Support NeoGAF

[OminoMichelin]

Played it, finished it. Really interesting experience, which oddly enough (and involuntarily) taught me something about myself.
Hard to tell what the intention of Davey was in this game. We are probably not meant to know.

What a week, first Undertale, then this.

 

[IDKAboutThat]

Regardless of your personal interpretation of

Spoiler

Davey's motives and how they relate to him in real life

, regardless of whether you think this personal artistic experience was worth your time and money or it should have stayed personal, you have to acknowledge that this game is art, through and through. Games as a medium can be so many things and convey so much, and this is another solid, in-depth example of that. This sets it apart from the Stanley Parable, I think, in that it doesn't examine the nature of narrative in games, but uses the game as a medium to self-examination. The fact that it's a video game is secondary to the artistic meaning of it, but necessary to the integrity of the piece, and that's what interests me the most about this game.

 

[Brydo0]

Won't crosspost from the other thread, just write more thoughts;

Spoiler

If you're familiar with Davey Wreden it's obvious CODA does not exist literally as a person, but is the creative side of Wreden. He has been decently public about his insecurities, particularly the overwhelmingly positive critical response to The Stanley Parable, and his own desire for continuous self validation coupled with expectations.

The Beginner's Guide is basically through and through and introspective narrative, Wreden making a statement to himself through you and through a creative work that is stating he is struggling with creative ideas and himself. His self imposed expectations. His cycle of seeking validation. His inability to grasp meaning for simply doing and living beyond that validation. Obsession in finding meaning for the sake of meaning where there isn't any. The expectations his previous work has enforced in his new work. Feeling creatively bankrupt as a result. And a general sense of aimlessness and failure. Wreden is speaking to Coda, because he is speaking to himself, and the creative spark he has both lost and continue to fight and struggle with. It's meta, especially in the deliberate on-the-nose statements towards the end, which to me speak to the audience and assumptions that Wreden is depressed and all that when all of this is really just part of his creative process.

And I think that's wonderful and very personal and I'm glad it exists. I'd be lying if I said I was overwhelmingly moved or anything by the end. I get it (or at least think I get it). And I have zero interest in scrutinising or critiquing the work because I feel doing so defeats the point. But yeah. It is what it is and that's whatever.

This sums up my feelings almost exactly. I watched someone else play hours after my initial playthrough and

Spoiler

it really filled out my initial feelings that I picked up from the latter half. To me, the ending is your assumptions, and Wreden telling you "Hey, I'm all good, this is just part of the process."

In the end, I'm super happy that this exists, and maybe, in turn, we'll get to see more projects that subvert expectations going forward from other talented teams.

 

[Muskieratboi]

I'm.. conflicted about this.

Spoiler

I'm reeeasonably sure that Coda, as a person isn't actually real, so we can chalk that possibility off.

So that leaves me with three different interpretations.

1: Developer!Davey (as in, the Actual Davey Wreden) is trying to work out his issues by releasing a game that plainly tells us what he thinks his issues are, and then (by putting in his email right then and there at the start) to give him free therapy by armchair psychoanalyzing him.

A bit selfish, but hey, it works. and it works in character, too.

2: Coda is Developer!Davey's Subconcious. His artistic side. Story!Davey is the side of Developer!Davey that likes order and gameplay. The story of the game is about how these two parts of him war against each other, and Developer!Davey made this game to try to reconcile the two.


3: Everything about Story!Davey and Coda is just Bullshit, And Developer!Davey just made this game because he wanted to make a cool, thought-provoking game about how hard it is to make games, and to make cool prisons.


----

Something I want to note is that there's this feeling of.. wanting to explore games. wanting to see everything there is to see, to discern meaning, or to at least figure how certain things are done. That's at least how I feel. I'm much like Story!Davey in that regard. Right now, I want to hack into the game and turn on Noclip so I can fly around and see if there's anything in the game that Dev!Davey (As opposed to Story!Davey) put in the game.

But.. Wouldn't that make me just like Story!Davey? Editing Coda's games, modding them so he could break the confines of the game's limitations and try to discern greater meaning from them?

Is it truly selfish to want to mod games or to explore in places normally inaccessible using hacks/tricks to look for easter eggs or to examine how a game was made?

 

[Ragnite]

I'm.. conflicted about this.

Spoiler

2: Coda is Davey's Subconcious. His artistic side. Davey is the side of him that likes order and gameplay the story is about how these two parts of him war against each other, and Davey made this game to try to reconcile the two.
evidence of this can be seen with Stanley's Art Ending.

Spoiler

This was how I interpreted it. All the exposition about the "Machine" described it as the creative force that allowed all those games to be made, it seemed to represent self-expression and self-discovery. Then before the interrogation scene, the guard at the door that leads to the interrogation room nonchalantly mentions that the Machine's name is Coda. I took that as the game making a connection between Davey's raw, emotional side and the character of Coda.

 

[The Illiterati]

Asking for a refund when the description clearly states that the game will take 90 minutes to complete would be kind of dickish.

True. Good of him to put that there. I bought without reading or watching anything, off of his past game alone, a true blind experience! Hopefully this experiment is fruitful for him.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

I really enjoyed it, I wish I had time to write more up but it's too late here. Everything is strongly presented and well thought out. Hopefully I can write more about it's specific themes later but I was impressed with just how cohesive it is. Even if there is some purposeful ambiguity in the narrative it shares experiences with the player really well and give you a lot to think about.

 

[GenericBadGuy]

I really enjoyed this, but feel like I can't even talk about the experience without spoiling it. I'll join the crowd of voices telling you to go play it if you haven't, and I will say if you didn't like games like Dear Esther or Gone Home you won't like this.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

really enjoyed it, don't want to spoil anything, but I feel at this point that Davey Wreden is en route to establish himself as one of the most distinct voices among contemporary video game developers

 

[LeBart]

I really enjoyed this, but feel like I can't even talk about the experience without spoiling it. I'll join the crowd of voices telling you to go play it if you haven't, and I will say if you didn't like games like Dear Esther or Gone Home you won't like this.

Dear Esther was well written but the story was completely impenetrable, and Gone Home did absolutely nothing for me, but I really loved The Beginner's Guide.

Ever since these "walking simulators" (for want of a better word) became a thing, I felt like the idea had a lot of potential but I just never played one that I really liked until today.

So on the contrary, I would encourage those who don't really like the genre to maybe give this one a go.

 

[Armitage Shanks]

In the interest of balance, I hated it. Ugh. I failed at the first hurdle, to be fair, and that is the premise that any kind of rough, pointless form of self expression is Art and can be called a "game".

Spoiler

Which is analogous to the whole game of course. One great big pointless arty self-expression

The biggest crime was that it was dull as well.

But that's just my 2 cents.
Shan't be asking for a refund of course as someone pointed out on page 1 that that's a terribly shitty thing to do.

 

[Mushroomer25]

Just finished this, and I thought it was genuinely brilliant.

Spoiler

It's gaming's first peice of truly excellent found footage. A game about the creation of games, their analysis, and the relationship between audience and artist. Dewey sees so mcuh in Coda, projecting his own insecurities into the work. This manifests both metaphorically (Dewey's analysis of the games), and literally (adding the lampposts, and god knows what else).

Yes, It's another 'walking simulator' narrative game, but I really like the execution of this. You can tell its' the creation of a writer, using every tool as an aspect of story.

 

[SilentRob]

Spoiler

Which is analogous to the whole game of course. One great big pointless arty self-expression

l.

This is a weird description to me. First of all: Pointless. Aren't all video games, ultimately, pointless? You get nothing out of it other than momentary entertainment - in that vain, Beginner's Guide has way more of a point than any classic game, because it's creator actually has something to say and to communicate, instead of simply entertaining the player. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I just think "pointless" is a weird description for any video game.

The second part confuses me even more however. Is the fact that this game is "arty self-expression" something bad? "Arty" seems like a be-all-end-all term for anything not comforming to classic video game rules, but how is "self-expression" in and on itself a bad thing? Isn't that the very point of any creative endeavor?

 

[Armitage Shanks]

This is a weird description to me.

Oof, here I was hoping to just leave a glib negative attitude and now find myself drawn to a discussion, and I've barely had my morning coffee.

It's...hm, difficult to explain I guess, but when it starts with

Spoiler

"in this game you can only walk backward" and I'm thinking...it's not a game. It's a test, a technical prototype or something, I don't know. Everything was referred to as a game but literally none of it was

which I guess is fine. Beginner's Guide isn't a "game", it's some kind of narrative experiment, or whatever. There is room in this world for that without getting hung up on semantics.
But then

Spoiler

it seemed really hung up on this arty form of self expression that I just didn't buy. I was lead to believe the whole thing was leading somewhere special but it never did, it never got out of its self indulgent introspection, that I was expected to come along with but didn't for a variety of reasons, including the art, which was, well....

I guess it's just an issue I have. I've been a game developer for about two decades now, and my experience of it has always been one of creating product, a commercial team effort to create entertainment.

Spoiler

All these "deeper" readings (that really aren't that deep) into what games "mean" have always rung false to me. And this whole experience is about that. How can I expect to enjoy it if I don't agree with the main premise that holds up this entire experience?

I'm not going so far as to dissuade people from playing it. I would just like to add my tiny voice of dissent in this slightly baffling wave of approbation.

 

[Despera]

Done in ~100 minutes.

Spoiler

So basically Wreden personified an aspect of his psyche as a game developer and called him Coda, through which he explores different themes. It's easy to realize that Coda's none other than Wreden himself when he says early on that Coda stopped making games in 2011. Yep, the same year The Stanley Parable came out.

I understand that it is a rather personal story, shedding light on some of the developer's struggles in life. Starting with examining and attempting to understand what he was going through in the initial stages to finally realizing that he was the one holding himself back. The Beginner's Guide perhaps is Wreden summarizing his pondering over said struggles and realizations into something tangible, in order for him to solidify his notion of moving on by having some sort of reference for the future. The laser glitch is a major indicator of this and here's why:

You encounter the laser glitch a total of 2 times. The first encounter is very early in the game, and what happens is you start to levitate over the structure of a relatively small labyrinth, Wreden explains how this event was a turning point for "Coda", triggering him to move on. The 2nd and last time you encounter it is at the very end of the game, this time overlooking a labyrinth an order of magnitude bigger than the previous one.

What I think based on the information we were given is that the labyrinths seem to symbolize struggle. The size difference seems to indicate the accumulation and culmination of Wreden's inner struggles over time, and floating away from the larger labyrinth during the game's ending is Wreden himself finally finding the exit and moving on.

And looking down at that thing...

http://i.imgur.com/C70akEN.png

It looks pretty daunting doesn't it? Who would want to go back there.

I consider this another great example of utilizing storytelling tools unique to the medium. So yeah, I definitely liked it. Nothing earth shattering, but more than worth the price of admission. Of course there's more to discuss about this game, but I think I'll just

Spoiler

put a lampost right here and

leave it at that

 

[Vitor711]

Game crashed after an hour when I tried to change the resolution. Corrupted so bad it won't relaunch even with a restart. Redownloading everything now...

EDIT 1: And the game won't launch. At all. Well this is annoying. Windows 10 64bit - everything working fine before. Verifying game cache always comes back with 1/2 files missing but then the game still doesn't launch after they've been replaced.

EDIT 2: Editing launch options in steam to force the game to start in safe mode worked...

EDIT 3: And of course there's no save file because I tried reinstalling the game... I have ZERO urge to play through the first 65 minutes again. Anyone have a save file they can upload to a file sharing site like dropbox or something for me so I can use the chapter select option?

 

[Muskieratboi]

Another quick note: if this isn't an utterly fucking AMAZING example of video game architecture, I don't know what is.

Like, holy shit.

 

[TheHollowNight]

Just finished it. Ending up crying more than I have in years. This was a deeply affecting game for me. I'm genuinely struggling to make a cohesive point to explain why you should play it, but it made me look inwards and a lot of the themes rang alarmingly true with my own relationship with game development and with anxieties of trying to express myself through it as a medium. it's at least for me, very very relatable and in turn became a very personal experience.

Man. Yeah, not sure what else to say. My brain is on meltdown.

 

[Scott667]

I'm honestly not 100% sure what to think of my experience.

Spoiler

As a person who has dabbled in game development, the first half was really interesting. It was like seeing into the creative process of an individual and how ideas are iterated on (and how the end player only ever sees a fraction of what actually goes into the game). However the second half felt a little emotional in weird ways (which as a person who has depression, is also something I can relate to). I think it would have bothered me less if the presentation was different, but the current scenario of the author narrating a fictionalized version of his history felt like I had paid to have a dramatic reading of someone's livejounal/cry for help.

Mixed thoughts and was left disappointed, but it was definitely a more interesting way to spend a friday night than if I had done something more mundane.

 

[Belgian Dude]

Just finished it. Ending up crying more than I have in years. This was a deeply affecting game for me. I'm genuinely struggling to make a cohesive point to explain why you should play it, but it made me look inwards and a lot of the themes rang alarmingly true with my own relationship with game development and with anxieties of trying to express myself through it as a medium. it's at least for me, very very relatable and in turn became a very personal experience.

Man. Yeah, not sure what else to say. My brain is on meltdown.

I didn't get to the point of crying but this, coupled with Davey's "GOTY" article had me on verge. It's really relatable even if you're not a game developer and really made me rethink some of the ways I approach creative mediums altogether.

 

[Plasma]

Finished it last night and as somebody who used to make a lot of maps for games (and still do every now and again) some of the points in this game really hit home with me.

 

[Easy_D]

Game crashed after an hour when I tried to change the resolution. Corrupted so bad it won't relaunch even with a restart. Redownloading everything now...

EDIT 1: And the game won't launch. At all. Well this is annoying. Windows 10 64bit - everything working fine before. Verifying game cache always comes back with 1/2 files missing but then the game still doesn't launch after they've been replaced.

EDIT 2: Editing launch options in steam to force the game to start in safe mode worked...

EDIT 3: And of course there's no save file because I tried reinstalling the game... I have ZERO urge to play through the first 65 minutes again. Anyone have a save file they can upload to a file sharing site like dropbox or something for me so I can use the chapter select option?

Can't you just use the Chapter Select?

 

[deejay]

I thought it was a touching, personal story, and I'm not sure if it's real, but if it is I can't help but wonder why he's asking money for it... That just feels... off.

 

[Evilmaus]

This game is really unique. With regards to who Coda is, I agree that

Spoiler

it can't be anyone other than Davey himself. The people he's asking to stop trying to put meaning into his game where there is none must surely be us, the fans. I'm sure he's been bombarded with questions, like the ones he asks Coda in the game, since release.

I hope him being able to make this game means that he's gotten through it, and is ready to put his work out into the world again. It could also be interpreted as a farewell though...

Can't say I agree.

Spoiler

Yes, I think Davey is Coda, or rather, Coda is also Davey, but it's not the fans who are trying to find meaning where there is none. It's more that Davey is making alterations to games that come from Coda, which adds meaning to them, and he's doing it because while Coda creates what he really wants, Davey is then making them more in line with that he thinks other people will want.

Coda is fine with his games not having any real destination. Davey thinks that won't sit well with others, so he adds the lamp posts, because he needs other people to like his games. He needs that validation from people around him.

If he was sick of fans asking him questions about meaning where there is none, why would he have given his email address right at the very beginning? It just wouldn't make sense.

 

[Vitor711]

Can't you just use the Chapter Select?

I reinstalled the game so it thinks I've not got past the fast chapter. I think they only open up as you complete each level.

 

[plagiarize]

Soooo... my thoughts go in a slightly different direction to most people here.

Spoiler

Coda is an aspect of Dave Wreden naturally... but so is 'Davey'. I don't think that Davey and Coda are the same person at all, in the context of the fiction. Both characters are separate elements of the writer Dave Wreden that I guess he feels are slightly at odds with each other... but in terms of the fiction I think both are separate *fictional* characters.

Coda likes making games. He enjoys the process and nothing more. He doesn't care if people play them, he finishes one and moves onto the next, discarding what he made before. He needs no validation. When he puts a really detailed area in a place the 'player' can't get to, it isn't trying to communicate something to the player, because there is no player to Coda. He knows that detailed space is out there. He can see it in his editing tools. He made it. He can go explore it whenever he wants.

Coda likes the idea of prisons because they are gated spaces. The idea of there being more to the world than one person can see, or that people in one area can ever see. That is I think what Coda likes to think about.

Now a player comes in, in the form of Davey, and he didn't build the world. He only knows the experience of playing these things blind. So he wonders why you have a gun (Coda likely just wanted to see if he could make one), and he extrapolates all this added meaning onto the experience that Coda never intended.

It's not that you weren't meant to see behind that unpassable door, or wall. You weren't meant to see any of it. When he slows the player down going up the stairs, Davey isn't destroying the experience by letting you skip that moment. He's destroying it by showing it you.

And worst of all, worse even than putting lampposts everywhere, Davey presents Coda's games. Whatever experience, if any, Coda intended a hypothetical player to have from playing his games... Davey doesn't let the player of The Beginner's Guide have.

Before we can form our own ideas, Davey supplants them with his. Before we can attempt the maze on the spaceship... Davey mocks the idea of the maze and teleports us ahead to the other side.

Davey isn't even letting us have the experience he had playing those games. So we are even further removed from Coda's art (which is in the creation) than Davey got to see (an unnarrated play through).

Of course this infuriates Coda. Rightly so.

I think the game is about art criticism. David Lynch, for example, never explains his films. He never tells people if their interpretations are right or wrong, and he would be horrified by the thought of someone first watching one of his films with commentary from a third party.

The Stanley Parable is what it is. It is valid without being explained or interpreted. I get angry at those stupid Silent Hill analysis videos on youtube because they supplant intended mystery with three moron's interpretations.

Pyramid Head just is. Just because *you* find him to represent a certain aspect of one character, doesn't mean that is what he represented. He was meant to be a threat we didn't understand. *That* was the intention of the creators. The game would tell us what pyramid head was if we were intended to know. Anything outside the fiction may be additive for some, but to me it's subtractive. Telling me my interpretation of something clearly meant to be open to interpretation is wrong, is harming the art.

Davey *destroys* Coda's art. Not just by playing it, but by sharing the games and forcing his own interpretations onto others.

The ending left me feeling like I had been reading someone's secret diary without permission. It left me very uncomfortable.

It's another singular work, and given the apparent challenge Dave Wreden had coping with the success of The Stanley Parable, and given the worthy critical praise The Beginner's Guide is getting, I really hope he doesn't break himself with personal expectations on his next game.

I hope this game has been a healing process, and I hope he makes what he wants to make, because I trust that whatever that would be, is something that would be worth my time even if it isn't as singular and original as The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide.

Spoiler

Also I think there is a whole game's worth of ideas in that walking backwards concept.

So I don't think he's hurting for good ideas.

 

[tamaster92]

This game is.. yeah

People should play it but i dont think i LIKE it.

it hurt me and hit places I dont like to think about. It will differ per person but it is too close to home for me.

But yeah, play it.

 

[Trouble]

Just bought and played this today. I feel like people will be analyzing this for months. Hard to say if I 'liked' this game or not, but it's pretty clear the intention here isn't to make a game that you 'like', but one that provokes thought and discussion.

Went in hoping for more Stanley Parable zany fun, came out not know how I feel about any of it.

I thought it was a touching, personal story, and I'm not sure if it's real, but if it is I can't help but wonder why he's asking money for it... That just feels... off.

If indeed

Spoiler

Coda is a real person and these are real games that he didn't give permission to be distributed

, then yeah that's super slimy. I think general consensus is that it's not the actual case. I think that feeling of being uncomfortable is part of the intended experience, personally.

 

[Spazznid]

Holy shit...

Spoiler

I really want to ask the writer if he's ok, but I feel like that's exactly what the game warns against...

Spoiler

I love how it's a look at how we, as an audience, tend to imply our own meaning to other's work, where none might exist from their perspective. I found myself over analyzing every game as a deep look into the artist's mind. But that was me, and the writer, forcing our ideal vision on what was meant to be a blank canvas. After the point where you start to see that the writer is the one with depression issues, I felt like I could relate to both sides. As a wannabe artist, growing up immersing myself with poetry, art, games, books, etc. It painted me. I would write a poem and people would ask me questions about myself, as if the ideas flowing out of me were in some part related to some sort of issues I might have had mentally. They might have, but the last thing I'd have needed was people looking in on me like someone who needs special attention.

That's what I got out of it, anyways. Only been 10 minutes since I beat it, and wow, it's very profound? Unsure if that's the word I'm looking for, but I feel like this game will be many things to many people.

 

[Goldrush]

In the first few levels, I

Spoiler

just rolled my eyes and called BS on Davey's interpretations. He was attaching significant onto such mundane stuff. However, god damn it, by the midpoint actually brought into the "know-the-developers" narrative before getting flipped again.

I wanna talk about this specific screenshot in the context of the game:

Spoiler

I'm truly, TRULY amazed how someone does that. Creating seemingly hundreds of corridors, hidden behind some walls, unnoticable to the average player.
Why did he do that?
I wanna visit all these corridors and see how they look like, how they play like.
I know it'll most probably just be a very similar experience than the one corridor we went through, but by showing off what's behind the wall my curiosity has peaked.

If the creating process of this game is real then I really wonder what drove him to do this.

Anyone remember the "Art ending" of The Stanley Parable?
This whole game (meaning the complete "The Beginner's Guide" game) is basically that.
In my opinion it truly fits the style of "Video Games as Art". And it really is an amazing experience.
I say that as a person who doesn't understand art most of the time.

Knowing the

Spoiler

twist, that scene was completely put into a different light. There wasn't any grand message there. He just did it for fun or just because it looks cool. When given a level editor, I'm sure many of us at some point will make a penis hallway. Same thing.

Of course, these aren't really games by Coda, but just show how easy it was to attach meanings where none existed.

 

[NoKisum]

I only have one simple question before I head to Steam and dive in:

Is the game controller friendly?

 

[Trouble]

I only have one simple question before I head to Steam and dive in:

Is the game controller friendly?

Yes. Steam recognizes it as having full controller support. I played it from the couch using big picture mode.

 

[Layell]

I'm very tempted to email him soon, especially since that's one of the first things offered for you to do. I also have to wonder what sorts of secrets there could be in the game we need to find.

Spoiler

More than anything I would love to see a message from Coda to the players that aren't Davey, but somehow I doubt that would ever be put in

 

[NumberThree]

Yes. Steam recognizes it as having full controller support. I played it from the couch using big picture mode.

The game asks you to press Enter a couple of times, does the dialog change for that if you're playing on a controller?

 

[Veal]

So think I may be stuck or something.

Spoiler

in the room after leaving the "prisons" with the phone booth. I'm guessing you're supposed to push 1 but I pushed 9. Now I can't leave the booth and Chinese is displayed with a box at the end. So meta.

 

[Ryaaan14]

Finally got back home to play this last night and avoided any info about it.

Man what a disappointment.

I urge people to not expect a game like Stanley.

 

[Spazznid]

Finally got back home to play this last night and avoided any info about it.

Man what a disappointment.

I urge people to not expect a game like Stanley.

wow. Not even happy about the experience? Guess you took nothing away from it?

Why be disappointing in something that does exactly what it's goal was?

 

[Ryaaan14]

wow. Not even happy about the experience? Guess you took nothing away from it?

Why be disappointing in something that does exactly what it's goal was?

Absolutely not. I actually stopped playing at chapter 12 because I was depressed as fuck. Ironic huh?

It was disappointing because it's literally nothing more than a bizarre autobiographical portfolio. There's nothing you actually benefit from by playing the game.

Stanley actually made you want to play the game and even show it to all your friends. This piece of shit is a one and done that should have just been an hour long YouTube video.

 

[raphier]

this is really crap. easily an hour wasted out of my life. It's very pretentious. It has one interesting use of storytelling through developer commentary, but other than that, bleh.

 

[Deleted member 80556]

I'll say what I said before, loved every second of it.

So think I may be stuck or something.

Spoiler

in the room after leaving the "prisons" with the phone booth. I'm guessing you're supposed to push 1 but I pushed 9. Now I can't leave the booth and Chinese is displayed with a box at the end. So meta.

That's interesting. But were you still in the phone booth?

this is really crap. easily an hour wasted out of my life. It's very pretentious. It has one interesting use of storytelling through developer commentary, but other than that, bleh.

I'm sorry this wasn't for you, Raphael. I mean raphier.

 

[Trouble]

The game asks you to press Enter a couple of times, does the dialog change for that if you're playing on a controller?

I don't remember ever being asked to hit enter, so I guess. Narrator did say to hit the 'action button' at a few points.

 

[NoKisum]

Yes. Steam recognizes it as having full controller support. I played it from the couch using big picture mode.

Exactly what I wanted to hear. Will be bought later this week.

 

[The Technomancer]

Cross posting

That was a hell of a thing

Weather Coda is or isn't real feels irrelevant to me. Here's the question that I'm hung up on: is this as intensely personal of a work as it appears? Because

Spoiler

the level to which we can read into The Beginners Guide is just what we can read into the works of Coda. Maybe a bit more explicitly with the narration, but ultimately do we risk making the same mistake? Or is there a point where art becomes communicative, in a way that is undeniable? The implications of Coda's work seemed evident even without the narration guiding our thoughts along. What if the ultimate point of this work, The Beginners Guide, isn't to communicate what we all think it's communicating? Does that even mean anything?

 

[ZhugeEX]

I didnt get this game at all.

I'm not sure why tbh. It just did absolutely nothing for me.

 

[robotrock]

game feels like a series of @PeterMolydeux tweets

this room specifically

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/WUxDaJ0.jpg

 

[Iksenpets]

game feels like a series of @PeterMolydeux tweets

this room specifically

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/WUxDaJ0.jpg

Spoiler

Lol yeah, it was really hard not to crack an "Oh, so Coda is just @petermolydeux" joke after that room.

 

[robotrock]

Spoiler

Lol yeah, it was really hard not to crack an "Oh, so Coda is just @petermolydeux" joke after that room.

It must have been the intention

 

[BraXzy]

Just started it using my Xbox One controller and for some reason my camera is constantly aiming upwards, even when I force it back with my mouse it goes back up. Not sure if it is the game, my controller or my PC. Hmm.

 

[vladdamad]

I'm not sure what to think of this. One the one hand it was really interesting (as to be expected given the developer), and it made me nostalgic for the days of super experimental source mods (Dear Esther, Radiator, Korsakovia, etc.) but on the other hand I'm not quite sure what to make of the story, it is a little abstract for me. I like that there's a lot to think about, and maybe I just need to let it settle for a bit, but having just finished it it feels a little unsatisfying.

What I thought the game would be was

Spoiler

actual game prototypes that Davey made while experimenting with Source, and that the last level will be the start of Stanley Parable, giving us a kind of game-documentary about the creative process behind that game.

What we got was something a lot more complex, with some really interesting themes, the most interesting to me being

Spoiler

the way fans react to art and seem to treat the author as almost their friend, someone that they know personally, which is kind of an unhealthy attitude and something that I think is happening more and more as creators can interact with fans over the internet.

Is Stanley Parable better? Maybe. But Stanely Parable feels like it's manipulation for the sake of manipulation, entertaining as it may be, whereas this is something altogether more raw, like the leap between Funny Games and White Ribbon for the director Michael Haneke. Will probably replay in a couple of months to see what I think about it then.

 

[robotrock]

Just started it using my Xbox One controller and for some reason my camera is constantly aiming upwards, even when I force it back with my mouse it goes back up. Not sure if it is the game, my controller or my PC. Hmm.

I had that issue also. I had to delete the settings config file to fix it, as well as play with mouse and keyboard.