Experiments in Interactive Entertainment: The Path, Part 1

In spite of the fact that an increasing number of games are finding their way onto Mac's the actual number of titles released is still but a fraction of the number of PC titles. This means that the gamer stuck with a MacBook, such as I, must be extremely creative in finding games to amuse themselves with.

Enter The Path, a game by Tale of Tales, a small company from Belgium that styles themselves as makers of "interactive fiction." The descriptor is quite fitting of The Path, their modern retelling of the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

In The Path you take the role of one of five different Little Red Riding Hoods who are all sisters. The objective is simple: get to grandmother's house and don't stray off the path!!! However, if you do actually as you're told you don't get to see any of the interesting parts of the game and you technically lose. No, in order to get the proper ending with each of the Reds, you have to stray off the path into the forest and encounter the wolf, which is unique to each Red.

I started playing by choosing the by far most traditional Red, Robin. A little girl with the hood and all. Having already read a number of reviews I already knew that the entire point was to stray off the path and into the woods. Suddenly the game became extremely eerie. The game was suddenly dominated by a spooky piano soundtrack as I made my way through the woods and ran into an abandoned playground that had fallen into disrepair.

Yes. I had suddenly walked into a scene from Silent Hill. Playing the game makes one feel extremely ill at ease, simply due to the fact that the combination of forest sounds, the eerie atmosphere and the soundtrack make for a feeling of something being wrong in a very primal way. But onward I went and on the horizon I could make out the outlines of a graveyard. As I closed in on the graveyard the shapes of the tombstones and statues started to come into focus and HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!!!

So, every Red's part in the woods concludes with encountering your wolf. I knew this was going to happen but I was still completely unprepared for Robin's encounter with her wolf (who, mind you, was the most literal of all the wolves in the game). But the game wasn't over, oh no. After a short cutscene with Robin and her wolf I was transported to the front of grandmother's house. I made my way inside the house and what happened could best be described as thus: directed by David Lynch.

One short nightmarish encounter later I was back at the sisters' house, but Robin was now missing. It was disconcerting to say the least. It took me weeks to get back and play as one of the other sisters. As of writing this I've still got two sisters to go.

So, this should give you an idea of what should await you if you were to purchase The Path. It is a truly terrific experience and I mean terrific both in the modern and in the more archaic sense: it inspires terror. Next time, once I've actually finished the game I'll share with you some of my deeper thoughts about the game's mechanics and my own interpretations of the game's sequentially unfolding story.