History VideoGame / TheBeginnersGuide

''The Beginner's Guide'' is an EnvironmentalNarrativeGame published in 2015 by David Wreden, creator of ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable''. The game involves Davey guiding the player, via voiced narration, through a collection of short games created by his friend, "Coda", between 2008 and 2011. Throughout the game, Davey explains his friendship with Coda and analyzes what the various things in each game mean. His hope is to use the games to show the player what kind of person Coda is -- and hopefully figure out why Coda suddenly stopped making games and vanished.

* CreatorThumbprint:[[invoked]] Coda has quite a few in their games, like the two-doors puzzle, the three dots symbol, and the lampposts at the ends of his later games. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope It turns out]] Davey added most if not all of the lampposts, and the puzzle is ambiguous, but the three-dots symbol is definitely Coda's own.]]

[[spoiler: When I am around you, I feel physically ill. You desperately need something and I cannot give it to you. I literally do not have it. Struggling to come up with new ideas is not making me depressed, low points are just a part of the process. The fact that you think I am frustrated or broken says more about you than about me. I realize this doesn't make sense to you just yet. Which is fine, you're not my problem to solve. But I do hope that one day it clicks, and that you make peace with this thing you are wrestling. And when you finally see what I'm talking about: don't say anything.]]

** Finally, ''The Tower'' [[spoiler:drops all pretenses because Davey [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint cannot take the hint]] and [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech flat-out tells him]] he ruined their friendship, to fix his own problems, and to never contact him again]].

** At the end of one of the early games, there's a glitch which causes the player to float through the ceiling which Davey says Coda liked so much he kept it in the game. Something similar happened in ''VideoGame/ThirtyFlightsOfLoving'' when a glitch caused a crowd of people to float away and the creator Brendon Chung decided to keep it in because he liked it so much.

* TheTower: The last of Coda's games, in which the player must traverse a giant tower. [[spoiler:The game consisted of impossible challenges that ended with Coda telling Davey to leave them alone.]]

* UnwantedAssistance: [[spoiler:Davey redistributes Coda’s games to others without permission, all the while editing them to make Coda look more like a tortured genius. While Davey originally says that he did this in an attempt to help what he sees as a lonely person who needs more friends, he later reveals that having this power over another person made him feel complete and that he's desperate to reconnect with Coda to re-kindle this addiction. Coda cuts off all contact from Davey once he realizes he can't get Davey to stop.]]

** A rare InUniverse example, though one that also applies out-of-universe. Beginning from ''Lecture'', Coda's games become increasingly unsubtle jabs at [[spoiler:Davey for being a ToxicFriendInfluence that wants to control Coda's creative outlet for his own personal satisfaction, under the guise of "helping" Coda find friends]].

** In ''The Machine'', [[spoiler:the player character (meant to represent Davey) is a VillainProtagonist who interrogates Coda (represented as The Machine) and then holds a press conference to the press about it (a very thinly veiled metaphor for Davey harrassing Coda to make what he wants, and then Coda correctly guessing that Davey was telling his friends every detail of his and Davey's private relationship), then destroys all of Coda's games and the Machine itself, saying that the Machine hates the light and being seen (referring to Davey editing the games and showing them without permission to do either)]].

* BigBad: InUniverse, [[spoiler:The Machine]] gradually becomes the main threat in Coda's games, as it is warping the game worlds in destructive ways. [[spoiler:However, it is implied to merely be TheScapegoat for the protagonist. Out of universe, [[AuthorAvatar Davey Wreden himself]] turns out to have been responsible for Coda's disappearance. The mere existence of The Beginner’s Guide shows that Davey [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint has not learned how not to post altered versions of Coda’s games.]]]]

* TheTower: The last of Coda's games, in which the player must traverse a giant tower. [[spoiler:The game consisted of impossible challenges that ended with Coda telling Davey to leave him alone.]]

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: In one of the prison games, Davey talks about an argument he had with Coda about game design. Davey argued that games should be playable, whereas Coda is not afraid to add hour-long waits or difficult-to-impossible mazes in his games for the sake of artistic experience -- likely because he was just messing around and wasn't intending his games to be released.[[invoked]]

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic: In-universe. Davey keeps coming up with symbolism and interpretations thereof in Coda's work, such as explaining the reason for Coda making so many prison room type games as a metaphor for Coda feeling trapped by his work and depressed that he can't come up with new game ideas. [[spoiler:Subverted in that Coda calls Davey out for assuming this and coming up with interpretations to fit a narrative he thought it should represent. As Davey sadly points out near the end, "Maybe he just liked making prison games".]]

** Chapters 12 and 13, ''Theatre'' and ''Mobius'' respectively. Up until that point, Coda's games have been lighthearted affairs with some eeriness, philosophy, and weird situations, but these two games have a much darker atmosphere and mark the point where Coda starts undergoing his CreatorBreakdown[[invoked]], with ''Theatre'' hinting at this and ''Mobius'' making it explicit. Said breakdown lasts the rest of the games, which are much more depressing in nature than the early ones.

* BigBad: InUniverse, [[spoiler:The Machine]] gradually becomes the main threat in Coda's games, as it is warping the game worlds in destructive ways. [[spoiler:However, it is implied to merely be TheScapegoat for the protagonist. Out of universe, [[AuthorAvatar Davey Wreden himself]] turns out to have been responsible for Coda's disappearance. The mere existence of The Beginner’s Guide shows that Davey [[DramaticallyMissingThe
Point has not learned how not to post altered versions of Coda’s games.]]]]

* BigBad: InUniverse, [[spoiler:The Machine]] gradually becomes the main threat in Coda's games, as it is warping the game worlds in destructive ways. [[spoiler:However, it is implied to merely be TheScapegoat for the protagonist. Out of universe, [[AuthorAvatar Davey Wreden himself]] turns out to have been responsible for Coda's disappearance. On replay of the game, it becomes pretty clear that Davey has some ]]

* IKnowYouKnowIKnow: [[spoiler: Coda knew full well that Davey was going to edit any game they sent Davey before spreading it around the internet, so thaey made sure that The Tower was designed in a way that it had to be edited to progress, in order to make sure Davey saw the message waiting for him at the end.]]

** Davey notes that Coda ends almost all his games with a lamppost, viewing it as his own way to mark the end of the project. [[spoiler:Later we find that [[UnreliableNarrator not all those lampposts were Coda's]].]]

* CreatorBreakdown:[[invoked]] Davey talks about his interpretations of how Coda's games reflect his descent into isolation, discouragement, and eventually depression, leading him to stop making games. [[spoiler:Except it turns out Davey altered the games to make it look like this was the case in order to get attention. The real reason Coda stopped making games is Davey.]]
* CreatorThumbprint:[[invoked]] Coda has quite a few in his games, like the two-doors puzzle, the three dots symbol, and the lampposts at the ends of his later games. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope It turns out]] Davey added most if not all of the lampposts, and the puzzle is ambiguous, but the three-dots symbol is definitely Coda's own.]]

* DirectLineToTheAuthor: Davey claims to merely have compiled all these games by Coda into a single collection to convince him to create games again. [[spoiler:However, messages by Coda near the end beg Davey to stop publishing his work. One could imagine that the release of ''The Beginner's Guide'' would not be helpful if the story was true. Also according to one message, Davey lied about the lampposts being a recurring element in Coda's work, having them put in there himself.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Davey caused Coda to stop enjoying making games, and by releasing the game the player has just played, Davey has gone against his wishes one last time, and is left in a miserable state, desperate for validation he'll probably never receive. One way to interpret the ending is that Davey (the character, not the real-life person) ''commits suicide''.]]
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: [[spoiler:Davey continuously does this to Coda and to his games. Instead of realizing that Coda is making little experiments in the Source engine for fun, Davey insists that these a) are capital-G Games, and b) won't have any value as Games unless they meet Davey's criteria for what video games are. Instead of seeing Coda's fixation on prisons as trying to get an idea out or experimenting with the game engine, Davey sees it as tunneling into depression. Davey misses the point of "Lecture", in which a know-it-all character is revealed to be insecure and extremely passive-aggressive, noting that he thinks it's neat how Coda has exposed everyone to be this way instead of realizing that Coda's message was intended solely for Davey. There's another game in which the protagonist passes by reporters to interrogate "The Machine", holds a press conference on how The Machine has failed him, and then destroys all of Coda's games FPS-style. Instead of realizing that the protagonist in this game is supposed to be Davey and that he is harassing Coda (The Machine) for not giving him what he wants (more games that he can hyperfixate on), then telling his friends online (the press) about all of what's going on between Coda and him, all the while defacing Coda's work to get more attention directed at himself, Davey interprets the game as Coda becoming nihilistic and hating all that he has accomplished, which compels Davey to share Coda's games publicly -- the incident which led to the creation of ''The Beginner's Guide'' in the first place. By the end, the player finds out that Coda wants Davey out of his life for sharing his games with the public, at which point Davey tells the player that he released ''The Beginner's Guide'' explicitly so that somebody could help him find Coda again, not just to apologize to him but to ''beg him to continue making Games just for him so that he can feel better about himself''.]]

* TheEndingChangesEverything: The game is ostensibly an autobiographical tale about Davey Wreden, creator of ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'', wanting to show off some old short games made by an old friend of his, Coda, who inspired him to become a games creator. Davey invites the player to play them in chronological order while he narrates his thoughts on them, eventually seeing Coda go through depression and a CreatorBreakdown[[invoked]]. The later games begin straining against this premise until the last game in the collection reveals that [[spoiler:the story is fictional -- the Davey Wreden who's been narrating is ''not'' the RealLife Davey Wreden, but an InkSuitActor and that he is an UnreliableNarrator whose motivations are very different from what the premise made them out to be. Davey released ''The Beginner's Guide'' because Coda refuses to speak to him, and he hopes it'll get his attention -- but Coda disappeared in the first place because Davey tampered with a lot of Coda's games to fit the narrative of him as a depressive artist trying to deal with his issues by making games. This changes not only the entire purpose of the story, but likely the way the player viewed Coda and his games as well, and makes it ambiguous just how much of the games were Coda and how much was stuff Davey added in.]]
* EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory: Invoked and {{Deconstructed|Trope}} InUniverse; as he played through Coda's games, Davey ends up [[spoiler:projecting so much of his own ideas and needs onto his friend and his friend's work that he inadvertently alienates Coda entirely.]]

** Davey mentions how he thinks that some of the games are Coda working through his inner thoughts and emotions, getting them down on "paper" in an attempt to work through them. [[spoiler:At the end, it turns out that [[PsychologicalProjection it is actually Davey working through his problems]] by backtracking through his relationship with Coda and his games.]]

** The ease with which Davey is able to modify Coda's maps to [[AntiFrustrationFeatures bypass some of the unwinnable parts]] doesn't just come from an intimate knowledge of the Source engine. [[spoiler:As we later learn, he's been adding other things, like [[UnreliableNarrator the lampposts he said were Coda's]]. And since Coda knew Davey wouldn't be able to resist editing Coda's work for his own satisfaction by the end of their relationship, he designed the final game, The Tower, so that Davey had zero choice but to hack it in order to receive Coda's farewell message.]]

** Davey says early on that Coda often told him that he wasn't actually as withdrawn as everyone thought and that he was actually a warm person, but it took a lot to get to know him. "It's a long tower to climb." [[spoiler:The final game, in which we REALLY get to know about Coda, is called The Tower.]]
* GainaxEnding: [[spoiler:After the emotional reveal in Coda's final game, you play one more level, presumably created by Davey. Davey can't bring himself to narrate any longer and excuses himself, leaving the player to wander through a strange collection of increasingly surreal landscapes. Finally, you see a beam like that of the Whisper Machine, and step into it, floating up above a maze that stretches out as far as the eye can see. It is potentially symbolic of how lost Davey is, and his belief that if he just has someone else help him out, he can solve the problem. Instead, this help(floating above the maze) just reveals that the maze goes on forever -- that the solution isn't using someone else as a crutch or to feed an addiction, but to work through it by oneself. Since Davey excuses himself minutes before the player reaches this point, it's likely that Davey is saying that he doesn't want to make this realization for himself.]]

* IKnowYouKnowIKnow: [[spoiler: Coda knew full well that Davey was going to edit any game he sent Davey before spreading it around the internet, so he made sure that The Tower was designed in a way that it had to be edited to progress, in order to make sure Davey saw the message waiting for him at the end.]]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler: At the end of Chapter 16: The Tower, Coda leaves a message for Davey, explaining how he feels about their relationship and why he disappeared:]]

* RevengeViaStorytelling: PlayedForDrama. Coda's games, starting from ''Lecture'', start being less about Coda's artistic vision and more about attacking [[spoiler:Davey Wreden]] for [[spoiler:being a backseat driver to Coda's creative process, tampering with his games, showing them to others without his permission, and ruining their friendship]].

* YouBastard: A rare InUniverse example, though one that also applies out-of-universe. Beginning from ''Lecture'', Coda's games become increasingly unsubtle jabs at [[spoiler:Davey for being a PoisonousFriend that wants to control Coda's creative outlet for his own personal satisfaction, under the guise of "helping" Coda find friends]].

* BigBad: InUniverse, [[spoiler:The Machine]] gradually becomes the main threat in Coda's games, as it is warping the game worlds in destructive ways. [[spoiler:However, it is implied to merely be TheScapegoat for the protagonist. Out of universe, [[AuthorAvatar Davey Wreden himself]] turns out to have been responsible for Coda's disappearance, as his tampering with Coda's games drove him away.]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: While ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'' was an often cruel satire of the artificiality of MultipleEndings in video games with plenty of horrifying and heartbreaking moments, it was still an ultimately lighthearted experience with a fondness for quirky humour. By contrast, ''The Beginner's Guide'' is a macabre and deeply personal story about a friendship gone awry, with only the occasional foray into very BlackComedy.

* DramaticallyMissingThePoint:
** [[spoiler:Davey does this to Coda's games, for example interpreting the prison games as Coda being depressed as opposed to him just liking making prison games. By the end, you find out that Coda wants Davey out of his life for sharing his games with the public, at which point Davey tells you he released the entire compilation just so somebody could help him find Coda again.]]
** Additionally, after seeing the ending, it becomes pretty clear that [[spoiler:the Mobius, Islands, and Machine games were [[YouBastard attacking Davey]]. Someone forcing you to lie to get what they want, destroying your work for their own selfish ends -- even without any changes, it's fairly obvious what these are about, which makes it all the more heart-wrenching that Davey doesn't get it until the very end.]]
* EldritchLocation: Several of the games take place in spaces that warp and change.
* TheEndingChangesEverything: The game is ostensibly an autobiographical tale about Davey Wreden, creator of ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'', wanting to show off some old short games made by an old friend of his, Coda, who inspired him to become a games creator. Davey invites the player to play them in chronological order while he narrates his thoughts on them, eventually seeing Coda go through depression and a CreatorBreakdown[[invoked]]. The later games begin straining against this premise until the last game in the collection reveals that [[spoiler:the story is fictional -- the Davey Wreden who's been narrating is ''not'' the RealLife Davey Wreden, but a character, and he is an UnreliableNarrator whose motivations are very different from what the premise made them out to be. Davey released ''The Beginner's Guide'' because Coda refuses to speak to him, and he hopes it'll get his attention -- but Coda disappeared in the first place because Davey tampered with a lot of Coda's games to fit the narrative of him as a depressive artist trying to deal with his issues by making games. This changes not only the entire purpose of the story, but likely the way the player viewed Coda and his games as well, and makes it ambiguous just how much of the games were Coda and how much was stuff Davey added in.]]
* EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory: Invoked and {{Deconstructed|Trope}} InUniverse; as he played through Coda's games, Davey ends up [[spoiler:projecting so much of his own ideas and needs onto his friend's work that he inadvertently alienates Coda entirely.]]

** The ease with which Davey is able to modify Coda's maps to [[AntiFrustrationFeatures bypass some of the unwinnable parts]] doesn't just come from an intimate knowledge of the Source engine. [[spoiler:As we later learn, he's been adding other things, like [[UnreliableNarrator the lampposts he said were Coda's]].]]

** In the play/theatre chapter, the lamppost appears ''before'' the actual end. [[spoiler:That's because it's the only place Davey could put it.]]
* GainaxEnding: [[spoiler:After the emotional reveal in Coda's final game, you play one more level, presumably created by Davey. Davey can't bring himself to narrate any longer and excuses himself, leaving the player to wander through a strange collection of increasingly surreal landscapes. Finally, you see a beam like that of the Whisper Machine, and step into it, floating up above a maze that stretches out as far as the eye can see.]]

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: As the plot continues, Coda's games become more involved and sophisticated, to the point where [[spoiler:the amount of work required to produce them would be unrealistically high for something reflecting a transient mood, or just to be sent to a friend as an insulting message]]. WordOfGod is that the more familiar the real-life player is with game development, the more likely they will lose sympathy with the story, likely for this reason.
* {{Irony}}: The game is a deconstruction of DeathOfTheAuthor and EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory[[invoked]], and yet is a treasure trove of interpretations itself.

* NoAntagonist: In-universe, as Coda's games are short experimental ones, they typically lack a villainous character. For example, ''Escape From Whisper'' has the malfunctioning Whisper Machine as the threat, but it isn't sentient or actively trying to harm the player, while ''House'' is a game about housecleaning and bonding with the inhabitant of the house. This becomes subverted as The Machine gradually begins to threaten the game world. [[spoiler:Out of universe, it is subverted -- Davey Wreden is revealed as the main antagonistic force in the last chapter.]]

* RevengeViaStorytelling: PlayedForDrama. Coda's games, starting from ''Lecture'', start being less about Coda's artistic vision and more about attacking [[spoiler:Davey Wreden]] for [[spoiler:tampering with his games, showing them to others without his permission, and ruining their friendship]].

** ''Mobius'' and ''Whisper'' have the protagonist [[spoiler:admit that they no longer like making games and consider it painful and draining as a thinly-veiled message to Davey]].

** Finally, ''The Tower'' [[spoiler:drops all pretenses because Davey [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint cannot take the hint]] and [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech flat-out tells him]] he ruined their friendship, and to never contact him again]].

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: In one of the prison games, Davey talks about an argument he had with Coda about game design. Davey argued that games should be playable, whereas Coda is not afraid to add hour-long waits or difficult-to-impossible mazes in his games for the sake of artistic experience.[[invoked]]

* UnwantedAssistance: [[spoiler:Davey, in his attempt to help what he sees as a lonely person who needs more friends, steals Coda’s games and shows them to others without permission, then edits them to make Coda look more like a tortured soul. Coda knows that Davey was trying to help, but all he was doing was making things worse and making him not want to see Davey again.]]

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic: In-universe. Davey keeps coming up with symbolism and interpretations thereof in Coda's work, such as explaining the reason for Coda making so many prison room type games as a metaphor for Coda feeling trapped by his work and depressed that he can't come up with new game ideas. [[spoiler:Subverted in that Coda calls Davey out for assuming this and coming up with interpretations to fit a narrative he thought it should represent. As Davey sadly points out near the end "Maybe he just liked making prison games".]]
* WhamEpisode: Chapters 12 and 13, ''Theatre'' and ''Mobius'' respectively. Up until that point, Coda's games have been lighthearted affairs with some eeriness, philosophy, and weird situations, but these two games have a much darker atmosphere and mark the point where Coda starts undergoing his CreatorBreakdown[[invoked]], with ''Theatre'' hinting at this and ''Mobius'' making it explicit. Said breakdown lasts the rest of the games, which are much more depressing in nature than the early ones.

** The plot of the game concerns Coda's decision to quit game development and Davey's struggle to understand why. At the end of the Tower is a series of messages to Coda that reveal the reason, and when Davey sees it:

* WhamShot: When the recurring two doors and a lever puzzle appears for the final time, [[spoiler:and there's no second lever on the inside of the first door like there was in the other versions of this puzzle, essentially trapping you inside]].
* YouBastard: A rare InUniverse example, though one that also applies out-of-universe. Beginning from ''Mobius'' (and possibly ''Theatre''), Coda's games become increasingly unsubtle jabs at [[spoiler:Davey for being a PoisonousFriend and trying to force Coda to make games so he can interpret them and ”help” Coda]].
** In ''Theatre'', you are an actor trying to be social and speak to your idol while a voice verbally abuses you for getting it wrong no matter what you say. It ends with you retreating into darkness as cage walls fall down. It is possible that this represents [[spoiler:Davey trying to force Coda to be social]].
** In ''Mobius'', the way to win- to stop the giant door from destroying the SS Whisper- is for the protagonist to [[spoiler:admit that they don't like making games anymore, saying so repeatedly and detailing how draining it is]].

** In ''The Machine'', [[spoiler:the protagonist (likely meant to represent Davey) is a VillainProtagonist who taunts Coda (represented as The Machine) and destroys all of Coda's games and the Machine itself, saying that the Machine hates the light and being seen (a reference to how Davey showed Coda's games to other people without his permission)]].
** Finally, ''The Tower'' [[spoiler:forces Davey to hack the game to beat it- mirroring his tampering with Coda's other games- before abandoning all pretenses and giving him a very blatant TheReasonYouSuckSpeech]].
** Out-of-universe, the story is in part a cautionary tale against [[spoiler:reading too much into things and assuming things about the creator from their work, something the player likely did along with Davey]].

* AnAesop: [[spoiler:You cannot assume what a person is like just through their creations/works of art, and your interpretations of a work are just that -- don't project it onto the creator. Davey spends the entire story trying to piece together what kind of person Coda is through [[AmbiguousGender their]] games, only to ultimately find that he does not know Coda at all, and most of his interpretations are wildly wrong. In fact, his insistence on reading Coda as a tortured soul who needs help leads him to invade their privacy by showing their games to others against their will, which ultimately severs their friendship.]]
** On a lesser note, [[spoiler: Altering someone else's artwork without their permission, even if you think it improves the end product, is just plain wrong. So is showing off someone's private work to others without their knowledge, especially if you only do it to make yourself feel good by taking in the praise from others.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Davey caused Coda to stop enjoying making games, and by releasing the game the player has just played, Davey has gone against his wishes one last time, and is left in a miserable state, desperate for validation he'll probably never receive. One way to interpret the ending is that Davey ''commits suicide'' (the character, not the real life person).]]

** [[spoiler:Davey does this to Coda's games, for example interpreting the prison games as Coda being depressed as opposed to him just liking making prison games. By the end you find out that Coda wants Davey out of his life for sharing his games with the public, at which point Davey tells you he released the entire compilation just so somebody could help him find Coda again.]]
** Additionally, after seeing the ending, it becomes pretty clear that [[spoiler:the Mobius, Islands, and Machine game were [[YouBastard attacking Davey]]. Someone forcing you to lie to get what they want, destroying your work for their own selfish ends- even without any changes, it's fairly obvious what these are about. Which makes it all the more heart-wrenching that Davey doesn't get it until the very end.]]
* EldritchLocation: Several of the games take place in spaces that will warp and change.
* TheEndingChangesEverything: The game is ostensibly an autobiographical tale about Davey Wreden, creator of ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'', wanting to show off some old short games made by an old friend of his, Coda, who inspired him to become a games creator. Davey invites the player to play them in chronological order while he narrates his thoughts on them, eventually seeing Coda go through depression and a CreatorBreakdown[[invoked]]. The later games begin straining against this premise until the last game in the collection reveals that [[spoiler:the story is fictional- the 'Davey Wreden' who's been narrating is ''not'' the RealLife Davey Wreden, but a character, and he is an UnreliableNarrator whose motivations are very different from what the premise made them out to be. Davey released ''The Beginner's Guide'' because Coda refuses to speak to him, and he hopes it'll get his attention- but Coda disappeared in the first place because Davey tampered with a lot of Coda's games to fit the narrative of him as a depressive artist trying to deal with his issues by making games. This changes not only the entire purpose of the story, but likely the way the player viewed Coda and his games as well, and makes it ambiguous just how much of the games were Coda and how much was stuff Davey added in.]]

** Davey mentions how he thinks that some of the games are Coda working through his inner thoughts and emotions, getting them down on 'paper' in an attempt to work through them. [[spoiler:At the end, it turns out that [[PsychologicalProjection it is actually Davey working through his problems]] by backtracking through his relationship with Coda and his games.]]

** Davey says early on that Coda often told him that Coda wasn't actually as withdrawn as everyone thought and that he was actually a warm person, but it took a lot to get to know him. "It's a long tower to climb." [[spoiler:The final game, in which we REALLY get to know about Coda, is called The Tower.]]

* NoAntagonist: In-universe, as Coda's games are short experimental ones, they typically lack a villainous character. For example, ''Escape From Whisper'' has the malfunctioning Whisper Machine as the threat, but it isn't sentient or actively trying to harm the player, while ''House'' is a game about housecleaning and bonding with the inhabitant of the house. This becomes subverted as The Machine gradually begins to threaten the game world. [[spoiler:Out of universe, it is subverted- Davey Wreden is revealed as the BigBad in the last chapter.]]

** ''Lecture'' stars a KnowNothingKnowItAll professor who insists he has the key to achieving perfection but just comes off as a pretentious snob who is revealed to have an InferioritySuperiorityComplex. [[spoiler:Much like Davey himself.]]

* TrashTheSet: In "The Machine". [[spoiler:Coda's Game Worlds are destroyed by the player.]]

* AnAesop: [[spoiler:You cannot assume what a person is like just through their creations/works of art, and your interpretations of a work are just that- don't project it onto the creator. Davey spends the entire story trying to piece together what kind of person Coda is through [[AmbiguousGender their]] games, only to ultimately find that he does not know Coda at all, and most of his interpretations are wildly wrong. In fact, his insistence on reading Coda as a tortured soul who needs help leads him to invade their privacy by showing their games to others against their will, which ultimately severs their friendship.]]

''The Beginner's Guide'' is an EnvironmentalNarrativeGame published in 2015 by David Wreden, creator of ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable''. The game involves Davey guiding the player, via voiced narration, through a collection of short games created by his friend, 'Coda', between 2008 and 2011. Throughout the game, Davey explains his friendship with Coda and analyzes what the various things in each game mean. His hope is to use the games to show the player what kind of person Coda is- and hopefully figure out why Coda suddenly stopped making games and vanished.

* TheEndingChangesEverything: The game is ostensibly an autobiographical tale about Davey Wreden, creator of ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'', wanting to show off some old short games made by an old friend of his, Coda, who inspired him to become a games creator. Davey invites the player to play them in chronological order while he narrates his thoughts on them, eventually seeing Coda go through depression and a CreatorBreakdown[[invoked]]. The later games begin straining against this premise until the last game in the collection reveals that [[spoiler:the story is fictional- the 'Davey Wreden' who's been narrating is ''not'' the RealLife Davey Wreden, but a character, and he is an UnreliableNarrator whose motivations are very different from what the premise made them out to be. Davey released ''The Beginner's Guide'' because Coda refuses to speak to him, and he hopes it'll get his attention- but Coda dissapeared in the first place because Davey tampered with a lot of Coda's games to fit the narrative of him as a depressive artist trying to deal with his issues by making games. This changes not only the entire purpose of the story, but likely the way the player viewed Coda and his games as well, and makes it ambiguous just how much of the games were Coda and how much was stuff Davey added in.]]

* StopHelpingMe: InUniverse DeconstructedTrope. [[spoiler:Coda knows that Davey was trying to help, but all he was doing was making things worse and making him not want to see Davey again.]]

** Finally, ''The Tower'' [[spoiler:forces Davey to hack the game to beat it- mirroring his tampering with Coda's other games- before abandoning all pretenses and giving him a very blatant TheReasonYouSuckSpeech. Out-of-universe, the story is in part a cautionary tale against reading too much into things and assuming things about the creator from their work, something the player likely did along with Davey]].

* AnAesop: [[spoiler:You cannot assume what a person is like just through their creations/works of art. Davey spends the entire story trying to piece together what kind of person Coda is through [[AmbiguousGender their]] games, only to ultimately find that he does not know Coda at all, and most of his interpretations are wildly wrong. In fact, his insistence on reading Coda as a tortured soul who needs help leads him to invade their privacy by showing their games to others against their will, which ultimately severs their friendship.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Davey caused Coda to stop enjoying making games, and by releasing the game the player has just played, Davey has gone against his wishes one last time, and is left in a miserable state, desperate for validation he'll probably never receive. One way to interpret the ending is that Davey ''commits suicide'' (the character, not the real life person).]]

** [[spoiler: Davey does this to Coda's games, for example interpreting the prison games as Coda being depressed as opposed to him just liking making prison games. By the end you find out that Coda wants Davey out of his life for sharing his games with the public, at which point Davey tells you he released the entire compilation just so somebody could help him find Coda again.]]

* EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory: Invoked and {{Deconstructed|Trope}} InUniverse; as he played through Coda’s games, Davey ends up [[spoiler:projecting so much of his own ideas and needs onto his friend's work that he inadvertently alienates Coda entirely.]]

* MadnessMantra: [[spoiler: Speak!]]

-->[[spoiler:'''Coda:''' Dear Davey, Thank you for your interest in my games. I need to ask you not to speak to me anymore. I wonder at times whether you think I am making these games for you. You've so infected my personal space that it's possible I did begin to plant 'solutions' in my work somewhere, hidden between games. If there was an answer, a meaning, would it make you any happier? Would you stop taking my games and showing them to people against my wishes? Giving them something that is not yours to give? Violating the one boundary that keeps me safe? Would you stop changing my games? [[WhamLine Stop adding lampposts to them?]] Would you simply let them be what they are?]]
-->[[spoiler: When I am around you, I feel physically ill. You desperately need something and I cannot give it to you. I literally do not have it. Struggling to come up with new ideas is not making me depressed, low points are just a part of the process. The fact that you think I am frustrated or broken says more about you than about me. I realize this doesn't make sense to you just yet. Which is fine, you're not my problem to solve. But I do hope that one day it clicks, and that you make peace with this thing you are wrestling. And when you finally see what I'm talking about: don't say anything.]]

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: It took ''years'' for the real-life Davey to fully clarify if this game was non-fiction or not. [[https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/11946-tone-control-season-2-episode-6-davey-wreden/ On the Tone Patrol podcast, he said it's entirely fiction,]] and that "Coda" never actually existed in real-life, ''but'' it was inspired by the experience of [[spoiler:going through friendships breaking down due to mistakes on Davey's part]]. On the same podcast, he discusses some of the game's themes and where he and his fictional self diverge - the real Davey, in particular, has a much better understanding of [[spoiler:how he screwed up with the people he ''did'' actually drive away and how making a game to express an apology isn't the best idea, nor is it even remotely ''effective'' compared to just approaching people in good faith and sincerely apologizing.]]

* ApologyGift: [[spoiler:''The entire game'', [[UnreliableNarrator supposedly]]]]. If the narrative is to be taken completely straight, then Davey Wreden [[spoiler.made ''The Beginner's Guide'' as an apology to Coda, demonstrating his mistake, explaining his regret and then publishing it all on the internet hoping it'll reach him somehow.]] Possibly inverted, as [[spoiler:what Davey is doing is the exact opposite of what Coda would have wanted, and it's strongly implied that Davey is fully aware of this fact as he even goes so far as to alter Coda's games to invent nonexistent themes and symbolism, making it seem as though this 'gift' is [[ItsAllAboutMe more about himself]] than his friend]].

* WhamLine:
-->'''Davey:''' "And to be fair it's not like this is the first game that's needed some modification to be playable. [[spoiler:[[UnreliableNarrator Like the housecleaning game]], you know that one used to actually loop the cleaning chores and you just cleaned a house forever, I had to cut it off so that you could exit the house and the game would actually end]]."

* YouBastard: A rare InUniverse example, though one that also applies out-of-universe. Beginning from ''Mobius'', Coda's games become increasingly unsubtle jabs at [[spoiler:Davey for being a PoisonousFriend and trying to force Coda to make games so he can interpret them and ”help” Coda]].
** In ''Mobius'', the way to win- to stop the giant door from destroying the SS Whisper- is for the protagonist to [[spoiler:admit that they don't like making games anymore]].
** In ''Island'', the protagonist must [[spoiler:say that they love making games despite this being a painful lie to get to the end, with sad music and crying in the background]].

** Finally, ''The Tower'' [[spoiler:forces Davey to hack the game to beat it before abandoning all pretenses and giving him a very blatant TheReasonYouSuckSpeech. Out-of-universe, the story is in part a cautionary tale against reading too much into things, something the player likely did along with Davey]].

* ApologyGift: [[spoiler:''The entire game'']]. [[UnreliableNarrator Supposedly.]] If the narrative is to be taken completely straight then Davey Wreden [[spoiler:made ''The Beginner's Guide'' as an apology to Coda, demonstrating his mistake, explaining his regret and then publishing it all on the internet hoping it'll reach him somehow.]]
** Possibly inverted, as [[spoiler:what Davey is doing is the exact opposite of what Coda would have wanted, and it's strongly implied that Davey is fully aware of this fact as he even goes so far as to alter Coda's games to invent nonexistent themes and symbolism, making it seem as though this 'gift' is more about himself than his friend.]]

* AvoidTheDreadedGRating: Even though the game doesn't actually have an ESRB rating as a PC-exclusive, Davey says "shitty" near the end of the game and one of the alleged online comments in one of the games begins with "holy shit".

** The epilogue game ends with [[spoiler:the floating glitch from the Whisper game, having the player float over an enormous maze world]].

* CreatorThumbprint:[[invoked]] Coda has quite a few in his games, like the two-doors puzzle, the three dots symbol, and the lampposts at the ends of his later games. [[spoiler:It turns out Davey added most if not all of the lampposts, but the three-dots symbol is definitely Coda's own.]]

* DeathOfTheAuthor: What happens in-universe when Davey [[spoiler: not just overrides Coda's work with his own desperate need to see symbolism where there probably was never intended to actually be any, but straight up ''tampers'' with the games to make them fit his own narratives]]. Coda proceeds to [[spoiler:cut off all ties with Davey]], quits making games and then vanishes off the Internet altogether because of this.

** Additionally, after seeing the ending, it becomes pretty clear that [[spoiler:the Mobius, Islands, and Machine game were based around Davey. Someone forcing you to lie to get what they want? Someone destroying your work for their own selfish ends? Yeah, even without any changes, it's fairly obvious what these are about. Which makes it all the more heart-wrenching that Davey didn't get it.]]
* EldritchLocation: Several of the games count as this.
* TheEndingChangesEverything: [[spoiler:Davey released ''The Beginner's Guide'' because Coda refuses to speak to him, and he hopes it'll get his attention- but Coda dissapeared in the first place because Davey tampered with a lot of Coda's games to fit the narrative of him as a depressive artist trying to deal with his issues by making games. The fact that Davey [[UnreliableNarrator has been lying to the player this whole time]] changes not only the entire purpose of the story, but likely the way the player viewed Coda and his games as well, and makes it ambiguous just how much of the games were Coda and how much was stuff Davey added in.]]

** Davey mentions how he thinks that some of the games are Coda working through his inner thoughts and emotions, getting them down on 'paper' in an attempt to work through them. [[spoiler:At the end, it turns out that it is actually Davey working through his problems by backtracking through his relationship with Coda and his games.]]

** The ease with which Davey is able to modify Coda's maps to [[AntiFrustrationFeatures bypass some of the unwinnable parts]] doesn't just come from an intimate knowledge of the Source engine. [[spoiler:As we later learn, he's been adding other things, like lampposts.]]
** You're told early on that Coda made games from 2008 until 2011. Makes you wonder what happened that he stopped making them four years before this game's release, doesn't it?
** One of the player notes quotes ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'', which would be odd, as that game hadn't come out at the time. [[spoiler:Davey almost certainly tampered with those when compiling the games into The Beginner's Guide, though whether he just added more or added all of them is left up in the air.]]

*** "But, of course, it can't last." [[spoiler:[[BlatantLies Except,]] [[UnreliableNarrator as originally programmed, it does. Infinitely.]]]]
** Davey says early on that Coda told him that Coda wasn't actually as withdrawn as everyone thought and that he was actually a warm person, but it took a lot to get to know him. "It's a long tower to climb." [[spoiler: The final game, in which we REALLY get to know about Coda, is called The Tower.]]

* {{Irony}}: The game is a deconstruction of DeathOfTheAuthor and EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory, and yet is a treasure trove of interpretations itself.

* YouBastard: A rare InUniverse example, though one that also applies out-of-universe. [[spoiler:Beginning from ''Mobius'', Coda's games become increasingly unsubtle jabs at Davey for being a PoisonousFriend and trying to force Coda to make games so he can interpret them and ”help” Coda. In ''Mobius'', the way to win is for the protagonist to admit that they don't like making games anymore. In ''Island'', the protagonist must say that they love making games despite this being a painful lie to get to the end, with sad music and crying in the background. In ''The Machine'', the protagonist (likely meant to represent Davey) is a VillainProtagonist who taunts Coda (represented as The Machine) and destroys all of Coda's games and the Machine itself, saying that the Machine hates the light and being seen (a reference to how Davey showed Coda's games to other people without his permission). Finally, ''The Tower'' forces Davey to hack the game to beat it before abandoning all pretenses and giving him a very blatant TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler:[[AuthorAvatar Davey Wreden himself]]]] turns out to have been responsible for Coda's disappearance, as [[spoiler:his tampering with Coda's games drove him away]].

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: As the plot continues, Coda's games become more involved and sophisticated, to the point where [[spoiler: the amount of work required to produce them would be unrealistically high for something reflecting a transient mood, or just to be sent to a friend as an insulting message.]] WordOfGod is that the more familiar the real-life player is with game development, the more likely they will lose sympathy with the story, likely for this reason.

* TheTower: The last of Coda's games. [[spoiler:The game consisted of impossible challenges that ended with Coda telling Davey to leave him alone.]]

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: It took ''years'' for the real-life Davey to fully clarify if this game was non-fiction or not. [[https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/11946-tone-control-season-2-episode-6-davey-wreden/ On the Tone Patrol podcast, he said it's entirely fiction,]] and that "Coda" never actually existed in real-life, ''but'' it was inspired by the experience of [[spoiler:going through friendships breaking down due to mistakes on Davey's part.]] On the same podcast, he discusses some of the game's themes and where he and his fictional self diverge - the real Davey, in particular, has a much better understanding of [[spoiler:how he screwed up with the people he ''did'' actually drive away and how making a game to express an apology isn't the best idea, nor is it even remotely ''effective'' compared to just approaching people in good faith and sincerely apologizing.]]

* ArcSymbol: The lampposts at the end of the later games, which Coda did to symbolize a goal or the completion of a project, according to Davey. [[spoiler:Subverted as Coda's message to Davey at the end reveals that Davey added most of the lampposts himself.]]

* AuthorAvatar: Davey Wreden voices himself, presenting the collection of games, commenting and giving his interpretations of the games as the game progresses, [[spoiler:[[SelfDeprecation and then viciously lambasting himself]].]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler:[[UnreliableNarrator Davey Wreden himself]] turns out to have been responsible for Coda's disappearance, as his tampering with Coda's games drove him away.]]

** The epilogue game ends with [[spoiler:the floating glitch from the Whisper game, having the player float over an enormous maze world.]]
* BrickJoke: One game involves simply walking past a sign on a dark gravel road which reads, "YOU ARE NOW ENTERING." Three games later, it repeats, but with "YOU ARE NOW EXITING." Davey interprets this as a brick joke, but considering what comes later in the game, you never know.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Davey caused Coda to stop enjoying making games, and by releasing the game the player has just played, Davey has gone against his wishes one last time, and is left in a miserable state, desperate for validation he'll probably never receive. Hell, one way to interpret the ending is that Davey ''commits suicide''. Not in real life, of course.]]

** Additionally, after seeing the ending, it becomes pretty clear that [[spoiler: both the islands game and The Machine were based around Davey. Someone forcing you to lie to get what they want? Someone destroying your work for their own selfish ends? Yeah, even without any changes, it's fairly obvious what these are about. Which makes it all the more heart-wrenching that Davey didn't get it.]]

* TheEndingChangesEverything: [[spoiler: Davey released ''The Beginner's Guide'' because Coda refuses to speak to him, and he hopes it'll get his attention. This, along with the fact that he tampered with a lot of Coda's games to fit the narrative of him as a depressive artist trying to deal with his issues by making games, changes not only the entire purpose of the story, but likely the way the player viewed Coda and his games as well.]]

** In the play chapter, the lamppost appears ''before'' the actual end. [[spoiler:That's because it's the only place Davey could put it.]]

* TheGhost: Coda's games are the central focus of the game, but the player never sees or hears from him, and only know what Davey tells them. [[spoiler:The closest we get are a series of messages addressed to Davey at the end of The Tower.]]
* IgnoredEpiphany: [[spoiler:The entire game is one for Davey. After seeming to come to conclusion that he is the reason Coda stopped making games because he kept adding his own interpretations, altering them to fit themes he thought they were supposed to represent, and eventually showing them to the public against Coda's wishes, Davey wishes to apologize to Coda... by taking all of Coda's games, compiling them together, and releasing them for the entire internet along with his commentary on the supposed themes in the hopes that Coda will see it.]]

* MeaningfulName:
** A "coda" is a summation or conclusion, often by prolonging, like the coda to a piece of music or the linguistic syllable coda after a vowel. It exists to conclude, but it also drags things out.
** In addition, the Coda is a sign for the player of the music to turn back. The final song of the game is titled "Turn Back", and seems to be about Coda trying to get [[spoiler: Davey to go away from this toxic relationship.]] (To a lesser extent, the penultimate track of the game is even named "D.C. Al Coda", the full name for the symbol.)
** It's also nearly homophonous to "coder".

* ObliviouslyEvil: [[spoiler:The end reveals that all this time, Davey thought he was helping Coda by doing things like trying to convince him to make the games more playable, modifying them, releasing them to others and telling those people about Coda's supposed depression, when in reality all this was accomplishing was poisoning the gamemaking hobby more and more for Coda, ultimately dissuading him from making more games.]]
* PoisonousFriend: [[spoiler:Davey. He's fully aware of it and wants to make amends, but a) [[IgnoredEpiphany he doesn't seem to understand]] ''[[IgnoredEpiphany why]]'' [[IgnoredEpiphany he's such a bad influence]], and b) Coda doesn't want amends. He just wants Davey out of the picture.]]
* PsychologicalProjection: Outside validation is the only thinkable goal for Davey as an artist and he assumes it's the same for Coda.

** One of the player notes quotes ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'', which would be odd, as that game hadn't come out at the time. [[spoiler:Davey almost certainly tampered with those when compiling the games into The Beginner's Guide, though whether he just added more or added all of them is left up in the air.]]

* TheTower: One of Coda's games. [[spoiler:The game consisted of impossible challenges that ended with Coda telling Davey to leave him alone.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: [[spoiler:Davey lets slip near the end of the game that he added an ending to the housecleaning game, which he had earlier presented as an intentional part of the game's message; this immediately calls the actual content of all of Coda's games into question, a suspicion that is more directly confirmed with Coda's message that reveals that the running symbol of the lampposts was at least partially Davey's invention.]]

* VillainProtagonist: [[spoiler:Davey is a narcissist who obsessively attempts to show his "friend's" work without their consent and exposes their privacy. He's not a monster, but he's deeply flawed.]]
* WhamLine: "And to be fair it's not like this is the first game that's needed some modification to be playable. [[spoiler:Like the housecleaning game, you know that one used to actually loop the cleaning chores and you just cleaned a house forever, I had to cut it off so that you could exit the house and the game would actually end]]."
* WhamShot: When the recurring two doors and a lever puzzle appears for the final time, [[spoiler:and there's no second lever on the inside of the first door]].