The Beginner's Guide Reviews
I 100% enjoyed all of my time with The Beginner's Guide, despite a few instances of clumsy writing, up to the point where the last chapter slipped over into the epilogue. I feel like the tail end of the game is almost kitschy in how it plays out, and I believe that the game would have been so much stronger and braver for ending with the last voiceover of the final chapter. By continuing to go on and on with the narration, I felt like I was being robbed of significance by someone attempting to visually and emotionally sew up something that could not be repaired. This is all to say that you should play the game.
The Beginner's Guide offers a personal and sometimes eerie perspective on amateur game development.
Filling your head with questions that have no easy answers, The Beginner's Guide is confusing, thought-provoking, and unlike anything you've ever played.
On the surface, The Beginner's Guide is a game about game design and critical analysis. Digging deeper, it provides a window into the mind of a man I might not have fully understood otherwise. It does all of this in a way only a video game could. More than anything else, it has caused me a lot of introspection, a feat few games ever achieve.
The Beginner's Guide is a fascinating journey into the thoughts and processes involved in the creation of a video game, and the people that make them.
As much as I didn't feel any profound level of resonance with the content of The Beginner's Guide, I will certainly defend its right to exist. I think that it makes a showing in a side of the industry that doesn't get a lot of attention, and that's a good thing. However, my personal opinion is that there are other games that do a far better job of making that showing, and this includes The Beginner's Guide's immediate predecessor.
The second game from the creator of The Stanley Parable is an intensely personal character study and one of the most daring games in years.