-breaking, and temptation, but throws a dark twist into the mix, both literally and metaphorically. It explores themes of anxiety and depression, and does a wonderful job of invoking feelings of the latter while you play, so it may not be for everyone. 

One of the biggest themes of When the Darkness Comes is the feeling of being watched as you fail, to be seen while you get things wrong. For many people, that’s some kind of nightmare, and this game is excellent at making you feel that anxiety spike in a safe environment. 

Despite the dark themes, When the Darkness Comes manages to be weirdly uplifting. It was developed by Sirhaian, and the full game is free to play. If you think you have the mental fortitude, I’d highly recommend giving this one a try. 

Fever Meme

Fever Meme knows exactly what it is, hence the name. It’s an absolute mess of purposefully broken mechanics, impossibly rage-inducing platformer moments, and a narrator who narrates every single death in a voice bizarrely similar to Marvin the Paranoid Android in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 

Everything is designed to be difficult. Platforms will move after you’ve already jumped, invisible floors cover lava pools, while seemingly real floors cover spikes that will lead to your inevitable demise. The more you play, the more the fourth wall breaks down, and the harder it gets to figure out what the hell is going on, but that’s what makes this game fun to experience. 

Fever Meme was developed by Aimbok and released fully on July 4, 2025, so you can go and get the full game right now.

The Corridor

The Corridor is a game that will test your patience like nothing else, repeatedly shutting itself down and making you spam every single person on your Steam friends list with notifications that you’re playing it. It reminds me of one of those restaurants where people go specifically to be belittled by the waiting staff, because the narrator is filled with sarcasm and, at times, outright savagery. 

None of that is to say that it isn’t enjoyable, though. As with all the games on this list, it is designed in a way that bugs become features and those features become beloved, and despite only being 30-ish minutes long, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable experience that you’ll likely find yourself wanting to repeat. 

The Corridor was developed by Thomas MacKinnon and was released in December 2020. It’s available to purchase for a ridiculously low price on Steam and through Itch.io. If you want to ‘try before you buy’, you can check out the hilarious interactive trailer to get a feel for the mood of the full experience.

The Beginner’s Guide

And of course, no list of games like The Stanley Parable would be complete without including The Beginner’s Guide, also made by Davey Wreden. It has no traditional mechanics and no objectives, choosing instead to focus on narrative. It takes you through a series of video games developed over a few years, with the creations getting more and more depressing as the years go on. 

It’s a dissection of life through creative pursuits and how the events that we encounter in life affect us in every sense. It’s profoundly touching, sad, and at times confusing, but absolutely worth playing at least once. Half finished games are looked at for what they are, rather than what they could be, and things get pretty deep. 

If you liked The Stanley Parable, you’ll probably love The Beginner’s Guide. It’s been out since 2015, and you should play it if you haven’t already.