Davey shoehorned lampposts and other forced symbolism into Coda's games simply so he could project his own interpretations on them, and even impose those interpretations on other people, people Coda never even wanted to see their games. But all throughout, for reasons we'll probably never know, Coda did include an arc symbol: the three dots. But Davey couldn't handle the idea of something he couldn't ascribe a strict meaning to, to the extent that it takes him until the very end of the game and his final breakdown to even admit that the dots exist. The idea of an artist having their own private ideas about their work is completely alien to Davey, which is probably why Coda got fed up with him.
The final level, The Tower, is full of this. In tarot, the Tower signifies turmoil, darkness, and destruction. As we find out in this level, all of these apply to Davey's relationship with Coda. Davey caused turmoil in Coda's life by editing their games to be darker and fit Davey's interpretation of Coda's thoughts on them, editing them to be darker, eventually resulting in the destruction of their friendship and any enjoyment Coda might have had in creating games. However, this goes further. In chapter 8, Notes, one of the titular notes reads "devil tower star". These are three successive tarot cards and have gigantic amounts of foreshadowing for the ending. The Devil signifies vice, temptation, sin, and addiction. Davey was addicted to the feeling he got from showing other people Coda's work, even though he knew that it was wrong and going against Coda's wishes. The Tower stands for Davey's relationship with Coda today, which is in complete shambles and might never recover. However, The Star is what Davey is hoping will happen by releasing this game, as it stands for hope, serenity, rebirth and inspiration. Davey wants his friendship with Coda to mend and for them to go back to making games. As a bonus, what's the six-digit code in The Tower level? 151617. The Devil is #15 in a tarot deck, The Tower is card #16, and The Star is #17.
Alternatively Coda may feel that separating ties from Davey will reignite the passion they had for game design, allowing them to branch out from Davey's interpretation of the previous games, which Coda disagrees with.
During "This Game is Connected To The Internet" (a game that was released around 2008-2009), one of the so called comments you can find reads: "Do you feel like a hero yet?". This quote came from Spec Ops: The Line, a game made in 2012, turning this into a mistake on the author's part. In-Universe, that is. The Tower game reveals that Davey has been deliberately tampering Coda's games to match what he believed to be Coda's state of mind. What better way to demonstrate that Coda was tortured than by using a dramatic sounding quote?
Alternatively, Davey used the quote to refer to himself, in that going against Coda's wishes and releasing their games made him feel good about himself.
Upon the first couple minutes of playtime, an observant player will notice that Davey's surprisingly critical and dismissive of Coda's early games. He calls them generic, illogical, he notes the glitches and points out the flaws in each of the first few games. And yet, he does it very casually, almost to the point where you'd swear he's not even aware that he's insulting his friend. In the end, that kind of behavior's exactly what caused Coda to break their friendship at the end.
During The Tower, the only way to actually finish the game and get what Coda was trying to say would be to hack the game. This is Coda calling out Davey for tampering with their games. Pretty much their way of saying: "You always tamper my games, you're still tampering them. I mean, how else were you able to read this?"
While playing, you occasionally reach lengthy or unbeatable gameplay segments. In order to speed things along so that Davey can discuss the 'genius' of Coda's work, he will often tell you to press the Enter key to override the game's natural programming. Early on, Davey mentions that he and Coda used to argue at length about this exact aspect of gameplay mechanics in terms of playable vs. unplayable, thus introducing a layer of hypocrisy to Davey's narration.
In a larger sense, Davey focuses on telling a larger story to an audience, while Coda designs games solely for themselves, often throwing away finished creations once they were done with them and leaving large segments of gameplay broken and inaccessible to the average player. This could represent the developer's own internal struggle between making games that resonate with a broader audience and making games that have a greater personal value regardless of quality, as well as a desire to recapture a lost balance between the two. It also seems to illustrate the conflict between creative vision and player interpretation.
The speech bubbles in "This Game is Connected To The Internet" are full of this, depending on whether or not you believe if any of the bubbles were added by Coda to begin with. "Can you guys hear me", "this place makes me sad", "recognize me please"... Examples of Coda's loneliness and them wanting to reach out? Or Davey projecting his own feelings on Coda after deciding to publish their games?
Despite his perceived insight into Coda's games, there are two times early on where Davey can't seem to understand Coda's design choices, and so he ends up glossing over them: the first is the maze on board the S.S. Whisper, and the second is the furniture maze in one of the prison games. In the end however we're given a glimpse into Davey's psyche, represented as a giant maze stretching on forever. So of course Davey would be quick to dismiss Coda's mazes - he's stuck in his own maze, and either can't recognize it or doesn't want to acknowledge it.
Davey Wreden (the character, not the developer) shows an impressive degree of game developing skill throughout this game, from modifying Coda's games so that they're actually completable to the more substantial additions he added in later like the lampposts and written comments. All of which goes to inserting his ideas into Coda's work to get some of their validation. No wonder Coda's so pissed at the guy: in addition to ruining their games, he's squandering his own potential as a game developer!
In "Island," it's possible that the player character is Coda, while the voice in purple is meant to represent Davey's Condescending Compassion, where Coda's character is forced to respond that the process of creating games is completely painless and to deny what they later say in their "The Reason You Suck" Speech, that the low points and pain "are a part of the process." Basically, it represents Davey at his best and worst, as a compassionate voice who ends up boxing Coda in with skewed diagnoses, to the point that Coda has to go back to one of the "prisons" they created just to get away. It's possible this is one of the few games that Davey did not alter very much.
