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The Beginner's Guide (Spoilers) (Patreon)

Published:
2016-01-18 04:47:48
Imported:
2026-06

Content

This time I take a look at The Beginner's Guide in an awkwardly self-aware video!

Files

Errant Signal - The Beginner's Guide (Spoilers)

This episode was made possible by generous support through Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/errantsignal ----

Comments

Anonymous Unknown

Now all we need is for a youtube psychologist to pick out your video for his/her latest video in the 'psychology of youtube personalities and their commenters' series, and the cycle will be complete.

Joseph Coco

The Beginner's Guide is still on my play list, but I'll check this out when I make a couple hours to play it :)

Andrey Kurenkov

Great analysis! Clearly states the several major thematic threads of the game that a lot of discussions about it seemed to be missing. Cute ending.

wendigotypes

Great video. I love it when you go meta-meta :)

Claire Naylor

OK this is definitely going to be one of the Errant Signals I keep coming back to, awesome work :)

J Allen

I think that there is a definite difference between accepting that any reading you make is one among many, that in the nature of creation (including creating analysis of other things) you're putting yourself into your work, and the idea that your theory is the only correct one, that you're creating the one best reading. One direction is basic death of the author level analysis, but the other way lies narcissism. Dunno the game's read on it although I do agree that it becomes nihilistic, especially because it can be infinitely recursive: by arguing that all critics are putting themselves and their own opinions into what is supposed to be an 'objective' analysis of an artform, Davy could be said to himself be putting his own hangups into these secondary-artforms

Ville Nurmi

Chris, it's definitely one of your best videos. I love the self-references. And what comes to the question of reviewers mangling the work under inspection by projecting themselves onto it or by making too daring assumptions about the person behind the work, the fact remains that by doing all this you are provoking thoughts in your audience and that has value in itself. The review is a derivative work of art on its own right, especially when there's original thought behind it, as your videos so often have. Myself I'm a consumer of reviews of obscure games more than I'm a consumer of obscure games themselves. It's the review form that appeals to me more than "having to" experience the mechanics of artsy games that often seem a bit contrived to me. Or maybe I just need that extra bit of pretension that the original work didn't have ;-). Looking forward to the next dose!

Samuel Anderson

Another great video! I liked your take on the troubles that Beginners Guide gives to critics. The joke inserts of your own videos were fun, but there are so many reasons why they're so different from game-Davey's extrapolations. I mean, your Doom videos are ultimately more about understanding the /media/ that ID was into (D&D, panterra) than their personal lives (autobiographical details about John Romero). It's an analysis of Doom's pastiche (which my fiancee points out is well-accepted literary analysis). It's like you say about Room 247: the theories start as on-the-rails textual analysis before the train jumps the tracks. That you start off in Blendo Games sounding like Davey in Coda's CS map is expected: game-Davey is still mostly making sense at that point, even if the specifics of his word choice hint at a deeper misunderstanding. Maybe you don't need convincing about this, but I think it's an important distinction as we talk about what makes good criticism. You're right to steer away from talking about Real-Davey's emotions without text (blogs/interviews), but it's still a game that demands to be talked about artistically instead commercially (Gameplay: 9.2, Graphics: 8.0). There's value in critiquing it, but how do we do it well? I'd say the game is a Beginners Guide on game criticism, not game creation. It's a game that begs to be analyzed, but to talk about it meaningfully is to face the strong, condemning message that extrapolating to talk about the author is damaging and inappropriate, even when the author feels so present. At a time so close to GG's intensely personal attacks on people based on their online presence and body of work, I think that's a lesson that games discourse (or internet discourse) is still learning. And contrary to the hand-picked examples of your previous work, I think you're well ahead of the curve.