Revisiting 'The Beginner's Guide' 10 Years Later

[Tylermac12]

I want to preface this with the admission that i absolute recognize the irony/hypocrisy in what i'm about to say regarding creators and critics, but please bare with me.

I first played this when it released back in 2015 at the age of 20 and will admit i completely forgot everything about it. At that time i had an incredibly isolated and ignorant view of the world, and while i did have a deep love for storytelling and art, it was a more romanticized perspective. More abstract than practical, and my attention was more-so on the conversations the art created. I didn't have a consistent creative outlet like Coda, but i was desperate to find one. In that pursuit of meaning, i found myself more like the narrator. The only way I've been able to find meaning and connection is through the work of others because I wasn't content with work making enough of an impact on someone else.

My 20s has consisted of this need to not only consume as much art (movies, music, gaming, books, etc) as possible, but also sharing what i considered to be well-thought out insight with users of Letterboxd, friends on IG, or even on a website i built on my own for some time. Playing this game for the first time since launch has forced me to address this fact, which has kinda manifested itself as shame for the need of external validation, rather than a genuine curiosity about the creative process. (again, i can see the irony of all of this being said in a discussions thread on Steam, but i'm doing this more for my own sake for the first time.) Something that this game has cemented into my mind is the idea that you bring each life experience you've held onto throughout your life to EVERY piece of art. And that it's THAT which determines how much you get out of something. Yes, we can agree on the more technical aspects of art, but to isolate yourself keeps you from the ability to receive and hold onto someone's creation in a meaningful way.

I'm about to be 30 in a couple months, and like most people it has encouraged me to think back on things with the context of all I've held onto up until this point. I would say there still remains the romanticism of creation, but with significantly more consideration for the moral responsibility of both artist and critic.

I think it becomes increasingly easier to fall into complacency as a critic especially when the intent of your approach isn't for personal growth, but for external validation. You fall into this mindset that your words are the only reason someone created something to begin with, instead of considering that maybe they just wanted to make something for themselves. Why would anyone put themselves into a position of something so mentally taxing like creation unless their intent was to put it out into the world and get validation? Like the narrator says, it's impossible to even conceive of that idea as a critic.

To everyone saying this is a pretentious game / narrative, i promise it's not. It's an incredibly honest and neutral view of both critic and creator within the community you find yourselves in right this moment; the video game community. There will always be opportunities to broaden our perspectives, and if we are genuinely empathetic when receiving these perspectives, you can only become a better person.

[G1itcher]

This is an interesting interpretation.

I came back to this recently after playing it when it first came out. My interpretation is similar to yours, however I feel like the primary message this has is art is about the process of creation and does not need to be, and should make no concessions to accessibility on the part of the viewer/critic.

I agree that the pov of the critic is distorted and arrogant. The way he thoughtlessly removes or edits parts of the "games" because he feels like that improves it. Could you imagine an owner of an art gallery doing that? He thought the art was made for him, or perhaps more generally, anyone other than the artist, which I don't think is true within the confines of the story.

The lamp I didn't understand originally, but now I think I can see that it's an allegory for the critic's need to make these games fit a cogent narrative or standard template for games. He wants there to be a defined goal of some kind, regardless of the actual value/merit of that goal. The lamps, which (spoilers) it turns out the critic inserted into the games himself, are an attempt on the part of the critic to once again make the games fit his expectations without thought or care to the developer and his vision for the art he was creating.

This game came out really at the height of the "are games art" argument, and the real difficulty wasn't around "can games be art?", I feel as though it was more around the idea that "are *any* games art?". The vast majority of games consumers saw were (and still are) commercial ventures, either for money, social capital, etc. Now we have Itch.io and other similar websites where more experimental, artistic pieces can be found, but still, most of them focus on games for the player.

I think this game is about games made for the developer and the developer alone, and how the arrogance/entitlement of the players/critics ruin/distort the "art" and its intention.