The Path is most likely something you've never experienced in a video game before. It is not supposed to be played, but experienced and interpreted, much like a work of art. If you are a gamer who likes consistent action, a traditional cut scene narrative or doesn't care for ambiguous interpretation, The Path will bore and frustrate you. If you can enjoy a slow-paced, poetic narrative that's allure doesn't come from its fun, but rather its experience, then The Path may resonate with you.
It is very obvious the artistic intent in the style of the game. There is a consistent grain filter placed over many parts of the game and calligraphy art springs around the edges of the screen. Random images non-obtrusively flash in the graphics and the colors saturate and dim for artistic affect. Many tools have been implemented here to leave a subliminal effect on the player's subconscious while playing the game's narrative.
The game is designed to be, in the creator's words, "a short horror game" based off the classic Little Red Riding Hood tale. The protagonist is one of six girls in a downtown, urban city family, tasked to bring food and wine to her ill grandmother. Each girl is distinguishable from her sisters in many ways such as clothing style, age and even the way in which she moves. Robin is young and carefree, so she skips and frolics while wearing an innocent and plain rain coat. Ginger is a tomboy and moves abruptly/shuffles with a lack for any feminine style and a feather in her hair (as if playing Indians). Each girl's general personality can be derived without any dialogue at all.
After picking a character, her role starts right on the edge of urban society, the end of the paved road. All that lies before her is a thick, uninviting forest and a dirt pathway to grandma's house. The game directs with one simple rule, "go to grandma's house, and stay on the path." Herein introduces one of the key, convention-breaking concepts of the game.
The Path is a game that defies gaming norms and attempts to break them continuously. If the game's instructions are followed and little red riding hood proceeds directly to her grandma's house, a failure screen will be presented. The character is really supposed to disobey the rule, seemingly mirroring the way in which one may disobey his own parent's directions. The same goes for the activities that lie within the woods once the player decides to leave the comfort zone of the beaten path.
From the dirt path, the setting is pleasant and sunny, and the music is playful and accompanied by laughter. Upon entering the forest, the color hue dims, the melody shifts to a lethargic and haunting piano rift, growls and rattling chains perforate the background. The game does its best to supplement the character's feeling of discomfort and being lost into the player.
The game play here is where many will be segregated, as this game is made to expose the player to the characters and setting. Through wandering the forest, the character encounters a large number of items such as a balloon, knife, diamond etc. that may bear personal significance, stirring inward inflections, expressed as a sentence of text, specific to her personality. This grants the player further insight into the mind of his female protagonist. Each character can also encounter a few clearings in the forest filled with cultural icons such as a graveyard or a playground. In one of these clearings, each of the girls can meet their own wolf.
The wolves are not displayed in their traditional sense, but more as an iconic figure, offering a specific meaning to each character. These wolves seem to "prey" more on the girl's personal desires, so they take many forms. It is in this way the wolves never instigate their encounters, the girls give in and willing engage them (through player control) as another form of cultural disobedience. A short cut scene will then ensue leading up to where the girls, in the creator's term, get "ravaged."
I do not wish to give away anything further at this point, as the strength of the moment comes in experiencing it yourself. However, there is more "playable" content to come after these revelations with the wolves. To set worries aside, these "ravage" scenes are not shown and can only be implied by the player.
There can be a large number of complaints with the game, but these again come from traditional ways of thinking about game design. The characters move slow and clumsily, and when running the camera pans to a bird's eye perspective, obstructing the view. These seem to be intentional choices by the developers so that the player is forced to take the game slowly, concentrate and allow the atmosphere to set in.
The map system within the forest is frustrating as it flashes briefly for a second every 100 meters walked, effectively only giving the player time to see which direction he's going. Additionally, the map only displays the path the player has traveled thus far, and no landmarks are presented; a lot of the time is spent wandering completely lost in circles. As a normal design, this is unacceptably frustrating. However, tied with the unsettling atmosphere, this system again helps the player relate with the fearful frustration of being lost in a wood.
There is very little dialogue and conventional cut scenes that provide context to the story/characters. However, this encourages many interpretations of the content. What are the metaphorical wolves supposed to mean and what interactions occur with the girls? What is grandmother's house really supposed to mean and what purpose does the color saturation and art style serve in certain areas? This is the satisfaction to be had with this game.
I can only think of one constructive argument against the game that I cannot back through the developer's intentions. The game gives a rating screen at the very end, tallying together the items collected in the forest, and gives a grade from the academic scale. This seems very "gamey" in a package that seems to disregard the structure of typical game play. It could be seen as satire, but nothing conclusive seems to highlight that.
Besides that blemish, I believe The Path met its mark for most of what it ambitiously tries to accomplish. I don't find the game to be as much a horror game as intended, but more of a heavy and hypnotic experience that still serves its intentions well. It's not as good as high art in other medias, but in video games, this format is a desert. By comparison to other games in this artistic vein, it's the best I've seen thus far, and I hope the genre will only get better.
Though it's undoubtedly pretentious, I wholly recommend this game, especially considering the $10 price of entry. Furthermore, if you decide to play through all the characters, there's a good 5-8 hour experience in the package. If you're on the fence, I still encourage you to try it out if not just to support this sort of mind share in the industry.