This place makes me sad.

Ha! And here I go with another lecture. Of course I would. Don't you worry about all that nonsense, for now just smooth out the rug in the bedroom.

More room?

Eh, there's a bit more to this one, but still it's not really communicating anything, it's kinda just weird for weirdness sake.

Reasonable.

You can't talk yourself out of loneliness, it doesn't work that way. You can't be the one writing the questions and the answers, there's no movement! If all of your anxieties are being channeled into your work, then if it ever fails you have no backup and you're going to crash.

Everyone read this!!

Seeing this game at the time that he made it, it looked very unhealthy to me. I was watching him do this to himself, and I hated it. I hated seeing him so trapped. Video games are not worth this amount of suffering.

But this is the worse, most desperate thing I've ever been through! How could you possibly forget it?

Shit. How do you solve it.

Play as a pair of floating eyes emitting footstep noises.

STOP. TURN BACK. PROCEEDING FURTHER WILL ONLY RESULT IN MISERY.

Yes, I did get a call, that's how I escaped.

Because it's the thing that I always feel like I need, to be told that my work is good, that I am good.

The game ends with this eerie premonition of what's going to happen next in Coda's life. The solution to social anxiety, to fears of having to perform and having to chase success, the answer for Coda is to withdraw. To hide himself away.

Well this is new for Coda, it's an actual puzzle! Go ahead and see if you can solve it.

So why don't we be with the task at hand and leave the future chores to future you. Present you wants to smooth out the rug in the bedroom, believe it or not. Trust me on this one.

This is really hard to admit, but I was afraid to make this call. … Time moves differently for you than it does for me. … Maybe the prison is just affecting you in a strange way.

To get out, all you have to do is be sincere.

Yes, I did get a call, that's how I escaped.

So it's 2008, Coda starts making these games, and he never releases any of them.

I wish there were notes in the real world

Are all houses this easy to clean?

It does not matter if you ever get over there

It's a lamppost. Okay, I can't tell you quite why but for some reason Coda fixates on this lamppost, it's going to appear at the end of every single one of his games from here on out.

Please start making games again, please help me, please give me some of whatever it is that makes you complete, I want whatever that wholeness that you just summoned out of nothing and put into your work, you were complete in some way that I never was.

I can assure you guaranteed that there is an acorn somewhere, in this place, and the sailors are looking for it.

BORRRRRRRING

More. More more more. More love, more praise, more people telling me that I'm good, always more more more... It's like a disease. Solution, solution, solution.

Makes game. Includes door. Cannot open door. Thanks.

What is that painting?

NNEED OTHER SIDE! DOOR WHY U SO

Darling, let me tell you something. In your lifetime, you are going to clean a lot of houses. And among all those, a few of them will stick out as truly wonderful, beautiful experiences. And none of them will be the ones that were easy.

But what I like is that even though he starts from the simple aesthetic of a desert town, he then scatters these colorful abstract blobs and impossible floating crates around the level, and of course it destroys the illusion that this actually IS a desert town.

How do you leave notes?

Hey guys hows it going just hangin

My soul just can't be soothed any other way, it seems. Which I guess is about all that matters! Oh, that and a tidy couch. Would you straighten the pillows on the sofa out here?

You know the point of it all was just to give him some external reference point, but they genuinely loved his work! There was nothing for him to be afraid of!

Are we cleaning this whole place?

They asked me how I felt about being imprisoned.

Don't listen to that guy!

WE WOLL ALL DIE SOME DAY

To me this environment is meant to represent Coda's puzzle, with two doors on either side and a dark transitional space between.

You won't always have something that you care about as much as this.

Because I feel like a lot of his games are inviting me to connect, to connect with this person, to bring him closer.

Shit. How do you solve it.

It's a conversation. And so this is what Coda wants, is to be able to talk to someone, to share what's on his mind. But the irony is that even in this scenario you're still talking to yourself, you know ALL of these games so far are Coda talking to himself.

Makes game. Includes door. Cannot open door. Thanks.

Right now, who do you think about that way in your own life? Who do you know who is so well developed as a person that they make you feel disgusted with yourself? Compared to whom, you feel useless. Selfish. Ungrateful.

Hello? That's it?? That's not a conversation! You need to actually converse with her, be a human being. Do it again.