English subtitles for clip: File:TBG-VOF intro (old).ogg

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,170 Hi there, thank you very much for playing The Beginner's Guide. 2 00:00:03,730 --> 00:00:06,736 My name is Davey Wreden, I wrote The Stanley Parable, 3 00:00:06,736 --> 00:00:09,460 and while that game tells a pretty absurd story, 4 00:00:09,940 --> 00:00:16,980 today I'm going to tell you about a series of events that happened between 2008 and 2011. 5 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,500 We're going to look at the games made by a friend of mine named Coda. 6 00:00:22,350 --> 00:00:24,200 Now these games mean a lot to me. 7 00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:30,140 I met Coda in early 2009 at a time when I was really struggling with some personal stuff, 8 00:00:30,490 --> 00:00:33,346 and his work pointed me in a very powerful direction, 9 00:00:33,346 --> 00:00:38,330 I found it to be a good reference point for the kinds of creative works that I wanted to make. 10 00:00:38,720 --> 00:00:43,000 So just to start you off, this is I think the first game he ever made, 11 00:00:43,270 --> 00:00:46,640 it's a level for Counterstrike, you can walk around here by the way, 12 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:52,370 and mostly it's just Coda learning the basics of building a 3D environment. 13 00:00:53,110 --> 00:00:57,460 But what I like is that even though he starts from the simple aesthetic of a desert town, 14 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:03,600 he then scatters these colorful abstract blobs and impossible floating crates around the level, 15 00:01:04,150 --> 00:01:08,290 and of course it destroys the illusion that this actually IS a desert town, 16 00:01:08,580 --> 00:01:12,302 and instead this level becomes a kind of calling card from its creator, 17 00:01:12,302 --> 00:01:16,540 a reminder that this video game was constructed by a real person. 18 00:01:16,850 --> 00:01:20,680 And it kind of makes you wonder: What was going through his head as he was building this? 19 00:01:21,490 --> 00:01:23,563 This is what I like about all of Coda's games. 20 00:01:23,563 --> 00:01:26,649 Not that they're all fascinating as games, 21 00:01:26,649 --> 00:01:30,550 but that they are all going to give us access to their creator. 22 00:01:31,260 --> 00:01:33,323 I want us to see past the games themselves, 23 00:01:33,323 --> 00:01:36,660 I want to know who this human being really is, 24 00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:39,850 and that's exactly what we're going to do here. 25 00:01:41,090 --> 00:01:46,660 So it's 2008, Coda starts making these games, and he never releases any of them. 26 00:01:46,930 --> 00:01:48,296 He doesn't put them onto the internet, 27 00:01:48,296 --> 00:01:53,480 he just makes them and then immediately abandons them and they sit on his computer forever. 28 00:01:53,830 --> 00:01:57,560 And I think he really understood this image of himself as a recluse, 29 00:01:57,660 --> 00:02:03,510 at one point he jokingly renamed his computer's recycling bin to “Important Games folder.” 30 00:02:03,990 --> 00:02:05,939 So you know, this was just how he worked, 31 00:02:05,939 --> 00:02:07,982 he tended to crank them out one after the other 32 00:02:07,982 --> 00:02:12,100 without even really pausing to try to understand what he had just made, 33 00:02:12,470 --> 00:02:15,440 until suddenly one day he just stopped. 34 00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:17,992 In 2011 that was it, 35 00:02:17,992 --> 00:02:21,180 he made his last game and then he hasn't made another one since. 36 00:02:21,990 --> 00:02:25,750 And that's why I've taken this opportunity to gather all of his work together, 37 00:02:25,750 --> 00:02:29,810 is because I find his games powerful and interesting, 38 00:02:30,060 --> 00:02:34,180 and I'd like this collection to reach him to maybe encourage him to start creating again. 39 00:02:34,460 --> 00:02:38,280 And if the people like you who play this also happen to find his work interesting, 40 00:02:38,300 --> 00:02:42,150 then I'm sure it'll send that much stronger of a message of encouragement to Coda. 41 00:02:42,690 --> 00:02:44,394 So thanks for joining me on this, 42 00:02:44,394 --> 00:02:47,570 if you have a particular interpretation that I haven't mentioned here 43 00:02:47,920 --> 00:02:56,060 or if you just need to get in touch, you can email me at daveywreden@gmail.com 44 00:02:56,970 --> 00:03:01,300 Okay that's about it for introduction, let's take a look at Coda's first proper game. 45 00:03:01,730 --> 00:03:04,870 As each game is loading I'll show you the date that it was completed, 46 00:03:04,870 --> 00:03:08,000 this first one was made in November 2008.