Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411281 Posts in 69324 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 28, 2024, 10:21:32 PM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsPlayerGamesThe Beginner's Guide - Probably spoilers don't click if you haven't played
Pages: [1]
Print
Author Topic: The Beginner's Guide - Probably spoilers don't click if you haven't played  (Read 1532 times)
Armageddon
Level 6
*



View Profile
« on: October 01, 2015, 05:19:43 PM »

http://thebeginnersgui.de/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/303210
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/thebeginnersguide_storefront

It's rare that you feel like a piece of art was made specifically for you, as egotistical/self-absorbed as that may sound. Not only is this just a well crafted game for any audience, but also for people that worked in and experienced the Half-Life 2 mod scene. I spent almost three years of my life making an art mod for Half-Life 2. I wanted to be among the Post Script's and the Radiator's as well as games like Thirty Flights of Loving. But once I finally finished my game that scene had all but died. Nobody played it and it wasn't all that good anyways.

I really enjoyed The Beginner's Guide, parts of it were hard to digest at times because of how personal it felt. I got a double whamey because of my knowledge of the Source game engine. Almost all the "glitches" he describes in the game don't exist in the engine at all and are manufactured for the narrative which makes it feel, well, manufactured. The "chat system" isn't real at all or a trigger_hurt moving you up through a wall forever and so on.

It kind of wasn't working for me at first because I had actually paid money for the game and realized it would be illegal if this "Coda" really existed and Davey was just repackaging his stuff. But the second half makes up for it and it's obviously fake and so on. I do think the last third got a little pretentious. It really feels like a love letter to the Half-Life 2 mod community at times. And the game modding scene in general.

I don't know if anyone here at TIG ever made Source mods or stuff. This game makes me sad that Valve never opened up the engine and allowed devs to create stuff they can sell. It also makes me a little jealous/resentful that Davey gets an elusive Source license and gets to make a Steam store page in seemingly a few days without having to go through Greenlight. But again that sort of attitude is meta to the game's narrative. And I didn't make The Stanley Parable.

You should play it. It's pretty good.
Logged

SirNiko
Level 10
*****



View Profile
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2015, 05:40:00 PM »

Thread title didn't make sense to me - I didn't even realize this was a game until I clicked your first link. Now I do, so maybe I'll play it (someday) before I read your post.
Logged
GekidoRising
Level 1
*



View Profile WWW
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2015, 06:49:41 PM »

I just finished playing it about an hour ago and I thought I would check here quick to see if anyone had made a post yet. I guess I can't be surprised that I'm not the first to the punch with a game so centered around game design!

Call me cheesy, but up until I read the OP, I was 100% on the fence about whether or not the game was actually a true story. As silly as it sounds, I had completely forgotten the game had cost money once I had started playing and once I got into the story, I lost the ability to put two and two together and realize that if it was true, the dev was charging for other people's work! The game seems a little less striking now that I put that into perspective.

That said, as someone with absolutely no source mod experience whatsoever (beyond half an hour in hammer (well before I had any coding experience at that)), for the time I was playing, I was, as you could probably tell, thoroughly convinced that this could be a true story! Admittedly, I was dubious at times, such as the house cleaning section where some of the art assets looked REALLY good for just one person, and I also wondered where one personcan get all this high quality music and sound effects, but beyond that, the entire experience was quite something to remember!

I'm one of those people who had absolutely no idea what I was walking into. As most would, I was expecting something in the style of The Stanley Parable. I was even expecting Kevan Brighting to roll out at SOME point, but alas, I found myself in completely the opposite mood I was expecting to be in by the end! Not to say that that's a bad thing, the entire game was quite a fascinating monologue on extroversion vs introversion! It had some wonderful moments, namely the furniture prison and the tower, both of which had a heavy impact on me in their own way.

Now that I know the whole thing is fiction though, I find myself wondering if there are any secrets hidden anywhere in there. It might be humorous to see if I can whip out some sv_cheats or if the dev came up with some preventative measure akin to The Stanley Parable!

Overall, the entire ordeal was extremely fascinating! I can see why you might say it was a little pretentious and I might agree for some sections of the game, but there is no denying that this was a memorable experience for me!

p.s. I literally jumped when the lights came on in the theater scene, haha
Logged
FK in the Coffee
Level 10
*****


meme pixels


View Profile
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2015, 03:30:09 PM »

Just finished with this. I'll be writing up a longer post later, but some things that stuck out to me:

- The three dots. Did they serve a purpose, or were they merely there to tease at a meaning that didn't exist?  A commentary on players or art critics who read too much meaning into things, perhaps?
- Throughout the game, Davey keeps referring to Coda is a man. Despite this, several of the games seem to have strong feminine elements (namely the sobbing woman in Coda's oft-scrapped "prison" game).
- Of course, there's also the radical-but-not-that-out-there idea that Davey IS Coda, as we see Davey becoming more and more introspective and self-critical toward the end of the game, his state of mind begins to merge with the themes of "Coda's" games.
- Davey continues to display his skill at creating unreliable narrators by throwing himself into the mix in this title. He teeters dangerously on the fourth wall the whole time, and the result, I think, is almost Brechtian. You never forget that you're playing a game.


This was a fantastic piece of meta-commentary on games, art, and creation, and it really forces you to sort the fiction in it from reality. The closest thing I could compare it to would be Banksy's documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop." It might not be a lengthy title, but it's dense with ideas, and none of them feel overly ham-fisted or pretentious. Davey can lay his commentary and interpretation on a little heavily during some parts, but I can forgive it since the commentary itself is a vital part of the game.

All of this also reminds me of how much I need to play the Stanley Parable.

« Last Edit: October 02, 2015, 03:35:36 PM by FK in the Coffee » Logged
Mittens
Level 10
*****

.


View Profile WWW
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2015, 05:08:31 PM »

I feel like I was just gullible enough for this to have the right effect on me. I genuinely believed the narrative was non-fiction initially but then it started really messing with my head, I kept asking questions like "How could a beginner be able to 3D model so well after just 2 months of effort?" and "There's no way this Coda character would have uploaded enough of the source files for modifying them and playing them like this to be possible" and yeah, the dialogue system would have taken expertise to make that's beyond what a beginner could manage in such a short time.

Maybe if I hadn't also started my game development journey in half-life and half-life 2 modding these issues wouldn't have hurt my brain so much, but in a way I'm glad they did. It made that epiphany moment where you realize that Coda is entirely fictional all the more powerful.

Even with the narrative being at odds with what I know to be true in some details, it was still a really powerful expression of emotions which I relate to all too well.
At one point I almost had to crash the game as I felt I was going to have an anxiety attack and other parts just about brought me to tears.
I really can't say that playing this was an enjoyable experience, it was more like being dragged through every artists personal hell, being forced to feel parts of my own I would rather have not. But, like a true piece of art, it's set my mind of a reflective journey and moved me deeply, and so 'The Begginers Guide' has my eternal respect
Logged

FK in the Coffee
Level 10
*****


meme pixels


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2015, 02:28:38 PM »

http://www.galactic-cafe.com/2014/02/game-of-the-year/

Reading this post from Wreden just made the game a whole lot more intimate for me. I almost to hesitate to play it again, knowing how deeply personal this probably is to him, but nonetheless I think playing again with this new understanding will illuminate new aspects of it I haven't considered before.

I applaud Wreden for his bravery in putting his art out there like this.
Logged
Juskelis
Level 1
*



View Profile
« Reply #6 on: October 06, 2015, 11:59:38 PM »

Even if the ending is a bit pretentious, it was interesting to listen to someone talk through their motivations for their creative output. Its really nice to know I'm not the only one struggling with those sorts of problems, although hopefully my outcome is different from that in the game.

Also really cool how Coda (Coder?) and Davey play multiple roles at once, which I didn't pick up on until reading the "Game of the Year" link: Coder represents abstract creativity, Davey himself, and in some ways the industry itself, while Davey represents himself (duh), the audience of his games, as well as the audience of the industry in general. The way I see it, there's three different relationships running at the same time:
-Real Davey and Creativity (how Coda feels about the Machine)-
-Real Davey and His Audience (how Coda feels about Narrator Davey)-
-Industry and Customers (Industry = how Coda feels about Narrator Davey, while Customers is the reverse relationship)

I'm probably reading too much into this, just like Davey with prison levels.
Logged

monsterfinger
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2015, 10:52:33 AM »

I havent got Steamp, but watched a playthough and it was seriously emotional, amazing twist too.
Logged
Dragonmaw
Guest
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2015, 01:13:01 PM »

I heard it's actually about somebody I know, so now I want to play it
Logged
FK in the Coffee
Level 10
*****


meme pixels


View Profile
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2015, 03:28:11 PM »

I heard it's actually about somebody I know, so now I want to play it
William Pugh?
Logged
Dragonmaw
Guest
« Reply #10 on: October 12, 2015, 06:53:23 PM »

-R
Logged
Pages: [1]
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic