YMMV / The Beginner's Guide

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • It's hard to say by the end how much of the games was Coda's original work, and how much of it was Davey reworking it to make the themes he saw in the work more obvious to the player. After all, the interpretations he gives often feel like the only logical ones.
  • There is also the question of whether or not Coda ever actually existed (within The Beginner's Guide story-verse) and wasn't just created for Game!Davey's narrative purposes.
  • Davey views the Housekeeping game as comforting and fond of home, but other players might view the constant housecleaning as dull, annoying, or even obsessive-compulsive. Given how the game was supposed to go on forever and Coda's glee at Davey playing it, it was likely never supposed to be 'warm' like Davey thinks.
  • Some see Coda as an aloof artist, who ultimately helped damage their own friendship with Davey by refusing to see anything from his view. This is most clearly seen with the 'Playable Games' anecdote, which demonstrates a very spiteful and pretentious side of Coda. While Davey has issues and was ultimately the one to ruin their friendship, Coda's own uncompromising and closed-off attitude may have been another major problem which was never recognized.
  • The idea that Coda actually did place most or all the lampposts; when he was telling Davey to stop putting lampposts into his games, he was speaking metaphorically, saying that Davey should stop changing his games to fit his own interpretation.
  • Coda again. Word of God pointed out that anyone familiar with game design would lose sympathy with the story. One interpretation is the length of Coda's last few games. The last few games Coda supposedly made are a giant middlefinger and "Reason You Suck" Speech to Davey. If Coda really is that introverted that this is the only way to get his message across, that makes sense. However, the games are so intricate that they would take weeks, if not months, to create. If Coda was really willing to go that far to spite someone instead of just talking to them or chewing them out, then that paints Coda as a highly petty and vindictive person who's just as poisonous as Davey is. If only The Tower is directed at Davey, it would still have taken an unreasonable amount of time to create and paints Coda as kind of obsessive.
  • Is Davey a selfish narcissist desperate for praise who fails to take anything away from his experience, or a rather pitiable, alienated figure who ruins a friendship out of a desire to feel good about himself? This will depend greatly as to how literally you take some of the events in the game.
• Awesome Music: Pretty much every part of the soundtrack.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The game is about the dangers of interpreting too much into someone's work... but it is, itself, something that almost demands over-analysis.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The epilogue level. Aside from the call-back at the end, why there is a set of epilogue scenes with no connection to Coda's work isn't explained by Davey, who is in the midst of his breakdown and ends up leaving in the middle. It's just a bunch of static scenes, albeit with a bit of Scenery Porn. But all things considered, the lack of context and relevancy is probably intentional.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Some view Davey as specifically a Narcissist who becomes a Collapsed Narcissist after the falling out.
• Fanon: While unfortunately there isn't much fan art of this game, it seems that if Coda isn't drawn with a block-head, he's drawn with black hair.
• Funny Moments: The lecture game is rather goofy. And some of the teacher's dialogue choices descend into utter silliness.
• Jerkass Woobie: Davey himself. He's done a terrible thing and he does the exact same thing again by releasing the game, but it's difficult not to feel sorry for him when he breaks down crying in the end and begging for his friend's forgiveness, especially since it's implied he might have killed himself .
• Moral Event Horizon: Coda calling out Davey for trying to help him by showing his games to others may seem a little harsh at first, since Davey was just trying to help his friend... until you consider how much Davey also wants attention for himself and so has been altering Coda's games to make them seem more depressive.
• Nightmare Fuel: Aside from some of the settings being unsettling to borderline terrifying, the idea that you could become so desperate for validation in your own life that you willfully tamper with someone else's work and create the impression of them having much worse mental health issues than they actually do so that the people you show it to praise you for showing it to them is a very existentially troubling concept. The fact that Davey probably got absolutely no response from Coda for his "apology" and is left feeling miserable for stabbing his friend in the back like that is also quite disquieting.
  • The question of both Coda and Davey's state of mind at the end of the game is also rather unsettling too: Coda had his life and beloved hobby made into a nightmare by Davey's constant pressure and interference, eventually quitting altogether, and Davey learned absolutely nothing, and was reduced to a crying heap by the end, with his source of approval and self worth gone. Coda has to recover from a toxic person in his life by cutting out an entire hobby, and Davey hasn't changed, he's just searching for answers from someone who can't stand his presence at all. Two lives are broken, and one of them might never realize his own mistakes and heal.
• Spiritual Adaptation: A game with literally layered story telling, various levels being Bigger on the Inside with Alien Geometries, houses being a recurring theme, and an Unreliable Narrator who constantly edits the main author's work. This may be the closest we will get to a House of Leaves video game adaptation.
  • The focus on heavy amounts of projection in the narrator's interpretation does fit House of Leaves, but also fits Pale Fire even more.
• Tear Jerker: The ending.
  • Screw it, the ENTIRE GAME is this after the ending. Davey ruined the chances of being a friend due to his absurdly toxic personality, and might have killed himself because of it. Coda is forced to abandon their hobby because of Davey's toxic behavior, and there's no chance either of them will ever make amends.
• That One Level: "Mobius" the thirteenth chapter. In this level, you will find yourself on a spaceship with a giant door-like object hurtling towards you. Problem is, you have 20 seconds to solve the level or else the object crashes onto you. If this happens, you have to restart the chapter from the beginning. And unless you know what you're doing, you will be restarting the chapter... a lot. And If you thought that was bad, you are expected to complete the chapter blind! Thankfully, Davey allows you to open your eyes.

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