The path

[Falconeer]

There is one rule in the game. And it needs to be broken.
There is one goal. And when you attain it, you die.

Six sisters live in an apartment in the city. One by one their mother sends them on an errand to their grandmother, who is sick and bedridden. The teenagers are instructed to go to grandmother's house deep in the forest and, by all means, to stay on the path! Wolves are hiding in the woods, just waiting for little girls to stray.

But young women are not exactly known for their obedience, are they? Will they be able to resist the temptations of the forest? Will they stay clear of danger? Can they prevent the ancient tale from being retold?

The Path is a game about growing, about changing, about making choices, about accepting the consequences of these choices. A game about playing, and failing, about embracing life, perhaps by accepting death.

I am easily impressed by certain things.
This little demo available on Steam is one of them.

No, actually the "demo" is available on Steam (under Indie games), but the full version is there too for 9.99$.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adj0flt1-7U

Website: http://thepath-game.com/

and Grandmother's House (Meet the girls)


PLEASE try the demo and let me know what you think. It'll take 5 minutes top.


P.S: Den me if there's already a thread elsewhere. Surprisingly, couldn't find it.

[Samwise]

At GDC I played The Graveyard, which I think is by the same people, and was SEVERELY underwhelmed.  But I'll give this a go.

[schild]

Games where you just walk around and eventually die or in this case raped, aren't really... I don't know.

Games that exist purely for the artistic statement bother me. I see what they're trying to do, and I respect it, but I shouldn't have to pay for it.

[Falconeer]

Apparently everyone agrees with you as the same people are trying to develop a new title, 8,  and had to stop because of the (lacking) money.

When will the game be released?
At the moment development of “8” is frozen due to lack of funding. We hope to continue working on it some day.
We are also considering several “spin-off products” that are cheaper to produce. Keep an eye on this website for news about this. But don't expect any soon.

And not that I disagree. Let's just say I consider "games" like this as movies: if I can pay 9 bucks to watch a movie, then I can pay 9 bucks to have a story told at my own pace.

[Samwise]

Just talking about the one title of theirs that I'm familiar with, if the Graveyard were a movie, it would be a 5 minute short that felt like it should have been 1 minute long.  You would not pay 9 bucks to see that movie.

The Path sounds like it's probably got a little more plot to it, but I remain skeptical.

[Falconeer]

Just gave a shot at Graveyard, but that's nothing. A cool "moving painting" of some sort. They admit themselves "It's more like an explorable painting than an actual game. An experiment with realtime poetry, with storytelling without words." The Path has some sort of story.

Anyway we are cool. I like this ideas, but didn't like Endless Forest other than as a concept. The Path seems to me a different thing. Between Ico and Fahrenheit, with less budget and no gameplay but with decent amounts of inspiration.

[Malakili]

Unimpressed.  I'll be up front though, the horror genre, in general is entirely uninteresting to me.  This just seemed like a long string of cliches.  Annoying high pitched music to try and make you nervous, coupled with odd graphical displays that are supposed to be slightly unnerving without being explicitly so.

As for walking around the forest, it was ok, but I didn't really run into anything except for a flower, which I picked (and it said 1/144), so I guess there is some possible collection element if you want to approach it like a game, though I understand that isn't really the point.

It was ok, but nothing that was particularly impressive about it.  Hell, toss out the "horror" part, and just give me a procedurally generated infinite forest with some interesting stuff to see, and I'd enjoy aimlessly wandering that a hell of a lot more.

[NiX]

Endless Forest is for you!

[K9]

Endless Forest is for you!

I didn't understand that program. Was it supposed to be a game? I'm not sure.

[schild]

Endless Forest is for you!

I didn't understand that program. Was it supposed to be a game? I'm not sure.

Don't worry about that. Tale of Tales isn't in the business of making things people would understand. Read their blog. They are out there.

[Samwise]

I tried the demo, and couldn't get my character to meet an untimely end.  It was almost as boring as the Graveyard.  Shenanigans!

[Falconeer]

The demo is EXACTLY like the Graveyard. It's just a living teaser.

I can only point you all here to prove my point about The Path being an actual game-tale and not just a slow-rolling demo.

But then again, the only part of it that is free is the demo... 

[Samwise]

What was the deal with the little scenes where the camera angle would change, like the burning scarecrow, or the amphitheater?  It felt like something special was supposed to happen, but nothing ever did.

[Delmania]

What was the deal with the little scenes where the camera angle would change, like the burning scarecrow, or the amphitheater?  It felt like something special was supposed to happen, but nothing ever did.

Building suspense, probably.

[Samwise]

That only works if something actually happens at some point.  If not the first time, then the second or third time.

At one point I decided maybe I was being too impatient, so I just left my character standing there to see if anything would happen, and SHE got impatient and ran off.  I thought this was maybe a cutscene and now a wolf would eat her, but no, she just ran back to the path and ended up safe and sound in front of Grandma's house.

Honestly I think I'm curious enough about the full game to go ahead and shell out the $10 for it, but given how underwhelming the demo is I feel dirty for doing so.

[Delmania]

That only works if something actually happens at some point.  If not the first time, then the second or third time.

At one point I decided maybe I was being too impatient, so I just left my character standing there to see if anything would happen, and SHE got impatient and ran off.  I thought this was maybe a cutscene and now a wolf would eat her, but no, she just ran back to the path and ended up safe and sound in front of Grandma's house.

Honestly I think I'm curious enough about the full game to go ahead and shell out the $10 for it, but given how underwhelming the demo is I feel dirty for doing so.

I suspect if you buy the full version of the game, something does eventually happen, but whether or not it's gruesome or startling to warrant the time something doesn't happen, I can't say.  I give props to the company that is trying this out, but I suspect we're going to see a bunch of these types of games until find somrthign that is succesful.

[Samwise]

Hey schild, any way you could score a review copy of this?  I'm willing to play it and even write something up on it ( ) for the sake of science, but I just don't know if I can stomach giving them $10 for it.

[Falconeer]

I will tell you more about this. I have the full (?) thing. I am just lazying around, don't know why.

[Falconeer]

Ok, everything is pretty much a spoiler. I'll just say...

1) It's not really a game. It's an exploration application. But it has a plot, it has items to collect and it has 6 levels to complete, with lots of secrets and a final ranking from E to A for each level. Oddly enough, lots of replayability for a non-game.

2) It's a big, big tribute to Twin Peaks. Nuff said...

3) I am in love. Worth every single penny of those 8 bucks.

4)   

[Falconeer]

Update: the love grows, and I found a new comparison.



Mercenary II: Damocles

Whoever tried Damocles can't forget the impossibly slow walks to some undefined dot on the horizon in this incredibly empty and unsettling universe, and the dot slowly getting bigger and bigger into some alien building worth exploring for clues.

The biggest problem of The Path would be the outrageous slow pace of the six sisters. But what can I say, it works for me. The story, the atmosphere slowly unravels while I look at that shiny dot in the forest creepily growing to some sort of undefined, yet terrifying, mundane horror...

[Delmania]

I broke down and bought this.  So far, the only real issue I have with the game is the pace of the sisters.  

[Hoax]

or in this case raped, aren't really...

Sounded almost $10 interesting until I read that its implied rape in an artistic fashion.  Then I went back to not being willing to part with $10.

[Ingmar]

or in this case raped, aren't really...

Sounded almost $10 interesting until I read that its implied rape in an artistic fashion.  Then I went back to not being willing to part with $10.

Yeah that made me raise my eyebrows and move it on to the 'um, no' list.

[Falconeer]

Necro!

The project is over and they wanna talk about it. For whoever loved (or wanted to) The Path.

The Path Last Words.

The Path, post-mortem.

The Making of the girls and their wolves.

[Malakili]

Not commercially viable

We were never certain how much money we would make with The Path. Not in the slightest. We didn’t know if we were going to sell a few hundred copies or hundreds of thousands. We literally had no idea.
The total production budget of The Path was around 300,000 Euros. And so far, one year after launch, the Path has brought about 135,000 Euros back to us. A quarter of the budget was covered by previously developed technology. But even if we would subtract that, we would still be 90,000 Euros short of breaking even. It’s doubtful if The Path will make that much in the second year of the two year period we gave ourselves to sell the game. But of course one never knows.

On the positive side, however, we have been able to pay back the loan. And the rest of the budget was covered by non-commercial arts funding. So, in purely financial terms, we did break even. We were just hoping that The Path could be a test case for demonstrating the viability of artistic projects in a commercial environment. But so far it looks like the support of non-commercial funding is still required to do this type of work.

This pretty much sums it up.  I think they overestimate how much people would want to try this sort of thing.  I mean, I like the arts, I regularly pay money to go to performances, go to museums, exhibits, etc.  However I  think the problem is The Path isn't competing with those activities, its competing with my gaming time, not my arts time.  Maybe thats an oversimplification, but thats more or less what it boiled down to for me.

[pxib]

On the positive side, however, we have been able to pay back the loan. And the rest of the budget was covered by non-commercial arts funding. So, in purely financial terms, we did break even. We were just hoping that The Path could be a test case for demonstrating the viability of artistic projects in a commercial environment. But so far it looks like the support of non-commercial funding is still required to do this type of work.

What medium, pray tell, consistantly produces commercially viable artistic projects? Until those "non-commercial" grants started being made available during the Great Depression, art for its own sake was an entirely personal exercise. If you want to make money as an artist, it's still best to find a patron (originally wealthy individuals, now largely corporate) who'll support you. If the seed money keeps you going long enough to develop an audience, and the audience is wealthy enough to buy tickets even if they can't afford to stage works, you may eventually be able to support yourself (almost as well as a real job!) and even then you must remember that the art is for them rather than for you.

There are fewer wealthy artists than there are wealthy musicians... and there's several orders of magnitude more wealthy lawyers than there are sports stars, movie stars, and romance novelists combined. There's a reason why "artist" tends to carry the "starving" prefix. The Path is, by artistic standards, an overwhelming financial success.

Sell out for a paycheck, folks. The advertising and entertainment industries may not be "intensely personal", but they're the patrons most likely to hire.

[Samwise]

The problem with The Path wasn't that it was artistic, it was that it (or at least the demo) was crap.  If the full version wasn't crap, then I think their failure was in not putting together a demo that demonstrated what they were doing.  I would have paid $20 in a heartbeat for the full version if the demo had convinced me that there was something interesting there.

[Lantyssa]

Well, that's the problem with a lot of art...

[Malakili]

Well, that's the problem with a lot of art...

Well, yes and no.  There is a lot of crap out there.  However, even the good stuff is going to have a hard time being popular right now because current trends aren't towards pleasing, pretty, or even entertaining but towards thought provoking and often times down right making people feel uncomfortable.   

I don't think I'm going to get much more into it because I'm an admitted art snob, elitist, over educated liberal artsy douche bag by all accounts and I don't feel like having a serious discussion about the merits of art on a forum I like for video game discussions simply because I come here not to get into political arguments in the first place, plenty of other places for that.

[Lantyssa]

Making people uncomfortable is fine.  You still have to get them interested enough to smack them with that emotional impact.

Far more crap gets produced than thought provoking stuff, so it makes those not so inclined to seek it out even less likely to do so.

[Samwise]

However, even the good stuff is going to have a hard time being popular right now because current trends aren't towards pleasing, pretty, or even entertaining but towards thought provoking and often times down right making people feel uncomfortable.

Can you give me an example of "the good stuff"?  Serious question.  Although if you say Braid I will hit you repeatedly with my hat.

[pxib]

As Malakili implies, "pleasing, pretty, and entertaining" has been so completely exhausted by the advertising and entertainment industries that it doesn't sell anymore. Having a pretty painting on your wall feels a lot like passing a billboard in the highway. It inspires nothing, no visitors comment, and it just blends into the background. People who purchase visual art don't buy it because they like what the artist is trying to "say", but because of what having that particular piece of art will say about them. Ditto folks who go and see "arthouse" movies or listen to "indie" music.

Paying for pretty paintings, pleasing music, and entertaining movies says, "I'm boring and mainstream. A part of the consumer herd." So it sells for so much less than ugly, discordant, boring crap that's hard to like. The "good stuff" is where -- despite some weird, unlikable aspects -- the skill and strength of the artists shine through.

Braid is a fantastic example. Everything about it is terrific, except the "artistic" part. The gameplay is clever and fun, the visuals are strange and spectacular, and the music is rich and energetic. Then there's a slimy web of pretentious drivel draped between the set-pieces. Folks who buy the game because they want to be the sort of people who buy art games can debate possible meanings and feel superior. But when they show the game to their friends, everybody can also have some puzzle-tastic fun...

...and Johnathan Blow gets to charge $20 for the sort of game that's available on Kongregate for free. Everybody wins.

[Lantyssa]

Well, such purchases let me know they bought it because they're pretentious, so I know it's safe to ignore them.  I suppose it serves a purpose that way.  I don't waste my time, they think they're special, and the 'artist' gets to scram some idiot out of their money.  Everyone does win!

[Falconeer]

The Path is cool if you like atmosphere, if you like exploration to a degree, if you are impressed and inspired by certain things. Or whatever, it's cool if you think it's cool. I know many people who liked it and didn't buy it cause we "played" it at my house so they didn't feel compelled to get the a movie they have already seen. The Path is not a commercially viable product, and it speaks to the niche of a niche. It's not really a videogame, it's not any other medium though. It's a weird thing made of suggestions and insinuations. Since it seems obvious to me they made it out of a desire to express and describe something they personally like and it's aesthetically or artistically meaningful to them, they shouldn't care at all about the billions of people who didn't like it, or didn't even know it existed, they should instead be more than satisfied with the handful that appreciated and loved it.

Making money out of it is a different story and personally, since I think art should be free and freely share, they should eventually forget about it.