In 2013, Davey Wreden and William Pugh released a critically acclaimed game called "The Stanley Parable." Its game play is simple: you walk around an office building pressing buttons. It is a walking simulator; where the narrative is told via very simple and accessible mechanics. I could hand The Stanley Parable off to a family member who has never played a game before, and they could play it no problem.
The greatness of the game doesn't come from its game play mechanics, but its story. The story is told via a very well spoken narrator, who leads Stanley on his journey... or tries to. There are branching paths to the story, where Stanley can diverge from what the narrator tells him to do, and the story goes off the rails. There are at least a dozen different endings, my personal favorites being the Confusion Ending, and the Broom Closet ending.
I mentioned that the game play is simple enough to hand off to someone who's never played games before... Well, the game play is easy enough to grasp, the game is about toying with narrative and gaming tropes, and if you aren't familiar with them... you might get a bit lost. But, it is still fun, and quite funny regardless.
This article is about Davey Wreden's next game, The Beginner's Guide. The Stanley Parable was a tough act to follow, but I believe this to be a worthy follow-up, even if the scope is pulled back considerably.
There are so many avenues to come at this game with... There is so much to discuss, I am considering making videos discussing it; and I likely will once I figure out a good way of doing it.
For now though, let me introduce you to The Beginner's Guide.
The Beginner's Guide is presented as a collection of tiny games made by a guy named Coda. We are presented this by Davey Wreden, who is narrating over the games. We are told that Coda stopped making games in 2011, and disappeared. Davey wishes to contact him and try and convince him to continue by putting the compilation out into the world.
Just for the record: the story, despite containing the actual game developer, is fiction. If it was real, Davey would have a lawsuit on his hands for charging people for someone else's work, in addition to other bits of evidence that I won't go into here (other than saying he gave thanks in the credits to the same group of developers from the Stanley Parable, minus William Pugh).
The story of the game is examining Coda's work, and trying to figure out who he is through it, and we are led through it by Davey.
I won't go into the meat of the story here though, so no real spoilers beyond my note that it is fictional. That won't change the perception of the story, or very little if at all.
Rather, I'm going to go into some of the themes of it, and some of my thoughts on the game itself.
The game again plays with tropes of narratives and games; there is a small discussion on game play-ability vs the value of the work itself... Basically it is whether there aught to be a goal at the end of the game, or be accessible to other people. It is art vs entertainment basically; kind of pretentious art, since one instance is of being trapped in a prison cell for an hour before being let out (Davey modifies the game so the time is skipped).
But, the meat of the game lies in one concept: The Death of the Author. Not that Coda is dead, we have no idea what he is. But specifically, interpretation of a person's work to get at who they were as a person.
Personally, I believe the game to be a warning AGAINST DotA methods, but the reasons for that come with spoilers.
The game itself is short. Approximately an hour and 15 minutes. With two playthroughs to get some context, you'll have 2 and a half hours out of the game. That... is okay I guess, comparable to DVDs, and is pretty good for its $7.99-$10.00 price tag. I do really, really like the story of the game, but I can't recommend it as a game. I can recommend it as a film, because that is basically what it is, but it doesn't have any replay value in it. Neither did the Stanley Parable mind you, but it was a longer game as a result of its branching paths, and it does entice you to come back to experience the story and comedy again.
I feel like I could do a college course on this game though, dissecting its meanings and how it presents them. If you are an intellectual, love analysis, and are willing to give way more thought to something than it probably deserves, The Beginner's Guide is a fantastic game.
If you want real value for your money, and consider hours of gameplay to equate to value, then this isn't the game you really want.
Personally, I love the game. It actually inspired me to just start making games; I don't have to start with my big freaking ideas, just start somewhere, learn the things you need so you can do those big ideas later.
My only hope is that the developer continues to make games with great stories... but perhaps find a way to add replayability? I went into The Beginner's Guide a second time to see if I could get additional dialogue for doing unexpected things, and was disappointed to find only a couple (to be expected given the nature of the narrative I guess, but still).
But anyway... When I find the time, I may just make those videos over analyzing the crap out of the game, just for fun.
