The Morals of The Beginner's Guide

  In my last post, I discussed the way in which moral contrast is set up in some games, and I talked vaguely about the players' perception when faced with certain circumstances. I didn’t go into too much detail, but it occurred to me that I left out a game I just love to go on about. The Beginner’s Guide. At this point, you should all know my feelings and thoughts on that emotional masterpiece.

  The reason that game, in particular, would’ve been a great talking point in my last post is that Davey Wreden, the in-game narrator and the real-life creator, is a perfect example of how morals often don’t even occur to players until a certain point. In the beginning, Davey comes across as an innocent tour guide, a bit like a teacher encouraging show and tell. He is friendly and disarming, addressing the player in a way that immediately allays any sense of falseness. He’s showing us his friends’ games, and telling us various details about each one.

  There are hints from as early as the first level that Davey is not all that he seems to be, but we pay no attention to that because of the way he introduces himself. “Hi there, thank you very much for playing The Beginner's Guide. My name is Davey Wreden, I wrote The Stanley Parable, and while that game tells a pretty absurd story, today I'm going to be telling you about a series of events that happened between 2008 and 2011...” Davey then goes on to explain how he met Coda, the original creator of the games he's showcasing. This interaction leads us into a false sense of security. We believe Davey because of his tone and the way in which he presents himself. He hasn't yet given us a reason to disbelieve him. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t a liar. That’s not the type of moral I’m talking about.

  I'm not going to tell you what Davey does, or what his purpose is. I’m a massive advocate for finding this game yourself and playing it, or at least watching a walkthrough of it so you can experience the story for yourself. Davey the Narrator is very special to me. I can relate to what he is seeking for himself personally, and the purpose he serves.  He is there to tell a story, to get you to believe in something and in a sense he’s looking for your company. Telling you what happens would be depriving Davey of that.

  What I will tell you is that Davey is troubled, and it is his issues and the problems on his mind that cause his morals to be misplaced. He knows what he's doing, but he just can't stop himself. Trying to subdue what he's feeling clearly outweighs his sense of right from wrong and with every apology he attempts to make, he digs himself an even deeper hole. By the end, you realise how much Davey is hurting, but also how seriously he was damaging somebody else. It's at this point that you start questioning everything you thought you'd learned and re-thinking your opinion of the game.

  The Beginner's Guide is a work of art that will cause you to perpetually and painfully ask yourself what you're doing with your life. It has done so much for me both mentally and emotionally, minus the existential crises, and gotten me through so many difficult nights that I hope to one day personally thank Davey Wreden for the hard work he put into it. Do yourself a favour and find this game.

Signed,
Elijah.
Meta Sentience.
22/03/2018

The Beginner's Guide: A Subjective Idea

  There are few things that I can say I'm genuinely in love with, and it's taken me over two years to really think about and find the right words I want to say about this, but here I go. I hope this lives up to what I hope and expect from myself.

  The Beginner's Guide, (TBG), was released onto the Steam store on October 1st of 2015 without much explanation. The only details anybody really knew for a fact was that it was created by Davey Wreden under the studio name Everything Unlimited Ltd. The indie game is Wreden's follow up to his heavily praised piece The Stanley Parable, (TSP) - And by 'heavily praised', I'm saying Wreden went from an unknown game designer to basically what I can only describe as the Messiah of game-based storytelling overnight.

  I would call TBG an experience, to say the least. The game supposedly combats struggles that Wreden faced during the release of TSP; so much attention drawn to one person in such a short period of time, a spotlight that he found almost impossible to escape because finally he was given exactly what he'd been craving. To be adored and idolised, to be questioned and studied in such a way that he could offer his thoughts on everything he'd always wanted to talk about.

  By writing this article and by bringing attention to this game once again, I am desecrating the very message TBG is trying to send. But as somebody who has spent what ought to be described as an unhealthy amount of time thinking about this game, I'm willing to take that step. Besides, I'm almost certain there's still a small part of Wreden that revels in being examined.

  The game for me centres on two ideas:

• Creating and sharing in hopes of reaping some form of external validation to feed the desperate need to be liked and appreciated. And encompassed within that, being content with the belief that what you have created is good and worth the effort it took to make it, regardless of who sees it and what they ultimately think.
• The Artist is Absent.

  As a writer and somebody that used to make games in college, the connection I feel with TBG is fierce. I am in a constant looping struggle of desperately needing to create something for myself, to give me purpose, and then ultimately sharing it with the world. It's like keeping a secret. Don't tell anyone and the secret is safe. It should be as simple as that. But the desire to keep my own secrets is constantly battling the overwhelming, insatiable appetite that can only be satisfied with praise and approval. It's like a cyclic nagging in my head telling me to send what I produce into the world in hopes that other people will like it too, because if they don't then I've wasted my time and I need to be better. This frame of mind is exhausting, and it's dangerous. It is because of this that I related so intensely with the theme of the game.

  The Artist is Absent, (TAIA), is a concept that I have been continuously enamoured and humoured by throughout my writing career, and I noticed specific parts of it interwoven into the game's story. It's hard to talk about relatively to TBG because by saying, 'TBG is about the absence of an artist,' I am then contributing to the concept itself. I am making that assumption because it has never been clarified by Wreden himself. Making the assumption that you understand what the artist meant to do without actually knowing it concretely is TAIA. Imagine; you've been making all sorts of assumptions and telling everybody you could find exactly what a certain thing meant, and then suddenly you're confronted directly by the creator who then tells you flat out that you're either wrong, or there simply is no meaning. That is the absence of an artist.

  The fact that I am telling you all this, the fact that I researched this game enough to somewhat understand the point, (I think... at least I hope), is me taking part in TAIA, which I hate. If you ever studied literature in English class, you might recognise what I'm talking about. 'Yes, the curtains were blue, but what does that mean? Could the author be attempting to cleverly reference an underlying melancholia through the colour of the curtains? Maybe the blue represents an oncoming state of calm that the reader is yet to realise!' Or maybe the curtains were just fucking blue. There is no way to know the meaning behind someone's work unless an artist tells us outright, so why are we so obsessed with plastering an interpretation on something as if it were fact?

  This then cleverly loops back to my previous point. Praise. The excessive need to feel positively validated by some external source because we're so desperate to be told that we're good, that we're right and that what we come up with is brilliant. I've done my best to really avoid the plot because if there's anything you take from this post, it's that I want you to go play the game yourself, or watch a playthrough of it and make up your own mind. The ironic part is that it's impossible not to speculate on the real meaning, which is exactly what the game is telling us not to do. The sheer enigmatic nature of The Beginner's Guide can only be likened to the cat that wants you to pet it and then scratches you two minutes later for doing so, but... it was worth petting that cat, right?

  I'm going to include a couple links here at the bottom for people interested in digging deeper. Until then, see you guys next week.

Davey Wreden: Playing Stories - Aalto University Games Now! (Lecture)

The Artist is Absent: Davey Wreden and The Beginner's Guide

Signed,
Elijah.
Meta Sentience.
10/11/2017