Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I kept on meaning to Sunday Paper this, but seeing the amount of actual content in, I think it deserves a post. A year on from the controversial talking point of 2009, Tale of Tales do a really elaborate postmortem of their work. As well as the traditional look at the work itself, there’s individual essays about each of the girls and their respective wolves. Lots of stuff to look at, in short, all showing the passion which Tale of Tales brought to the work. Central linking page is here. They’ve since closed the blog, and plan to close-to-disappear for the next eighteen months to work on two new projects. Good luck to ‘em.

Direct 2 Drive have announced they’re running and indie games bundle until Sunday. The bundle contains Democracy 2, Cogs, Zeno Clash, The Path, and Defence Grid. All great games. Which rather reveals the problem with the pack: you probably own a couple of these games already.

Nevertheless, for those aberrant consumers among us, the deal is good. £11.50 for Britons, and $17.75 for North Americans. I dunno about Euro types. Anyone got a link?

Not sure how we missed this. The ever-controversial and much previously discussed The Path have finally released a demo of the game. In fact, it’s more than a demo – iit’s actually a prologue to the game proper, especially created to give a sample of the atmosphere. In other words, almost certainly worth downloading for fans of the the full game as well as those intrigued by all the net-chat.

A couple of weeks after the micro-furore which followed its launch, the good ship Eurogamer send me off to evaluate Tale of Tales’ game of short horror and long walks. I start like this…

“There’s an urge to give it one out of ten. Maybe a two, because two sounds more genuine than one. One sounds like foot-stomping petulance. Two sounds considered, as if I really do mean it. I’m not, because I don’t, but it’d serve a couple of good purposes. Firstly, if considered solely as a classical game, The Path is bloody terrible. Secondly, if you’re the sort of person who cares about the review score, it’s almost certainly not for you and I should turn you off as quickly as possible.”

And then set controls for the heart of the sun. Join me!

Tale of Tale’s The Path is officially released today, and now available on Steam. Last week I wrote my impressions of the peculiarly evocative art project – trying to present a mixture of the opinions that formed in my brain, about a game that deserves attention/confusion. The twist on Little Red Riding Hood has you take six sisters on a journey through the woods on their way to Grandmother’s House. However, heading straight there isn’t how to play. It’s all about deviating from the task, and the path, and getting lost in the woods. It’s £7.25 on the UK Steam, $10 in the US, and 7,90€ in Europe. Do I recommend it? I do, but I sort of squirm in my seat at the same time. Well, read this, it explains it better.

Tale of Tales’ The Path comes out a week today. It’s a unique game, almost stretching the use of the word “game” to describe it as such, in which you take one of six Little Red Riding Hoods through the woods, on her journey to Grandmother’s house. However, simply completing this task is the shortest route the the game’s ending – indeed, if anything, finishing the game is really the last thing you want to do.

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One of the more esoteric and unusual games in the forthcoming Independent Game Festival awards, Tale of Tales’ The Path doesn’t play like most games. It pretends to. But it’s not the same.

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