After finishing Night in the Woods, my wife and I still wanted to play some games together, so we decided to hit this up. A shorter game we’ve had on our list to play together for a while (as we’re both big Stanley Parable fans), this made for a great end for the evening on a cozy Saturday. It took us about 80 minutes or so to play through the whole game.
The Beginner’s Guide is a story about video games. Narrated by Davey Wreden, the creator of The Stanley Parable (which this was released a couple years after, he leads you through a series of short games made by a friend of his, Coda. Coda was a game creator that Davey knew years back, and he’s showcasing their library of work in hopes to show them that people do like it, and that they should come back to making video games again. Much more linear and straightforward than The Stanley Parable, this game is undeniably less memorable than that, but it’s still absolutely cut from the same cloth. Seeing the lengths our fictionalized version of Davey Wreden goes to try and reach out to this friend of his is an interesting look into the creative process of video games, sure, but it’s simultaneously a strange and often surreal experience that at times borders on outright horror. I don’t really want to give away any more than that, really, as it’s something much better experienced yourself than simply told to you, but if you enjoyed The Stanley Parable, you’re bound to enjoy this too. The gameplay and aesthetics are pretty straightforward too. The gameplay is all simple walking simulators put together with Source Engine (as the narrator himself is quite frank about), and the aesthetics are similarly very Source Engine in flavor. It’s not entirely default assets or anything, and the game does a good job of working with both level design and environmental design to really aid in its storytelling, but this is nonetheless a game whose gameplay and aesthetic features are more functional than standout in any other way (and that’s just fine with me). Verdict: Recommended. If you’re into narrative-focused walking simulators, then this is a fun one! It’s super short, sure, and I don’t really think it can hold a candle to how novel and clever its big brother The Stanley Parable is, but if you can pick it up on sale, it’s an interesting and funny time you’ll probably enjoy~.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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