The Beginner's Guide (2015)

published 2026-01-29 | tags: #backlog #games

I think this was a Jacob Geller recommendation. That guy has such great taste.

The Beginner's Guide is a ~90 minute game exploring creativity, obsession, and burnout among other things.

It also subtly shifted what I now think a game can be.

It's easy when you grow up playing polished, AA or AAA games, and even polished indie games, to think that every game needs to check a bunch of boxes. It needs at least consistent art, writing, a menu with settings, a huge laundry list of features just to be "a game". While The Beginner's Guide has all of those things, the mini-games within the game do not, and yet they are totally playable.

I feel freed to create... really rough games. Games that just drop you in, execute on one very narrow idea, and end. I'm excited to run with that and get the creative juices flowing.

As an aspiring game designer that is a very exciting idea. Just make a game that delivers on the idea, you don't need to make a product.