The Path (video game)
| The Path | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Developer(s) | Tale of Tales |
| Publisher(s) | Tale of Tales TransGaming (Mac OS X) TopWare 1C Company Zoo Corporation |
| Distributor(s) |
Direct2Drive GamersGate Metaboli Steam GameTree (Mac OS X) |
| Artist(s) | Auriea Harvey Michaël Samyn Laura Raines Smith |
| Composer(s) |
Jarboe Kris Force (Amber Asylum) |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows Mac OS X |
| Release | March 18, 2009 May 7, 2009 (Mac OS X) Autumn 2009 (Polish) December 11, 2009 (Russian) July 7, 2010 (Japanese) |
| Genre(s) | Psychological horror, art |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Aggregate score | |
|---|---|
| Aggregator | Score |
| Metacritic | 79/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| GameSpot | 80/10 |
| IGN | 7.7/10 |
| VideoGamer.com | 10/10 |
The Path is a psychological horror art game developed by Tale of Tales originally released for the Microsoft Windows operating system on March 18, 2009 in English and Dutch, and later ported to Mac OS X by TransGaming Technologies.
It is inspired by several versions of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, and by folklore 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.
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."
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.
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Wikipedia