Review: The Path (Tale of Tales, 2009)

Platform: PC (digital distribution)
Website: http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath

I have a problem with this game, being that I don't know if it is one at all. Much like with Noby Noby Boy, most times I start talking or writing about it, I end questioning the nature of games, their purpose and means. Where does the game end and the art begin? Is it even a game? It is only fitting that The Path is the first review I upload, as the questions it raises regarding the whole industry are the reason why this blog is called GameNotGame.

What is The Path?

The Path is not funny, but intriguing, not pretty, while attractive, nor familiar, yet easy to relate to. It has a message, but not a speech, a challenge, but no difficulty.
The Path, as a product, is defined by how few of the definitions of videogame it matches, yet it could still be one. It is labelled an "art game", and done with, or a non game, by its very creators, and thrown in a completely different basket. In my opinion, it is simply the wording that is wrong. Twilight and A Widow for one Year are both novels, but their artistic merits are separated by eons.
Sincerely, I don't care that much if it is a game or not. I loved the time I spent with the girls and their lifes, trying to figure out what the designers were telling me through them, reflecting on what I could learn from their fragmented tales.

The Path, as a game, is defined by its shortcomings. The controls are not the best possible, the mechanics fuzzy at times, the objective misguiding. However, Tale of Tales has built the game on these issues, making them a part of the experience, part of the metaphore. Life as a teenager is not clear, the faster you run through it, the less you know where you'll end, the slower, the less you'll achieve.

Meet our red riding hoods: Ginger, Rose, Scarlet, Ruby, Robin and Carmen.

The Path is to games what growing up is to becoming 18. Reflection is so integral to the process that there is not a stop once you beat it, but keeps going on until you stop learning from it. And what you learn is not that you may now drink alcohol, or drive, but that those activities require a level of responsibility and many possible consequences, even some of the less desirable being worth the risk.

What is so special about it?

In the end, I write this to learn how to get better at doing games, interactive digital art or whatever it is called when I get there. And The Path has a lot to teach.
Tale of Tales removed one by one the principles on which modern games are built, and restored only the minimum necessary to produce what they desired. And what they left was usually completely changed.
So, interactivity in The Path only occurs when the player lets go the controls, following the objectives removes all story elements and the scheme of risk-reward is turned completely around (the biggest reward in the game being defeat).

If you let go the controls, Scarlet will interact with the flowers.

 And then the second part in every girl's life comes, and everything changes. You lose almost all control, with only advancing and looking around (and quiting) as allowed options. Here you get a resume of sorts of your achievements in this stroll through the forest, in a much more interesting way than a list of acquired items and percentages accomplished will ever manage.

However, The Path also evolves greatly in some other aspects. Specifically, its interface design is a great step forward, compared to the current trend of shining interactive objects and overcrowded life bars, maps and menus. And it integrates much better with the surroundings.
Letting the player inside the avatar's mind through washed out, transparent shots of whatever captures her attention is effective and keeps the fourth wall in its place.

What's on Ruby's mind?

Rewarding exploration with indications of interesting locations makes replaying with the other girls much more welcome. The effect of being lost would soon turn from intimidating into boring. By collecting flowers the future frustration turns into a comforting knowledge: the more you know of the forest, the easier it is to get where you want to be. At least, once you realize that's how things work. Of course, this makes sense because of the random nature of the map, but the same approach can be used in different environments.

Conclusion

The Path's so high because it is so unique.

 So, in the end, The Path is the product of careful, out of the box design (or many lucky choices and errors), with a great value for the final client. It asks the player to keep an open mind, think beyond the screen and look at life from the eyes of six ill-fated girls. The fact that it recovers the old tradition of cautionary tales, instead of their current sweet versions, only makes things better.
As far as I can tell, this software is one of a kind, and can only marginally be related to others in the gaming genre. The only matches I draw are on the pretensions field, where it fits with the likes of Riven, The Last Express, Braid or, on the game-not-game side, Façade.

EDIT (2011-01-08): Updated comparison chart with a more readable and smaller version.