Stop putting lampposts in my podcasts.
Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! For our first episode of the year, we’re going to be taking a look at Davey Wreden’s The Beginner’s Guide. While the developer is certainly best known for The Stanley Parable, this game does a lot to show the level of dedication Davey has to making narrative games that break the mold of what you would expect from the genre. In this particular instance, we are being taken on a tour through the games of “Coda,” a hobbyist developer and friend of Davey’s, as they become more and more disjointed and laden with symbolism. While this is happening, there is narration playing to give context to the games and explain what some things mean and how they came to be. And all of that text was necessary to give you a basic explanation for what this game is, but it is the emotional core that really gives the game its flavor. Play it for yourself before listening if it at all seems interesting. Why? Because we’re talking about the narrative structure of a game about games with narrative structures, game development and its associated stresses, and how this game is basically a sequel to Half-Life 2’s developer commentary.
Thank you for joining us this episode, and we’ll be back (hopefully in a shorter time) with an episode about Harvest Moon, marking the legendary return to handheld consoles in a series called “Pocket.” We hope you’ll check it out!