I’ve never really played a game that effected me as much as music, or a movie. What I mean by this is, most games tend to be some silly entertainment, or maybe even art piece that is played to be enjoyed. “The Beginner’s Guide” pushed all the right buttons for me. As a creative person who is a little bit depressed and doesn’t know how to connect with a lot of people it seriously hit home at the beginning. And then the end happened which questioned everything, whether the narrator is an honest one, whether there is a real “Coda”, whether this “Coda” was male or female or even trans. All of these things add up to a really good game that gives you something to think about, leaving you with more questions than when you started.

I really enjoyed this game because it touches on things that I feel are wrong with me. Social Anxiety, Depression, Pulling myself out of the world and reflecting inward. I know I have done these things, I know for the most part they are not very healthy, but for me that is a coping system, is that the same coping system that “Coda” used. “Coda” made these games for fun, for himself, and only shared them to his friend because he thought that maybe sharing part of themselves to the world, to a person might help them not feel as lonely. But then you begin to feel that you have to live up to this person, be as good as this person. Why can’t your life be as good as theirs? Why can’t you step outside of yourself and be better than what you have been? Be an “adult”? Get a “real job”, a “real life”?

Ahem!

So yes as you can tell I have faced similar if not the same demons of “Coda” in my life, and as hard as you try when someone wants to help, wants to be a part of your life, sometimes you unknowingly, or even purposely push them away. Sometimes the only way to help yourself is to do it alone, even when you know you have friends out there who would bend over backwards to help you. Life is funny that way, and the mind is even funnier.

The game itself seems to give us false leads though. The Narrator calls “Coda” a male but in multiple places during the game, the game refers to “Coda” as a female. The end portion leads us to believe that Davey was the one putting Lampposts in the end of the games to make them seem complete, that “Coda” wasn’t making the games for the narrator, and that the narrator didn’t get why they were making the games at all. The last level even has near impossible puzzles that there are solutions to but are so difficult that cheating would make it easier (which the narrator does for us). Maybe it’s a thing between narrative games and action games. In actions game you just do things, for the sake of doing things. You get a mission, you accomplish the mission, you gain some piece of story from it. Narrative games are almost opposite. With them you get story sometimes whether or not if you do things, doing things does progress the story, but it’s always just to progress the story. No quests, no “win/loose” just completion. In fact it why I think it’s hard to make games these days heavy on story, because when I play I like to try and finish the story as quickly as possible (being a reader/writer/game designer makes me want to know why these things are here). Narrative games make you think, not like a puzzle, but inquisitively, emotionally. They strike some nerve, some inkling to become something more than just a game.

In the end I wrote Davey an email about how much I enjoyed this game. I would love to hear from him to see what the real interpretation of it is, if there really is a “Coda” more about the game or just life in general, but in truth I doubt I would get a response, mainly because I feel many will probably email him, but I doubt I would have done it any other way.

Get this game, play it, and learn from it.