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. It's an experience with few parallels in gaming, the depth and intensity of our responses reminding me of 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.
The episode prior to this one in our feed is about The Stanley Parable, Davey Wreden's previous game, whose rave acclaim may have inspired some of this game.

• 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! And we also hear his Unravishing!