The Beginner's Guide
Fair · Narrative · 2015
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
WAIT.
Fair today. The Winter Sale opens Dec 17, and it was discounted in 8 of its last 8 seasonal sales; 50% in the Winter Sale 2025.
Today
$9.99Fair
Typical seasonal cut
$4.9950% offWorth it
- Cost per hour▼
- $6.66/hr
- Reviews▼
- 88% of 23,667
- Genre rank
- Top 14% Narrative
Holding it back: Cost per hour, Reviews
Why
Watch this gameOne alert at $4.99 or less.
Time and effort
- Main story
- 1.5h
- To 100%
- 1.7h 1.1x the story
Price and sales
- Sales
- 53 on record
- Typical cut
- 50% off
- Steam low
- $2.49 June 2018
- Sale every
- 61d last October 2026
Players and genre
- Online
- 0 now
- Recent reviews
- 88% 30 days
- Cheaper than
- 30% of its genre
- Better reviewed
- 88% of its genre
Price and player charts
The value story
The value story
53 discounts in the 11 years on record, a median of 50 percent off across all of them, roughly 9 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended about 4 weeks ago.
Against its own genre its score lands in the top 14 percent. It is pricier than 70 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 88 percent. Among the games that feel like it, The Stanley Parable ($14.99, scores 62) beats it on value, while it beats Event[0] ($19.99, scores 41).
More about The Beginner's Guide
16 of the 800 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written July 2022 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 87 percent of the 13,902 reviews written there were positive, against 88 percent overall, and those are 70 percent of everything written about it.
Buy now or wait
Buy now or wait
Last discount ended 31 days ago.
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
Grades: S best, D weakest
S is the best grade and D the weakest, judged as a buyer. ▲ raises the score, ▼ lowers it, ? is an input we do not have, • is a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
What players say
Less a game and more an experiance. Can't really give detail without spoling it. Not that long, couple of hours max. Specil props to the art directon. Showing that, even simple graphics can really add emotion and story to a narrative when done by someone who knows their stuff.
2 more reviews
Started off as a loveletter to gamedev and art, ended up being a personal drama. amazin
i will never be the same. i am so glad i played this, and so sad i will never play it for the first time again.
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
About the game
The Beginner's Guide is a narrative video game from Davey Wreden, the creator of The Stanley Parable. It lasts about an hour and a half and has no traditional mechanics, no goals or objectives. Instead, it tells the story of a person struggling to deal with something they do not understand.
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, 4 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic), achievement curve (Steam global achievements).
Cite this score
The Beginner's Guide scores 59/100 on the BANG Score (fair value) as of Nov 8, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/303210/the-beginner-s-guideReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Oct 31, price as of Nov 7. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.