The Catch-22 of The Beginner’s Guide
The Beginner’s Guide is a narrative video game from Davey Wreden, the creator of The Stanley Parable. It lasts about an hour and a half and has no traditional mechanics, no goals or objectives. Instead, it tells the story of a person struggling to deal with something they do not understand.(http://store.steampowered.com/app/303210/The_Beginners_Guide/)
On the surface, The Beginner’s Guide is a narrative video game ripe with symbolism and metaphors. This much is told to you by the narrator, Davey Wreden, throughout the game. Irregular for the modern day conventions of video games, The Beginner’s Guide has no outright goals or objectives for the player to complete. Instead the player must simply navigate through a series of levels paying attention to Wreden’s narration and the stylistic choices of each level. Throughout the levels Wreden breaks the fourth wall, and explains to the player that these levels, were created by a game developer who is a friend of his, Coda. Telling the story of a reclusive game developer who created these weird game levels with no real game involved. Wreden then begins to provide his own input on the meanings of these levels. Main themes of these interpretations being Coda’s reflecting his own loneliness and depression in his games.
The narrative used in the story is interesting in the fact that it’s true form is hidden from the players of the game until a certain point. Modern day video game story practice either has zero plot twists or has extremely telegraphed plot twists, leaving the player with a nonchalant disposition about the twists. The Beginner’s Guide presents itself as a developer showcasing the work of lost connection, a friend that disappeared, in an attempt to regain this friendship. There’s not much to think about during the game, it’s very straightforward mechanic and game play wise. This leaves the player to dwell in her/his own mind about Coda, why he create these weird levels, what’s the point of them if there’s no actual game involved, etc. It certainly feels as though the levels are purposefully left empty, in order to incite thoughts within the player. Thoughts which later on become essential in understanding the story.
I believe the levels are so mind-numbingly simple to allow the player to be in their own head. Wreden, as the narrator, skips a maze for you, solves a bomb code for you, in order for you to forget about the game, and instead immerse yourself in thought about Coda, and his games. Throughout the first three quarters of the game, it’s just Wreden planting seeds of this pseudo-story. By the half point of the game things start to not add up. We see our first correspondences from Coda, directed towards Wreden. Asking him to stop sharing his games, then we learn that these “games” or levels were created by Coda for himself. No one else was intended to see these. In your brain it clicks, Davey Wreden drove away Coda by showing his private games to the public and this narrative is Wreden’s attempt at apologizing to his friend… By, again, showing his private games to the public. Doesn’t seem right. This is the major plot twist of the story, but it is also not, if that makes any sense.
To understand the true plot of the Beginner’s Guide, you have to understand Davey Wreden’s background. Wreden seemingly came out of nowhere with his cult classic / mega hit / overnight sensation, The Stanley Parable. A game that throws away narrative, and lets the player decide what they want to do. With the game’s overwhelming praise, also came a lot of criticism, as is the norm for anything on the internet. Wreden has also publicly stated his distaste regarding having to deal with overreaching fans and critics who project their desires onto the game.
Here’s where it gets kind of complicated. Upon the revelation that Wreden published games that were not created by him, without permission from the original developer, we come to a realization that there is no plausible way that Wreden could publish this game under his own studio, let alone on the largest PC-game platform, Steam. Since the story isn’t real, we, as the viewer, wonder why Davey Wreden even created this game.
Rather than being a story between two game developers, The Beginner’s Guide can be interpreted as a story about a developer and his/her relationship with their audience. It demonstrates the dangers of projecting one’s own feelings into a work that has nothing to do with them. The Beginner’s Guide points at critics as somewhat toxic in sense. The narrative shows how looking for metaphors and symbolism in a game can dilute the experience, making it more of a Easter egg hunt rather than a fully fledged story, thereby undercutting the work of the developer in a sense. While that often happens in games, it’s a much more widespread issue in all of art and entertainment. This over-analysis plagues our society in most of the art that we indulge in.
