Category: Press

Euro Gamer, Multi Player, Zombie Girls & more

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The Path is a strange, unusual, progressive and unique game, which may even be important for the industry and the development of the form in a handful of ways. It’s also so arty that it makes Braid look like 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

Kieron Gillen on Eurogamer

Non ci sono buoni o cattivi, ma c’è soltanto l’esperienza in quanto tale e la crescita, di cui fanno parte il sesso, il sogno e tutti gli altri elementi che caratterizzano la vita umana. Inoltre c’è lo smarrirsi, ovvero la necessità di perdersi per ritrovare – e accettare – il proprio io.

Simone Tagliaferri on Multiplayer.it

First I thought the moral might be “Shit happens,” but then I rethought my stance and it seemed more like, “Life sucks, then you die.” I rethought that one too, thinking more on the “this is a game about growing up” angle.

Voodoo Girl on Zombie Girls Online

Opera matura, di transizione tra il videogioco come puro e semplice intrattenimento di serie B e la vera dimensione artistica, poetica e autoriale che questo strumento espressivo ormai merita a pieno titolo.

Sebastiano Pupillo on NextGame.it

Local enthusiasm:
The Path in Chief magazine

The Path is een vooruitstrevende game die België op de kaart zet en brandhout maakt van de vele gerecycleerde concepten die de winkelrekken vullen. We kunnen fier zijn.

Stijn Bolle in Chief

And two interviews:

Si le rectangle de l’écran de cinéma est une fenêtre à travers laquelle nous entrevoyons une partie du monde, peut-être alors que l’écran de jeu vidéo occupe une fonction de porte à travers laquelle nous pouvons entrer dans ce monde.

Interview with Louis Filiatrault on Panorama

For us, a game is good when it allows us to play, when it makes us think and feel something, when it makes us discover something about life, when we feel the pure joy of immersion, etc.

Interview with Mark Newheiser on Adventure Classic Gaming

Meanwhile guerilla-marketing hits De Balie in Amsterdam.
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Many more reviews of The Path

We definitely cannot complain about the attention our little game is getting. Nor about the appreciation for it. We’re quite proud of our little Red Girls. And frankly, of the games press and blogs as well. Makes us feel a lot more comfortable, far away from museums and galleries. :)

Tale of Tales set out to make a horror game and this they have pulled off spectacularly.

Michael Rose on IndieGames.com

What I do know is that for as indefinable as The Path may be, I find myself thinking about it long after I stop playing. The Path is an odd, but beautiful experience that gives me hope for what games can be.

Susan Arendt in The Escapist

The fog and lighting serve to generate an ethereal sense of surrealism, while the stylized characters reinforce the unique quality of being in a sort of fable.

Dan Liebman on Dark Zero

The Path represents a prime paradox in the world of games. It is simple to play, but incredibly deep in its execution. It’s mystical, often perplexing, and more disturbing than pleasant.

Dan Liebman on Game Zone

I sing in praise of The Path, a game that realizes – if only in fleeting brilliant flashes – the personal, expressive interactive storytelling experience video games have long aspired to communicate.

Michael Abbott in The Brainy Gamer

Mysterious, brutal and beautiful, this game tells a childhood story so dark it truly delivers the original spirit of the fairy tales, in all its grisly glory.

Allen Cook on Gamers with Jobs

This game succeeds at appealing to an audience segment that does not usually play games, and in a baroque and crafted way that many hardcore gamers relish about their chosen genres, not in some watered-down, Wii Fit kind of a way. It is, in other words, an important benchmark for the high’s evolution into the true mainstream, beyond this indie-games-versus-blockbuster-games false dichotomy, I’m talking about those extra billions who could really be succored by interactivity, but have been ignored.

Patrick Dugan (+ girlfriend) on Play this Thing

This is the game that real gamers scream for at the top of their lungs. This is something new. This is what needs to be heralded from rooftops, shown to every new developer; when you bought FEAR or Doom, you didn’t know it, but that disgust on your face was you screaming “WHY CAN’T YOU BE THE PATH?!?!?!!”

Ophilye on Couple Gaming

The Path is almost certainly the most significant videogame that will be released this year, in terms of evolving the form of what videogames are capable of.

Iain McCafferty on his personal blog

And all of this happens in other languages as well.

“The Path” ist selbstverständlich ein Spiel, und als solches ein faszinierender Beweis dafür, dass das junge Medium noch zahllose unerforschte Erfahrungen und Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten anzubieten hat.

Rainer Sigl on Telepolis

Alliant une bande-son extraordinaire et un design gothique à souhait, The Path ne pourra certainement pas vous laisser insensible, il n’y a pas de juste milieu avec un titre de cette trempe : soit vous détestez dès les premiers instants, soit vous accrochez et vous vous laissez emporter par cette expérience hors du commun.

Miniblob on Jeux Video

The Path is op geen enkele manier te vergelijken met andere games, maar biedt een uniek ervaring die je de kans geeft om na te denken over woorden en gebeurtenissen.

Erik Buckinx on 9 Lives

Het vergt soms wat geduld, maar ik merkte zelf dat deze trage loopstukjes vaak ook een mooi moment voor overdenking zijn. Momenten waarop je de beelden die je juist gezien hebt, probeert te duiden.

Erwin Bergervoet on Gamer.nl

Some more reviews of The Path

Here’s some more reviews of The Path. We remain impressed by how well our experiment is received. Hopefully this encourages more developers to take the path less traveled.

It’s definitely different from anything else you’re likely to play; it might not be a game many people will like, but it is something to be respected and admired.

Michael Thompson in Ars Technica

The Path is a hugely significant work in terms of what a video game can be beyond the realms of throwaway entertainment and is potentially a seminal moment in video games.

Iain McCafferty in Videogamer.com

This game is completely subjective, like a puzzle of a starry sky made out of perfectly square pieces.

Kristen Spencer on Count Gameula

So, I’ve read a TON of theories behind the meaning of the game in general. I don’t agree with any of them, and at the same time, I agree with all of them. I don’t think there is one right or wrong way to look at The Path, and I really love that.

Allison Boyer on Binge Gamer

The horror. A good innovation and a different way of playing that definitely leave a mark. Do not miss it or become “Zombie”.

Giuseppe on AG Games

The Path’s style of horror isn’t the overt kind where a zombie suddenly crashes through a window. It’s a feeling that lurks at the back of your brain, bubbling up during periods of intense personal change. It’s the terror of encountering the unknown; the fear of the revelations a new experience might produce as well as how it might afterward manifest itself in your thoughts and world.

Charles Onyett on IGN

It feels like being the only person laughing in a cinema – except the film you’re watching is Schindler’s List.

Joe Martin in bit-tech.net

First reviews of The Path

To tell the truth, we are little bit -but happily- surprised by the amount and depth of attention that The Path is receiving. Once again, we may have underestimated the videogame audience. Or underestimated how ready the games industry really is for something new, for a different approach to gaming and game design.

There’s of course the expected violent eruptions of hatred here and there. Each of our projects has received them. The Path is no exception. But there’s very few of these.

It’s heart warming to hear how deeply people are moved by our story and how encouraging they are of our unconventional design style (and forgiving of its technical shortcomings 😉 ). Here’s a first batch of reviews. But many more will surely follow as dozens of journalists are currently playing the game and writing reviews.

The Path has a unique and stunning visual style that comes across as more of an artistic rather than a technical accomplishment; a style that flaunts the creative talents of the designers more than the advanced computational abilities of the graphics engine.

Rubes at The Monk’s Brew

A game where you’re never quite sure what’s going on, but always conjuring up another fascinating theory. A game without a story, but with an abundance of meaning. A work of art. An interactive poem.

Lewis Denby in Resolution

I kind of don’t like the game.
This is not a criticism. If anything, it’s the highest compliment I could pay it.

John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Path isn’t much of a game. But whatever it is, it’s one hell of one of those.

Tom Chick on Fidgit, the Sci-Fi Channel games blog

In the end, The Path is a little bit like getting punched in the nose by a centaur. It’s momentarily painful, but you get to spend the next few days trying to figure out precisely what the hell just happened to you.

Justin McElroy on Joystiq

It is almost easier to think of The Path as an experience, rather than a game. An unsettling, otherworldly adventure, which players scour for hidden meanings and analyze outcomes.

Jenni Lada for Gamertell

The game isn’t focused on violence. Rather, it’s an introverted, slow-paced game with a story that hooks you. The player has a lot of freedom to explore the game world, without a directed path, despite the name.

Dean Takahashi in The New York Times

Perhaps the single most stunning thing about The Path is how well it melds each component of itself together, creating a single entity and providing equal importance for each part of its self.

Sean Ridgeley in Neoseekers

There’s also a rather in-depth interview on Core Gamers where we talk about all sorts of things, not just The Path.

Italian preview of the Path

It’s like the beta of The Path is making a tour through Europe. Claudio Todeschini wrote an interesting preview on Games Village about how The Path is not exactly fun and offers a deep emotional experience instead. He explores his confusion further in an editorial article about the meaning of the word videogame.

It’s nice to see how much thought our little project can provoke. Though we personally think The Path can be fun. Perhaps just a different kind of fun.