The Artist is Absent: Davey Wreden and The Beginner's Guide

They did in fact come out explicitly say that Tony dies at the end of the Sopranos

2:48 the code can be found in 1 one the previous games its where there are many comments you can read walking down to a large cave

I rewatch this video from time to time. it's really good. thank you for making it!

iambic 9 poetry 🥲

14:18, so about that

I have only gotten to part four now but I just needed to stop and comment that this is the most satisfyingly well put together and explained video I've come across in a hot minute. Top top tier stuff!

I'm already subscribed with the bell clicked? Maybe this is a good channel? I feel like I haven't seen it before but I was subscribed when I got here...
edit: the reason I have not seen this video is because of the Sopranos spoiler warning. It may even be the reason I subscribed, because in this day and age you need to spoiler tag everything!

The "brute force" combination is the numbers of the three tarot cards that some npcs have as their chat text 👀

I have to say. This is the most amazing and beauitifully made video I've EVER SEEN on youtube. I come back once in a while every year to rewatch it cause it's just SO GOOD. I love this "game" and the way you explained its meaning.
Absolute CINEMA✋️😐🤚

The Beginner's Guide is a beginner's guide to understanding fiction

For the record, I would love Quentin Terrentino to get me a milkshake

Holy fuck took me till the end to notice this was the alt right playbook dude

[Estimated for personal use; above 96% of primary content is understandable from audio alone.]
[8 - 3 - 25]
Edit: Clarity.

I’ve been looking for this video for years…

California oak?

This is one of the best videos I've seen on YouTube! It's smart, interesting, and uses art theory in such a clever way.
I love that it doesn't try to push an opinion but instead shows how everything is subjective.
Well made, well written, and beautifully put together. Thanks for creating something worth watching!

Thanks for posting! Looking for guidance: My Tron Wallet holds some USDT, and I possess the seedphrase: clean party soccer advance audit clean evil finish -tonight involve whip -action-. Could you suggest how to handle sending them to Coinbase Exchange?

Oh no... evocative Leftist video-essay and Squarepusher sound-track? I'm toast...

8:00

best my video The Artist is Absent: Davey Wreden and The Beginner's Guide

The story of Davey and Coda is a good example of a para social relationship.

15:38

And AI bros wonder what people mean by "AI art isn't art".

I had someone trying to make my drawing better ... i dont draw anymore because i was very happy with my style back than

14:17 lol

How I personally view the game is simple.
Coda and Davey are one in the same; a Coda in music notation is a section that ends a piece of music.
Coda in this sense is the personification of Davey's strive to finish games which is pushed into burnout by "davey" the narrator;the side that wanted to push "coda" into finishing more games for more people for feedback.
That is just what the story is about an internal struggle of burnout in game dev which Davey Wreden (the irl dev) faced after the stanley parable.

Ah yes, the Beginners Guide.
Gamings: The King in Yellow.
The Original author not the one by Lovecraft.

This video is an extraordinary find

Thank you to the author

I played all of the beginner's guide to watch this video and now you're telling me I have to finish the Soprano's too??

Davey and Coda just really needed to have an honest chat 😅

Seriously though, I think Davey’s exploration and hacking of Coda’s games was a breach of trust (of course, I am talking of the characters here. There is no real Coda). It’s understandable to want to… understand, but you have to keep in mind that the things you are finding were never meant to be found. The games aren’t “broken” or “unfinished”, that was just how Davey saw them. Because they didn’t tell him the full story. Coda never wanted Davey to have the full story.

In my opinion, it’s ok to make your interpretation. But it’s essential to remember that you don’t and may never know the author’s intent.

Somthing I found interesting about the game is when Davey says something along the lines of how getting to know a creator through their work allows him to skip all the "messy socializing", which (to me, anyways) seems to imply that Davey didn't bother to learn about Coda by just talking to him. Instead, basing his assumptions off of his work instead.

One thing that I always wondered was if Coda actually quit game design, or just stopped showing them to other people, such as Davey.

I think it would definitely make sense that he did quit, considering the impact he mentioned Davey having, & also the impact that him quitting would have towards Davey’s wrongdoings, making it more significant. Not sure why though, but ever since I played this game myself, I had this lingering thought that perhaps Coda is still making games, but just back to doing it exclusively by himself, for himself.

I think a significant point that’s not talked about enough is how, even after Coda calls Davey out, Davey still subconsciously assumes he has a larger impact on Coda’s life than he probably does in reality. His first reaction to Coda’s letter is “I ruined game design for you.” Notice how he’s still assuming he’s single-handedly affecting Coda this much. Before, his attempts at helping his friend were to make him feel better about himself, to feel that he can change someone’s life the way he can’t with himself, so he assumes that he’s helping, to feel like he’s worth something. Now, being told that he was the opposite of helpful, the self loathing that he had projected onto Coda earlier is completely taking control of how he takes the news, & he immediately assumes he plays the biggest part, because he desperately needs a reason for the guilt & hatred & blame that he feels towards himself. In reality though, I feel it’s entirely possible that Coda was at peace with himself, & possibly even Davey. He would never get involved again, but he also realistically doesn’t hold it against Davey to nearly the same extent that Davey holds against himself.

In an ironic twist, you could say that we never truly escaped from the faulty narrator Davey, because whether or not Davey actually had such an impact on Coda, enough to cause him to stop game designing, it’s what we’re lead to believe from what Davey says. However, if you actually just look at the letter from Coda, it’s rather calm. He even ends it by wishing for Davey to find his peace. But all Davey wants us to see is his self loathing, so he emphasizes what he did wrong.

To me at least, the whole game just feels like such a fight between two sides of the same coin.
One, who’s at peace with themselves.
The second, desperately trying to find brokenness in the first, so they can help them be whole & live vicariously through them, to fill the void in their own soul.

Jim

The end of part 3 describes very welll why I have an issue with the audio version of a book: it's the voice and the tone in which it's telling the story - sounding mist if the time totalky different from the voice I hear inside my head while reading the book.

i come back to this video like every year. this time i noticed how what you say at 15:58 is a really good way to explain why i don't care about ai art

Back again after reccomending to a writer friend after we spent an hour discussing how being a creative person has changed in the last couple decades. It was a fun discussion and they seemed enthusastic about the reccomend.

See ya next year for my annual rewatch :3

Thank you for this analysis

After finishing Umineko When They Cry, a lot of these ideas really hit home.

I would say that I agree that video games are art but can we really call something a video game if it has no objective and the only point is to listen to a narrator?

I barely understood this video the first time I watched it - probably cause I had no idea what the game was about. Okay, I'm back now after watching a playthrough, maybe this will be more informative now.

Edit: Okay, so I'm finished with the video. It was alright. Not super entertaining work but then I wasn't a fan of the game. All I can say is I relate to Davey a lot and I'm glad people were able to get more out of this game than me.