Tale of Tales, the Belgian game development studio responsible for The Endless Forest and The Graveyard, just released a new game. It's called The Path, it costs ten bucks, and it bills itself as "a short horror game inspired by older versions of Little Red Riding Hood, set in modern day."
It's also, at least at first glance, not very good.
I've spent the better part of an hour playing around with Tale of Tales newest game-that-isn't-actually-a-game- except-it-is-a-game-when-it-suits-our-purposes-for-discussion, and, while it's markedly different from their abysmal last work, it still smacks of the sort of self-indulgent condescension that pervades the studio's other games (and, subsequently, my critiques of them).
There's no demo and the game itself is DRM'd by either Steam or a required serial key, but you can check out the official site if you're so inclined and decide whether or not the game is worth your time.
Or, you can hit the jump as I try to argue that it isn't.
I wouldn't consider any of this an official review, or a legitimate critique, or even a particularly well-informed rant -- I've only spent about an hour with the game and haven't seen even a hundredth of what it has to offer.
This, in itself, is one of my main problems with The Path.
The Path is an intentionally slow-paced game: each of the several female protagonists moves at something close to a regular walking pace (in other words, very slowly) and the game discourages you from running by moving the camera to a quasi-bird's-eye-view perspective everytime you sprint so you can't see in front of you, in addition to removing the visual highlights on important objects and locations. The focus on slow moving is, ostensibly, meant to encourage introspection and build mood; "The Path is a slow game," the game's official page proudly declares. And I don't have a problem with that -- The Marriage is slow. Passage is slow. Shadow of the Colossus was slow. But those games were also interesting.
While crawling through a forest at two miles an hour, I wasn't filled with introspection, because occasional text poems popped onscreen everytime I found an item and did all the thinking for me (not unlike The Graveyard's lyric-heavy music video). I wasn't filled with a sense of mood other than boredom, because I found so little of legitimate interest off the beaten path. Upon seeing a bright, shiny item hidden among some shrubbery, I initially thought I'd stumbled upon something truly meaningful, that might give me something to ponder or would slightly alter the gameworld. Instead, my character stooped down, picked it up, and was rewarded with a visual pop-up: "1 of 144 collected."
One hundred and forty-four trinkets to collect. After twenty more minutes of playing, I'd found three more.
Feel free to accuse me of having a short attention span or of not giving the game enough of a chance, but when any game asks me to collect 144 of anything, I have to wonder why. The Path had no real answer to offer me. It's not as if the items in and of themselves are meaningful, because they're just randomly scattered around and do absolutely nothing when collected other than lowering the number of items you've yet to find. They're just there, presumably to encourage exploration, which seems redundant at best; the game effectively tells you to explore the forest by intentionally providing nothing else to do.
Upon starting the game, the player is told: "Head to grandmother's house. Do not stray from the path." If you follow these instructions to the letter, you will, after about three minutes of walking, reach grandma's house, sit on her bed, and be told by a post-game score tally screen that you have "failed." The only way to have a legitimately interesting experience, the game suggests, is to disobey the sole game rule and stray off the beaten path into the surrounding forest.
This isn't as interesting a conceit as the game seems to think it is. The Path just switches out one stated set of rules for another -- being told that you've "failed" by going directly to grandma's house is no different than a text prompt telling the player, "move off the path or you lose." There's some window dresing about obeying authority and following the road less traveled by that one can glean from the premise alone, but the gameplay itself doesn't really support such an idea given how uninteresting and barren the forest tends to be.
Again, I feel like I understand the design philosophy at work -- it is more interesting to explore without a goal and not constantly find new stuff in order to make the few things you do find more rewarding and earned, and most games are really fast-paced so why not make a slow-paced one -- but an uninteresting environment is an uninteresting environment. I didn't need to be confronted with robot ninjas to fight or puzzles to solve or anything like that, but the game focuses more on providing a large and user-unfriendly game world (the map only appears once every hundred meters your character walks, and only for a few moments) than in actually showing me anything visually, intellectually, or mechanically interesting for all my trouble. I'm chastised as a player for wanting to run from place to place, rather than walk at a snail's speed, and then condescended to once I actually discover something in the form of the aforementioned explanatory text poems.
Playing through many parts of The Path feels not entirely unlike listening to a lecture from a self-important University professor: you get the basic idea of where he's going and his delivery is dull, but if you try to force him to get to the point quicker he'll just get angry and go even slower than before. Again, I don't mind the idea of an exploration-based game (I spent a good few hours just exploring the Forbidden Lands in Shadow of the Colossus for no reason other than the sheer enjoyment of discovery), but meager rewards one gets for exploring The Path don't match up with the ludicrous amount of time and effort required to achieve them.
I'll try to spend a little more with the game over the coming weeks, because I'd legitimately like to enjoy a Tale of Tales game. As it stands, however, I feel like I'd just be willingly allowing the developers to waste my time.
It is quite pretty, though.
Contest:
8:00 PM on 03.19.2009
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Lemme rephrase: That's trying way too hard for sucking.
So if I listen to that Jon Blow lecture I could save myself $10?
I see they're trying to convey a message about thinking for yourself, being as blatant as to say "Get to Grandmothers house" and "You got here, you failed" is just lazy.
You are exactly the reason games will never get beyond being the product of eternal 12-year-olds. This game is trying to make an argument and, as with all art, the argument is complex, multi-faceted, reliant on its chosen method of expression and expects something more of the player. You are complaining because the game doesn't hold you down and force feed you stimulation. You're the critical equivalent of a fat, screaming child hurling his food across the room because his mom didn't give him ice cream for dinner.
NOWHERE but the video game industry would any critic get away with the completely asinine review you just penned. Could you imagine a literary professor (one of those self important ones) saying of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, "It's absurd... it's supposed to be the story of his life and the book is almost over before he's even born." No, you wouldn't. Why? Because that would stupid. And completely missing the point of the novel.
Clue in, son. Art is hard. It's demanding. The best of it requires an incredible amount of knowledge from a multitude of sources to make an argument and to understand. And Art isn't always about making you go, "OMGZ0RS THAT WAS AWESOME". That's. Not. The. Point.
Art asks you to reflect, to consider, to posit, and to contemplate. The interpretation of it is supposed to be a puzzle in itself. That's what makes it art. If you haven't yet figured out why exactly the camera pans the way it does when you run then you clearly are a complete, dare I say, n00b when it comes to literary interpretation. Seriously, it's really goddam obvious.
Man. I'd love to watch you read Joyce. You're head would actually explode.
"It took me 13 years to write, it should take you 13 years to read."
One hundred and forty-four trinkets to collect. After twenty more minutes of playing, I'd found three more.
Feel free to accuse me of having a short attention span or of not giving the game enough of a chance, but when any game asks me to collect 144 of anything, I have to wonder why.[/i]
No one better accuse you of this, just reading that send shivers up my spine, I can guarantee you I would not have made it that far, and I think it's a little ridiculous to ask anyone to collect 144 of your trinkets in order to get some pretentious reward.
You're a god damn hero for having the patients for collecting 3 of them if it takes that long.
Linger in Shadows was art. I don't know why but I just loved it. There was a story going on (I think) and something was just.........off. The bizarre presentation and the way it challenged how you interact with your media is something that's going to stick with me for a while.
we need something to catch our attention by exploring, a cool backstory is what made the first resident evil so good and we only got that by exploring, same with, bioshock, the suffering and a handful of others. if the game can't reward well enough to merit an exploration then why, just why should i? that was one of the reasons assassins creed fell apart on the ps3 because i got no new costumes, cheats or bonus content for collecting those flags other than the game saving itself.
If you can wrap your head around that, you may understand the purpose and function of a video game blog. The writers just call them like they see it. Our goal is not to push the industry forward or hold it back. It is to inspire and fascinate conversation and debate. That said, I'm happy to have you as part of the process disagreeing with our editor. Get it?
I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles.
Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors -- oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called "City Fathers" who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson?"
I dunno if I need a story or anything, but possibly making the discoveries less meaningless and rare and the exploration itself less agonizingly slow would probably help things a lot. Like, I dig why the game doesn't want you to run (running is the opposite of exploration it's not about the destination it's about the journey blah bork bork), but it just makes the game pretentiously slow without the exploration itself or the rewards for exploration warranting such a gargantuan time investment.
I don't care if its art, it just isn't fun. This isn't a slow game. Its not even a game.
Ugh, I'll finish all the chapters...but reluctantly.
And god damnit I bought it with only 10 bucks left on my card the DAY ZENO CLASH IS FIFTY PERCENT OFF FUCKKKKJDJSLFJ.
In any case, no art is worth going after 144 items that each take 20 minutes. "Art movies" are generally under 2 hours, almost always under 3 hours, and often short films. Artistic literature has the bonus of always knowing how many pages you have left. That's important for setting up your expectations. This game seems to have something similar, but it has a bit of a problem in that it sets itself up as unreasonably long and unreasonably repetitive. Ulysses isn't 1000 pages of the same thing over and over again. It moves along a path. It sets up different things and isn't torture to experience.
We don't need game versions of Warhol's "Empire". We really haven't gotten to the point where we have a strong enough movie to deconstruct it so starkly.
No, I'm not ever going to let that one go.
Maybe these people should stop wearing scarfs indoors and eating cheese that's been cut into cubes for a while and rethink their priorities.
i don't mind not being able run as long as there is a balanced give and take to it, meaning the goal destination may have some juicy tid-bit to it once i get to it. hell, the first time i played ff7 i didn't realise there was a run button, i played the whole game just walking but i didn't know and the game was still a blast to enjoy, walking or running. i think now that by walking and spending just a little more time getting to that next goal it actually hyped me up more to see what happened next instead of trying to run as fast as i could to the goal of the area.
when i figured that their was a run button i ran at all times though.
just because it's "art" doesn't mean it's "good"
Charles Mingus
Far as I could tell their only purpose was to give you a 'hint' in the form of a map marker as to where an object of interest may be, I will try to collect the rest to see if 144 does anything.
The game itself. It's really pretty, the music is fantastic, it certainly strikes all the right chords as far as creating a decently haunting atmosphere goes but beyond that I took very little from it. I've played it through to completion and I'm not entirely sure what point the 'story' was trying to make. ***SEMI SPOILERS FROM HERE*** All it seemed to do was throw some fairly harsh imagery at me (though there are gaps left for the player to fill in it is pretty clear what happens to most of the girls), the individual stories never really gelled together and any sort of coherent message that was intended was lost, it seemed disjointed and added little to the message of the Fairytale other than an occasional cute little thought from the girls.
Like, I dig why the game doesn't want you to run (running is the opposite of exploration it's not about the destination it's about the journey blah bork bork), but it just makes the game pretentiously slow without the exploration itself or the rewards for exploration warranting such a gargantuan time investment.
You DO realize you can run right? hold shift or RMB.
As I said, I liked it, but I do agree that some of the HUD elements, collectible things, and the "score screen" at the ends are kind of counterintuitive to what the game is trying to accomplish.
All art is not pointed towards the entire world but to those who will understand it and appreciate it....thats what makes it art. If everyone in the world likes it then its just another pos, shoved down your throat, remake that true artist would like to piss on. I give the game points for originality, something the game market has lacked for the past few years. Every single game ever made has an ending...why not one that doesnt?
I'll reserve judgement since I haven't played it, but I can't really argue with Anthony's complaints, he gives reasons for his complaints and plays devil's advocate several times. It's fair.
I love Tale of Tales so I'll definitely try it, but geeze guys, just because its art it doesn't mean it gets a pass.
cheers,
AND, being aggressively reactionary about this review probably means you are trying to say something about yourself, not the game. Unless, that is, you made the game ; )
This also applies to the scarf/cheese argument.
Also Anthony has clearly failed to realise that as an intellectual he should be pissing his life away playing boring, tedious, pointless games with no entertainment value. I mean god forbid anyone demand that they finish a game without feeling like they've had their time stolen. The best 'art' is usually capable of holding your attention without demanding that you force your way through it. The Godfather, OK Computer, Catch 22, Watchmen, all great pieces of art that never once demand that you sit through tedious crap in order that they ram their point down your throat. It takes a thousand times as much skill and talent to simultaneously entertain and enlighten a player as it does to drag them through an experience without making it inherently rewarding.
Brap.
Just play it without trying to find a meaning to it, try to get into the atmosphere without wanting it to give you a philosophical lesson. Yeah it's indie, yeah it might be supposed to be an "artistic" game, but still, it just feels like you were expecting something more, something in return, and that you just want to like it because you're Rev, the indie guy on dtoid.
It might just not be for you, and there's no problem with that, no need to justify so much why you don't like it :).
"The best 'art' is usually capable of holding your attention without demanding that you force your way through it. The Godfather, OK Computer, Catch 22, Watchmen, all great pieces of art"
Think about how those two passages connect. People who think Watchmen is the pinnacle of art are not really going to like this game. Totally different demographic. This game was not meant for most males in their early 20s who, when pressed for examples of art, can only name stuff like The Godfather or Watchmen. And this is not saying that Watchmen etc. are terrible, I thought it was great when I was a teenager too, but I grew out of it. Yeah, a guy catching a bullet with his hand and inventing a giant squid to destroy NYC is as artistic as a game dealing with the stuff this game deals with. Just accept that the art you like may not be the art that other people like. If you like guys dressing up in costumes better than girls exploring a forest and being attacked by wolves, more power to you, but there's nothing that makes one inherently more interesting than the other.
Also a lot of people in this thread seem to be focusing on collecting 144 things. That's totally optional and it doesn't really take as long as the review claimed (I found the first 20 in a few minutes).
"The best 'art' is usually capable of holding your attention without demanding that you force your way through it. The Godfather, OK Computer, Catch 22, Watchmen, all great pieces of art"
Think about how those two passages connect. People who think Watchmen is the pinnacle of art are not really going to like this game. Totally different demographic. This game was not meant for most males in their early 20s who, when pressed for examples of art, can only name stuff like The Godfather or Watchmen. And this is not saying that Watchmen etc. are terrible, I thought it was great when I was a teenager too, but I grew out of it. Yeah, a guy catching a bullet with his hand and inventing a giant squid to destroy NYC is as artistic as a game dealing with the stuff this game deals with. Just accept that the art you like may not be the art that other people like. If you like guys dressing up in costumes better than girls exploring a forest and being attacked by wolves, more power to you, but there's nothing that makes one inherently more interesting than the other.
Also a lot of people in this thread seem to be focusing on collecting 144 things. That's totally optional and it doesn't really take as long as the review claimed (I found the first 20 in a few minutes).
There's a LOT of symbolism in this game, so it's hard to take anything at face value. People seem to be overstating some of the problems with the game, rather than focusing on the problems that should really be affecting your opinion of the game. Running? Try running on the path to Grandma's, then try running in the woods. Notice a difference? You should.
Running in the woods results in the scene darkening as the camera gets higher above you. It's insinuating fear, fear of being lost and not being able to find the way back. Or being hurried. Everything's more frantic in the forest. The attention to detail in this game is amazing. I love how entering the woods from different points on the path affects the atmosphere within the woods. Furthermore, it's cool how the path, itself, acts as a stretch of time. It only takes you a minute or two to reach Grandma's, yet you'll see a full day cycle based on the direction that you're moving.
I find the game soothing, personally. I'd go so far as to say that I enjoy it. I can't say that I fully understand it yet, but I'm beginning to.
For instance, I'm pretty sure that the only means of finding the path again once you've wandered a certain distance into the forest is to have the forest girl help you. I've covered practically all of the forest. It tiles, so you'll never reach the "end" of it. It doesn't even matter where you enter the woods from, as you can always end up at the same destinations. (It's annoying, too, because your character turns involuntarily as she goes from one "tile" to another.) I'm kinda looking into whether or not the path that you've taken is even mapped out accurately. I believe that everything about the game serves to keep you lost, and I'd say that it does a great job of it.
Really, the only problems that I have with this game are its technical issues. Sometimes, the 3D scenery won't load (only 2D elements display; everything else is black). Other times, the sound won't load. Hell, sometimes, the endings won't even load! Really, this game is a mess from a technical standpoint, and it's a shame. The graphics are beautiful, as is the music. The controls are simple, yet affective. I'm not sure if it's an intended limitation, but it does seem as though each girl will eventually cease to interact with anything. Very annoying.
Still, based on how much I've played (all the way through once, even with the seventh girl), I'd probably rate the game with a 6 or a 7. It deserves higher because of the concept, but it's dragged down by the execution and technical issues. If you want to understand how to properly play the game, then read the manual. It's far more useful than the in-game info.