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 The Beginner's Guide is an interactive story game from Davey Wreden. I was a big fan of Wreden's previous game The Stanley Parable and I was excited when I heard he was releasing another. I played through the entire game in one sitting (it's only about an hour and a half long, essentially a feature length film where you control the camera) and was extremely pleased. I was worried that he wouldn't be able to top the creativity and poignancy of TSP, but he managed to create a game that was both a unique from TSP while still capturing the spirit that made its predecessor so quirky and great. It has simplistic graphics and controls, and leans heavily on the narration to create atmosphere and tension. The theme: I can't go too far in depth without spoilers, but in broad stokes, the game deals with the torment that can sometimes come with being creative, depression, death of the author, and how every man is ultimately a stranger to every other. Release Date: October 1st, 2015 Platform: PC (Steam) What I think it means (major spoilers, please do not read if you intend to play): I think that the dysfunctional relationship between Davey and Coda is meant to be a microcosm of the relationship between creator and audience. Coda writes in his last game that Davey has wormed his way so far into Coda's life that it's affecting the way he makes games in the same way obsessing over audience feedback can taint the integrity of other creators. Davey is demanding and impatient, obsessively measuring the downtime in between Coda's games in the same way audiences track anticipated release dates. When the games do come out, they are never good enough for him and he mods them when they do not play the way he wants them to go. In the second to final game with the machine, Davey thinks Coda's games have become self destructive, but he is wrong. When Coda makes a game where the player must destroy a machine called "Coda," it is not self-deprecating. The game requires the player to destroy Coda and Davey is the only player. It's intended as a message to Davey that he is hurting his friend. I don't have a theory about the significance of the prison imagery but I'm interested in hearing your ideas. I recommend playing the game before reading the rest of this thread because it's only safe to assume that any meaningful post will probably be a spoiler in some way. I recommend playing it regardless, but I understand it's not for everyone.
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Oct 21, 2015 02:22
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| # ? May 31, 2024 01:40 |
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It occurred to me this morning that the only time we hear Coda's voice (that is to say, the only vocalizations that Coda intentionally incorporated into the game), it is female. The voice on the PA system is that of a woman, as is the crying figure in the prison. Unless Coda him/herself is female (Davey always refers to Coda using male pronouns), that means Coda worked with at least one other person in the creation of his games. If that is the case, I wonder if it's significant that Davey never brings her up in his narrative. Of course the internet community's interpretation of the significance of the female voice would probably be that Coda is trans, and that the woman in the prison represents her repressed feminine identity, but I think that one is a little too easy and a bit of a non-sequitur to the other themes of the game.
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Oct 21, 2015 13:54
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Bgeinner
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Oct 21, 2015 18:44
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Kanthulhu posted:Bgeinner Pobody's Nerfect.
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Oct 21, 2015 20:34
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it means that the creator's depressed in the most boring white dude way possible, and not in the interesting way where he makes neon genesis evangelion
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Oct 21, 2015 20:42
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Endorph posted:it means that the creator's depressed in the most boring white dude way possible, and not in the interesting way where he makes neon genesis evangelion Yeah pretty much. I'm really getting sick of this "no John, you ARE the demons" brand of storytelling that indie games seem to have been clinging to since Braid made a big thing of it. It's being used as a shortcut to insight and every time I see it I get just a little more jaded at its application.
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Oct 22, 2015 18:23
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sethsez posted:Yeah pretty much. Yeah the twist wasn't really all that shocking, but I don't think the twist was the point of the story. I thought the real meat of the game was the allegory between Davey and Coda's dysfunctional relationship, and the relationship between creator and audience. What Wreden's essentially showing us is that if we had an individual in our lives that behaved the way the typical "fandom" does, we wouldn't put up with them. I also think it's significant that Davey sharing Coda's games without permission is the act that finally drives Coda away. I'm willing to bet Davey has strong feelings about digital piracy.
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Oct 23, 2015 14:13
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| # ? May 31, 2024 01:40 |
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The game is about how PC gamers are dumb and bad and never happy about anything and pathological modders incapable of just enjoying a thing or just moving on. It's a bitter pill, I know.
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Oct 29, 2015 19:01
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