Yep, she also did the work for the Kara short this is based on so I'm betting she's back. Don't remember recognising her back in the short but instantly twigged "oh, it's that actress from The Following" when I saw this trailer.
Been great watching the Beastsquad playing through this. As Austin says, this is way realer than lots of people realise going into it.
Although the somewhat limited budget (and corresponding retail price) is pretty clear (no one is going to confuse the lipsync - even after the recent patch redid it all to be slightly better - with facial performance capture on something like Until Dawn or other AAA games), I'm really glad stuff like this gets made. Hopefully this'll inspire other publishers to maybe hand over a bit more money to devs making stories you don't normally see in games.
Man what an interesting review, very happy this was here for me to read after my playthrough.
Wreden explains that over the next hour and a half or so, he’s going to lead you through a bunch of Source Engine maps, unfinished prototypes, and experimental games developed by his friend Coda--who is probably (maybe?) fictional.
In a weirdly petty way, this makes or breaks the game for me. If this is all just an apology to a talented, creative, and maybe troubled level designer: boooo. But if this is entirely his own imagination and narrative -- a million out of ten. GOAT out of GOTY.
If it's real, then it's not an apology at all, it's an incredibly gross exploitation of someone's work that isn't Wreden's. And the game seems to understand that, which is what makes me think it is in fact Not Real.
I don't think anyone would suggest it is literally real (that this game is a set of levels by someone other than the Wreden, which Wreden had edited in the ways described by the narrative) - it'd be taken down from Steam (eventually) as a copyright violation and ruin Wreden's career.
What I think is possible is this is an autobiographical game (either with Wreden thinking back to him as the narrator/fan/editor or as Coda) in which the actual transgressions of the past have been replaced by entirely new content (so we never see what actually made the real Coda's work special but see work far more loosely inspired by it than map edits) in order to explore the previous exploitation that occurred without repeating the actual breech of trust. The alternative being a work of complete fiction that is only riffing on Wreden's thought experiments or far more loose experiences of fandom, creation, etc. that don't closely align with events described in the game.
I'm not sure that I think this being autobiographical is problematic. As long as these aren't literal recreations of the actual levels from a real Coda but rather totally new levels that may riff on some themes (or even specific glitches) that really were in some original works that inspired this (or maybe Coda is completely changed in this retelling to avoid further exploitation) then it seems ok. It would, ultimately, be a sort of apology as there is a clear admittance of wrongdoing (even if qualified by focussing on the narrator's intent so much) by the close.
As I interpret the game as narrating an internal struggle (with creation, with modifying your own work beyond where it may be "finished" in the eyes of your internal creativity, with the fear of publication, with the weight of indie PR) for a single person then I'm no sure I'm so invested in wondering if this is an autobiography. In a sense I think it is likely to be so, as an exploration of this headspace that seems incredibly relatable to so many indies I've spoken to, but if Wreden is Code then obviously none of this is a literal retelling of external events but rather the internal narrative of someone torn between silent creation and distribution of more user-palatable variants that lose that original message and substitute in more commercial design.
Without being too direct, let me say that if I knew that the most potent and personal story elements of The Beginner's Guide were true, I don't think I would've written about it all.
Based on the conversations with the engine and press, as well as the exploration of the mental state of the creator, I started to get a feeling this is a game about a single person. I'm not saying this is some startling revelation but I'm going to be interested to see how common a reading it is that Wreden is Coda.
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