Join us for a discussion of The Beginner's Guide. This game is so complicated and so deep and so oddly emotional - whether funny or brutally devastating is really up to you, apparently - that we bring in a psychiatrist to help us sift through the experience. I'm having a hard time deciding exactly what to type here about this game; it's almost a divine experience certainly without parallel in the gaming space, an opinion I hold to the level of that for Kentucky Route Zero. The Beginner's Guide is not as much all about videogames as The Stanley Parable, but instead it's a game all about the making of games, the sustaining of the creative forces required to make such inhumanly exhausting projects that are such pieces of the creators' soul(s). I don't want to spoil this experience for any of you (spoiling is what listening to our podcast is for, after all), but take it from me: this is a game you should play if you've ever even considered the humans behind your games.
We recommend listening to our The Stanley Parable podcast beforehand, the spiritual precursor to this game, also by Davey Wreden.

Relevant links!

• Check out our own musician Pauly, whose song Unravishing is featured in this episode!
• Galactic Cafe: Davey Wreden's blog post about The Stanley Parable
• The Artist is Absent: Davey Wreden and The Beginner's Guide - a truly amazing analysis video of The Beginner's Guide by Innuendo Studios on YouTube (33m)
• Errant Signal: The Beginner's Guide - another awesome breakdown analysis from the YouTube channel Errant Signal (20m) - watch this if you suspect Coda might be a real person

The theme this week is "The Func" by VCMG, a free download from chipmusic.org.
The Will's Quiz Minute(tm) theme is Linker, also by beloved Pauly!