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The Beginner's Guide > Guides > Chicken Fillett's Guides

189 ratings

Who is Coda

By Chicken Fillett

I just think this game needs a discussion about coda, and while this isn't strictly a guide, I think something needs to be said about the story of this game!!!

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Created by

Chicken Fillett
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Category: Story or Lore

Languages: English

Posted

8 Oct, 2015 @ 4:28pm

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Guide Index

Overview

What did you just "play" and what does it mean???????????

Comments

What did you just "play" and what does it mean???????????

*****************************************SPOILER FILLED PLAY GAME FIRST************************************

First things first, some things should be straightened out, I do not yet know if the story of this game is fact or fiction. Either way the story is deep and somewhat confusing if you try to really pinpoint what it's about. In any case my main intrigue to the game is that Coda is a game dev who never released any games. If he enjoyed making games so much at first then why have none been released, wheather he wanted to or not he would have needed some source of income. So it can be deduced that Coda is either a screen name that the narrator knew him by, who just sent the narrator his experiments, or much more satisfyingly for me, Coda and Davey are one in the same.

To start things off, 'Coda' stopped making games in June 2011, 1 month before the release of the stanley parable. Secondly, Coda generaly refers to an end or conclusion in musical terms. Something that wraps everything up nicely. The narrator just might have given himself that name loking back on this section of his life to say that he is a different person now.

To be honest even though I don't think the narrative would be this obvious, Near the end of the game Coda leaves a sign saying "Stop putting lamppoasts in my games", which the narrator said Coda was doing from the start. And the signs about needing personal space and feeling physically sick could suggest that The narrator was subconsiously trying to have the Davey part of himself coexist with the Coda part of himself, hence the lamppoasts in his later games but not the earlier.

I'll probably add more to this either in this or a seperate guide, so stay tuned (Like my reasoning for how the epilogue speaker is Coda).

- Joe

93 Comments

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DaMeanJellyBean 17 Jan @ 11:52pm

I think that the reason he says to stop putting lamp posts in my games is that coda at first was creating to create and then the narrator then insecticides that there should be more to the game therefore he forces meaning into codas games that where meant to be made as they are with no deeper meaning.

ceoln 19 Oct, 2024 @ 4:30pm

Someone probably said this in all these comments :P but I don't think it matters who Coda is; he's a guy who made some weird little levels to work through some stuff. The game / story is about Davey, who was a friend of Coda's (probably?) or somehow got hold of his levels, and having Main Character Syndrome and a huge need for external validation, he used those games and showing them to other people, to make himself feel important. And this annoyed Coda, who buggered off to avoid him.

Raven 2 Apr, 2024 @ 6:21pm

I've made a game. When I released it people told me it was dogshit immediately so I stopped making them and deleted the game. Maybe he had a similar experience.

Denkouri 25 Dec, 2023 @ 6:12pm

Just played this game, went back and re-watched the trailer on the steam store page. Thought it was interesting that in the first few seconds we see:
Login to machine, "Let's say you sit down at a stranger's computer...", runs File Explorer, "You start opening up files and looking through stuff...", opens the Documents folder, and explorer says that's it's under "C:\Users\Davey".

JerryFilms 19 Apr, 2023 @ 1:33am

So I watched through Davey Wreden's lecture for Games Now! and he mentions at about the 37-minute mark that he had a good friend and roommate named "Robin" who he mistreated and critiqued based on his own insecurities after making the Stanley Parable and that Robin said something along the lines of "When I'm with you you make me physically ill." which mirrors almost exactly one of the final messages from Coda to Davey in TBG. I think the story is loosely based on his interactions with this friend with some creative liberties and an original lesson added by Davey himself.

Numberwang 1 Feb, 2023 @ 11:15pm

@Marlile No, Davey never says that he was the one putting lamp posts in, even after it is revealed. He says it was Coda, because Coda must have hit a point in his work where he wanted to have an endpoint and goal. Davey was lying(to himself and the player) and inserting himself into the work based on his own personal interpretations. This isn't the only time. In the house cleaning level, he says it "just ends" and gives his interpretation of what that means. Later, he "slips up" and says "I had to end that level for you or it would go on forever." He was editing Coda's levels based on what he personally thought Coda was intending to say.

SociallyAwkwardGirl 12 Jun, 2022 @ 11:38am

sounds like the actual dev has borderline personality disorder and was using this story as a way to explore some of its nuances without directly stating that's what it is. There seems to be this theme of emotional dysregulation and a lack of respecting boundaries that tends to go with it in high frequency. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is how it seems to me.

abab9579 14 May, 2022 @ 5:49am

Eh, schizo?

Soter 26 Jan, 2022 @ 1:11am

I think people should go watch Red Herring's video on the game cause they made it really well and talked about coda. They might not be right whit their theory but i still loved it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_3dBtEJtjQ&t=13s

Marlile 22 Jan, 2022 @ 1:53am

I don't want to read through 9 pages of comments to see if anyone else has already pointed this out, but you're incorrect in saying Coda was putting the lamp-posts in since the start. 99% certain I remember Davey mentioning *he* started putting the lamp-posts in because "the games needed a goal" or something along those lines, directly contradicting Coda's wishes. It was a difference in philosophy that led to the confrontation in the form of the sign Coda left. That's why the moment always hits so hard for me, at least.

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