I finished this last night and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Jesus, how are there not discussion threads about this? It's such an interesting piece of work and I don't quite know what to make of it. Now, this whole thread will be a SPOILER thread. If you ask me, saying anything about what this game is like is a spoiler to begin with, but this will cover all the events in the game.

So anyway first thing's first....Do you think Coda was real? This might seem like a silly question for those of you completely convinced one way or the other but I for one flip flopped like crazy on this. In the beginning for a couple levels, I bought it mainly because I avoided any info on this besides the fact that this was made by the stanley parable guy. Then after a few levels I realized how absurd it is. It's like when someone in real life gets something and are nervously like "OH it's uh, for my friend"......uh-huh.......your "friend"....right. So I started leaning towards the obvious idea that these were Davey's games. But then things got really dark during the whole depression phase. I thought to myself, would anyone really be capable of doing this? It felt so so depressing to be calmly narrating about some tough stuff you went through. I started thinking maybe he IS talking about a friend but not necessarily a game programmer and not necessarily named Coda. Then the final couple levels came and things got REALLY abstract. I was trying hard to decipher what it meant. I came to a few POSSIBLE conclusions

1. He really had a friend that some kind of bad situation happened with(possibly dead) and this game is Davey's own personal way of conveying those feelings to us through a really interesting collection of games.

2. These games were DAVEY'S games that he created from 2008-2011 and the story is really about him.

3. Davey is just a goddamn genius story teller and NONE of this is based on real events. It's all a very carefully narrated, written, and constructed story he came up with in his head.

Now here are two things I'm very certain about

1. Nobody is named Coda in real life

2. These games were not made by someone else. Davey made these. He did not port these builds into the game from the past, these levels were made for THIS game by Davey. Now, bare minimum, I'm willing to believe these created levels are BASED on levels a possible friend (a "coda" if you will) really built between 2008 and 2011. But these specific builds I'm certain were made FOR this.

I hope I'm not the only one who has so much to say about this. One of my favorite games of this year and I've played so many of different variety. I expected no less from the guy who made Stanley Parable. It was hypnotizing, interesting, and made me feel my own emotions.

Davey's blog post about his reactions to the success of The Stanley Parable is a good way to figure out what his headspace was while making The Beginner's Guide. I had read it beforehand and it made it seem pretty clear to me that The Beginner's Guide is generally about Davey's struggles to come to terms with what The Stanley Parable (and its success) meant to others versus what it meant to himself. The falling out between Coda and Davey is probably in some way representative of Davey struggling to balance his own artistic ambitions (Coda) with a desire to make something worthwhile for others (Davey).

Also, Coda's last game was made in the exact same month and year the original Stanley Parable mod was released, which fits just a little too neatly for me to believe Coda is real.

I certainly went into the entire thing (I had read reviews before I began playing which set my expectations to some extent) thinking that it was all going to lead up to some 'it was me all along!' bit, I still feel like it's the most likely answer but I can't help my own doubts. The "For R." in the credits is probably the main one that sticks out to me and Ryan Roth is someone in the Special Thanks, Coda could easily just be a username. The thing is though the fundamental level design and tricks feel like a very natural precursor to the Stanley Parable, even if you're not going to get vastly different results by using Source, even though it could just be influence I feel it just goes a little too far.

The only other (possible) conclusion I could make is that these aren't the actual levels but rather re-designs or heavily modified to make them functional for what he's going for. I think this is true whether or not they were Davey's personal work, everything just feels like it flows a little too well to be the original.

Honestly I hope Coda isn't a real person though because of what happens at the end, packaging these works if they're really someone else's creation would be going pretty far, but if that's the case and he's charging for it then that pushes it into a much more distasteful category. I feel like it's really more about this identity that he left behind after Stanley Parable got big but it still leaves me with this "what if?" in my head.

@jthom252: Yeah exactly, things get too dark and sinister to be completely true. There's just no way exactly what he's saying is exactly what happened

And to be fair I think that's to be expected, that he'd leave it up to interpretation. I think I have to choose to believe that they're the same or else the way the game is distributed doesn't sit right with me but I'm not convinced it's the whole story.

I just finished the game earlier today and I'm still digesting it. I probably will have a write up on it soon, but for now my mind is piecing together what it all means.

As for the question about how autobiographical the game is, I err on the side that it was fiction. Were the story true, Davey would have been the biggest asshole to not only share work that wasn't his to share, but also to have the gall to charge money for it. I don't buy that he lacks the self awareness to act this way.

A long time ago a friend I knew created a piece of work which dealt with issues within the family. I don't remember at this time the exact gist of it, but I remember being worried as I experienced it that perhaps my friend used his creativity as a call for help. I wondered if I should ask him if he was ok or if I should help him in some way. Some time later it was obvious that the work he created was just that; a fictional piece of work that explored a theme for no reason other than to explore a theme.

Playing through this game I found it fascinating listening to Davey's thoughts along side my own take on things. Sometimes I saw what Davey saw, other times I felt like he overanalyzed the events of those games. When the game breaks and you float into the sky and he talks about how Coda extrapolated on that, it reminded me of my own creative process. Sometimes a mistake leads to a new idea. And sometimes you're stuck inside an idea, like a prison, because you can't find your way out.

The dynamic between Coda's relentless creativity and Davey's urge for everything to make sense and have a goal was fascinating. Throughout the game Davey builds a myth about Coda that eventually reveals more about Davey than Coda and that's what I am taking away from the game as far as Davey is concerned. Whatever Coda might represent as far as some past issues in Davey's life I don't necessarily feel like analyzing. Because at some point, you're falling into the trap Davey himself is doing with Coda's work; you're building your own narrative as truth.

As a side note; the part where you're funneled through a prison with gates closing behind you and you eventually enter a prison cell was mind blowing to me. It simultaneously said a million things about modern game design as it did my role as a player. I felt equal parts insulted and melancholic. When Davey opens the cell door, I felt shamed. As though the god of that world let me be locked up for a little and in his good will let me out by his hand. In retrospect, it was a powerful tool to manipulate you into siding with Davey's logic and it made me wonder if all video game's are just mental prisons with less bleak interiors.

In the end, what I take most away from this game was what it kept saying about me.

I'm definitely in camp 2.8. There is no Coda and these are not Davey's old games, at least not in they way they're presented in the narrative. The story is 100% fiction, however the underlying themes of the story are intensely autobiographical.

More than anything, I think this game is super duper important for highlighting the unique ways that games can deliver narrative.

My read on it at least is that this was an internal conversation between Coda, Davey the game creator, and the narrator, Davey, the person having difficulty dealing with depression following his first hit game while trying to figure out how to make another successful game. Without being much of an artist myself (though I've written a couple of amateur stories in the past and would like to write some novels), I could really empathize with what he's going through. I had this realization years and years ago after posting on message forums and writing reviews for a while that I was spending far too much time worrying about what everyone reading my writing was thinking rather than what I wanted out of it.

I'm so glad I bought this blind as this is maybe the game this year most in need of the player experiencing minus any taint of external input. That's not to say this is the "deepest" story or anything, but its such a personal experience that is going to differ for each person. I can definitely see players who will hate the game, and I can't say they're wrong for that.

This.

I keep going back to the lamp posts. Coda tells Davey to stop adding lamp posts to his games. To me this reads two possible ways. Coda and Davey are the same person but Davey represents the desire to be liked or accepted. So the single developer is including the lamp posts to give his games some kind of goal to reach but is only doing this to please an outside audience so they aren't part of the creative vision. Or, Davey is editing these games to release them. We know that Davey makes edits to make things more playable, speeding you up, fastforwarding time, unlocking doors, etc... but what other changes might he have made when he compiled Coda's games for release. Did he add the lamp posts in those collections? Is he trying to inject his own ideas into this work or is it all being done subconsciously?

The way the narrator talks at the end has me leaning towards the first option. Coda could represent Davey's early inspiration and the person that he once was while the narrator represents the person he is today. He could be looking back on his own transformation and the way his own vision and goals have changed. He says he is releasing all of these games as a way to get Coda back. Is he reaching out to his younger self, trying to make contact and recapture some of what inspired him originally?

The great thing about this game is that each of those different "main" interpretations are exciting and interesting in different ways. I personally lean towards Coda and Davey being separate people, with both of them being fictional characters in a story.

The relationship in hindsight seems, to me, to be two people who approach games very differently coming together to negative effects. Coda makes games the way someone might doodle. Little self-satisfying expressions, not necessarily made to be shared. Davey believes that games can offer insight into a creator, and that they ought to be shared and experienced by others. There should be a message too, and the developer shouldn't be afraid to help the player along in reaching that message.

As Davey begins to pressure and influence Coda, the relationship becomes strained on Coda's end. They feel like their work is infected. I think Coda tries to communicate to Davey that their presence is unwanted the best way they can: through the games. Things like the player being locked away from the stage making things better for the director, where the player is Davey and Coda is the director. The games become a dialogue, not self-reflection. Coda was actually calling Davey to play these games. He wanted Davey to understand that what he was doing was not okay.

But Davey had already created a narrative for Coda. When Coda is trying to get through to Davey, it's misunderstood to be Coda's internal struggles. The story he believes he's derived from the work has taken to its own, and where it's obfuscated he makes it more clear. He changes Coda's work to better reflect the message he thinks Coda is trying to convey. He's committed to this narrative being true, believing his actions were in service to Coda's well-being, and even going around telling other people that Coda was depressed.

He presence becomes too much for Coda, so they leave, and I think goes back to making games privately again. After bluntly expressing how they feel in that harsh final game, they completely cut away. Davey's blind-sided. He's upset. He thought he was doing good, thought the problem was with Coda. He thought he'd already figured out his role in the story.

"Would you simply let them be what they are?"

That moment of inspiration: the supposed glitch. Davey postulated that Coda had a profound experience from that glitch. Coda saw more than just a glitch. It was an interpretation that, according to Davey, informed everything Coda would go on to make. This event reflects Davey's own philosophy towards games. They're more than just the sum of their parts. Coda's games were one singular story waiting to be told.

The value in the stairs can't be that whatever's out of reach is malleable, there must be something within the room that revealed a truth about Coda. It couldn't be that they just liked making prisons. It couldn't be that they found a simple and calming joy in doing house chores while having a chat. There had to be more to it. There had to be something that gave it it's real value.

There was a distinct lack of mutual respect in their relationship. To him, Coda was puzzle waiting to be solved, and Davey would be the one to solve it. It's degrading of Coda, while at the same time it bolstered Davey's own sense of worth.

But he knew what he was. He knew it from playing Coda's games.

His belief that we can learn about a developer from their games overlooked the fact that we'll always learn about ourselves. The Beginner's Guide is no different. I see myself and my own beliefs in my interpretation of the game. We play these game looking backwards. That can be comforting, and it can be challenging, but it always ends with us, alone with ourselves.

It felt like walking through a novel more than playing a video game. god. I can only imagine what he's going to do with VR.

I just made the realization that Coda felt as real to me as a novel character when I'm deeply interested in a story.

I'd like to post more later, I'm about to replay it. But I have a friend that dropped off the face of the internet before and all that was left behind was a set of work that I can go over - the worst part of the story for me was that I can go and talk to the person if I want, and Davey mentioned something about going to Coda's house to see the house keeping level....

I wrote a thing to explain my perspective on the game to someone, but I don't know if they'll ever see it, so I'll dump it here. It's basically @theht's narrative.

Coda was making these games just for the sake of making them, with no specific goals or completion objectives, but then he meets Davey, who seems to be a genuine fan of his work and really enjoys what he's doing. So he starts adding in little things for Davey, but he doesn't like the results. He says "Here, if you want me to make playable games, this is the only thing I'm going to be able to come up with." He sends Davey hundreds of empty games and Davey plays them, all of them, looking for some hidden meaning that isn't there. So Davey starts editing Coda's games. He adds lampposts at the end for some semblance of completion and changes things around to make things easier to get to. He has to keep moving to survive.

Coda starts adding in actual objectives to get Davey to admit the problems he sees in him. He tells him to admit the truth that he's lonely and looking for something more. He wants to help.

Eventually, Davey shares Coda's games with other people, which crosses a huge line. He was okay with making games for his biggest fan and even letting some of the design slip into his real games, but this was something he couldn't allow. He sent Davey a game that was unpleasant to play and impossible to complete and when he brute-forced and hacked his way through that, there was a message. "Stop. You need to stop. You're obsessed. You need to work through these issues and not contact me anymore. You're poisoning my work and hurting me and you need help. You're fixated on finding meaning and making some progress that you can't quite grasp, but sometimes three dots are just three dots."