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‘The Beginner’s Guide’: Confessions of a game designer

To enjoy this game you have to let it surprise you, but to meaningfully write about it I will have to spoil the surprise. So, if you have not played it yet, stop reading this. What was clever, cold, and schematic in The Stanley Parable is stirring and emotional (deceivingly so) in Davey Wreden’s newest title. Both games share similar features. They’re first-person adventures in which a narrator/designer guides us through corridor-based scenarios that interrogate videogame conventions. Except this time the narrator is Wreden himself, who adds commentary to what he presents as the collected, unreleased, and often unfinished works of his former friend, Coda.

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