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''The Path'' is a
psychological horror Psychological horror is a genre, subgenre of horror fiction, horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and Mental state, psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequent ...
art game An art game (or arthouse game) is a work of interactive new media digital software art as well as a member of the "art game" subgenre of the serious video game. The term "art game" was first used academically in 2002 and it has come to be un ...
developed by Tale of Tales originally released for the
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operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
on March 18, 2009 in
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and
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
, and later ported to
Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
by
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. It is inspired by several versions of the
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
''
Little Red Riding Hood "Little Red Riding Hood" is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Brot ...
'', and by
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tropes and conventions in general, but set in contemporary times. The player can choose to control one of six different sisters, who are sent one-by-one on errands by their mother to see their sick grandmother. The player can choose whether to stay on the path or to wander, where wolves are lying in wait.


Gameplay

According to the developer, the game is not meant to be played in the traditional sense, in that there is no winning strategy. In fact, much of the gameplay requires the player to choose the losing path for the sisters to run into encounters which they (and the player) are meant to experience. Even the story narratives are not typical for a game, as explained by the developer, "We are not story-tellers in the traditional sense of the word. In the sense that we know a story and we want to share it with you. Our work is more about exploring the narrative potential of a situation. We create only the situation. And the actual story emerges from playing, partially in the game, partially in the player’s mind."


Plot

The game begins in an apartment. The player is shown six sisters to choose from and is given no information about them other than a name. When the player selects a girl, the journey begins. The player is given control of the girl, and is instructed: "Go to Grandmother's house and stay on the path." As the player explores, they find various items scattered around. For a girl to pick up or examine an object, the player needs to either click on the interaction button or move her close enough for a superimposed image of the object to appear on the screen, then let go of the controls. The character will interact and an image will appear on the screen, indicating what has been unlocked; every item a girl encounters in the forest shows in some shape or form in Grandmother's house, and some objects open up whole new rooms. Small text will also appear, a thought from the current character. Some items can only be picked up once and do not appear in subsequent runs. However, each character will say something different about an object, so the player has the option to access a "basket" to see what they have collected. The Wolf is the antagonist in the game and takes on a different form for each girl. The forms represent tribulations that are associated with the stages of childhood and adolescence. It is not required to find the Wolf. In this game, there are no requirements but the ending at Grandmother's house does change dramatically after the wolf encounter. The girl encounters the Wolf, there is a brief
cut scene A cutscene or event scene (sometimes in-game cinematic or in-game movie) is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward the ...
, and the screen goes black. Afterward, the girl is lying on the path in front of Grandmother's house. When the player enters Grandmother's house, the style of gameplay changes. It is now in first person, and the character moves forward along a pre-determined path. If the player got there without interacting with the Wolf, they arrive safely, cozy up next to Grandmother and are sent back to the apartment. The girl the player guided will still be there, and can be played again. If the player did go to the Wolf, then everything in the house is darker, and if the player remains still for too long, darkness clouds the screen, and something growls. Depending on the girl, doors are scratched, or furniture tipped over and broken, or strange black threads are draped across everything. Instead of ending with Grandmother, the music crescendos as the player enters a final surreal room before falling down, and things black out again. Images flash on the screen, featuring the girl being attacked by her Wolf, before the player is relocated back in the apartment. The girl played is not there, and will remain absent. When all of the girls have encountered their wolves, a girl in a white dress, who could be previously encountered by the sisters, becomes playable and visits Grandmother's house. The girl will then travel through the house, now a combination of all of the end rooms of the previous girls ending with the no-wolf room. Upon reaching the grandmother, the girl appears in the apartment covered in blood, but alive. The sisters all return through the door and the game starts over.


Characters

*Robin is the youngest sister and the more traditional Red Riding Hood. She’s 9 years old. *Rose is 11 years old. *Ginger is 13 years old. *Ruby is 15 years old. *Carmen is 17 years old. *Scarlet is 19 years old. *The Girl in White is a mysterious girl who can be seen by the player if they wander off into the woods.


Development

''The Path'' was announced on the Tale of Tales Game Design forum on March 16, 2006 under the working title ''144'', on the pattern of their first-started, on-hiatus Tale of Tales ''8'' (chosen for the universal, language-independent nature of
Arabic numerals Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write Decimal, decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers ...
). This number originally referred to the six 24-hour periods of the six days in which the game was set, but in the released version refers to the 144 coin flowers.


Release

''The Path'' was released on March 19, 2009. It became available for Mac on May 7, 2009.


Reception

Iain McCafferty of ''VideoGamer.com'' called ''The Path'' "a hugely significant work in terms of what a video game can be beyond the realms of throwaway entertainment" and "potentially a seminal moment in video games." He claimed that "It will be years before a game made by the big budget software houses like Ubisoft or EA is brave enough to attempt anything remotely similar, but ''The Path'' shows promising signs that gaming is starting to grow up." Heather Chaplin of ''Filmmaker Magazine'' pointed out how uniquely feminine ''The Path'' is: "For me, ''The Path'' is about what a remarkably fine line it is that separates childhood from adulthood, innocence from cynicism, and how utterly not black-and-white most things in life are." Tim Martin of ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...
'' cited ''The Path'' as a recent example of a "vigorous experimentation with techniques of narrative." He likened it to "an
Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...
novel, as siphoned through ''
The Sims ''The Sims'' is a series of life simulation game, life simulation video games developed by Maxis and video game publisher, published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and it is one of the best-selling ...
''."
Justin McElroy Justin Tyler McElroy ( , born November 8, 1980) is an American podcaster, comedian, and former video game journalist. He is known for his work on podcasts (such as ''My Brother, My Brother and Me'', '' The Adventure Zone'', and ''Sawbones'') an ...
of Engadget commented on gameplay mechanics: "You get one instruction in the game and you have to disregard it. That's the kind of experience we're talking about here. Once you leave the path you'll find innumerable creepy yet beautifully rendered experiences to take part in, but you're never really given any guidance as what the point or object of all of it is. Basically, it's gameplay in the abstract." Mike Gust of Tap Repeatedly called The Path "a sort of anti-game", "a game turned inside out in service to something deeply personal, human and disturbing". John Walker of RockPaperShotGun remarked "I kind of don’t like the game" but noted that this "is not a criticism. If anything, it’s the highest compliment I could pay it. While there’s spooky woods, abandoned playgrounds, creepy dolls, and many other familiar themes of horror, these offer no scares. For me, the horror comes from what appears to be the most abhorrently pessimistic presentation of adolescence." Steven Poole of ''Edge'' opined that the game is "a supremely boring collection of FMVs with pretensions to interactivity that very quickly wears out its joke about control and becomes a tedious slab of nihilistic whimsy," yet noting that the game features a "lugubrious, Lynchian surrealism" and that "in its ornery and precious way, ''The Path'' is a triumph of atmosphere, coming much closer than the cruder shocks of games such as ''
Silent Hill is a horror anthology media franchise centered on a series of survival horror games created by Keiichiro Toyama and published by Konami. The first four video games in the series, '' Silent Hill'', ''Silent Hill 2'', ''Silent Hill 3'' and '' ...
'' or ''
BioShock ''BioShock'' is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games. The first game in the ''BioShock'' series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 pla ...
'' to a dramatization of what
Ernst Jentsch Ernst Anton Jentsch (1867-1919) was a German psychiatrist. He authored works on psychology and pathology and is best known for his essay ''On the Psychology of the Uncanny'' (1906). However, he also authored texts on mood and the psychology of ...
and
Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...
analyzed as the "uncanny" in literature."


Awards

An in-progress, alpha-stage version of ''The Path'' was nominated for Excellence in Visual Arts after being exhibited at the
Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...
in 2008. The game also has been honored with two awards at Bilbao, Spain's hóPLAY International Video Game Festival. The game won Best Sound and Best Design.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Path, The 2009 video games Art games Dark fantasy video games Gothic video games Indie video games Works based on Little Red Riding Hood MacOS games Psychological horror games Video games based on fairy tales Video games developed in Belgium Video games featuring female protagonists Video games set in forests Windows games Zoo Corporation games 1C Company games Single-player video games