Thyroid

The Path - woah

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This, my friends, is one sexy horror game. You have to buy this (too bad there's no demo), it's pretty off, very indie, very artistic, and very Idle Thumbs. Bonus: there are people demanding it be banned. If that isn't a five-star Hot Coffee recommendation, I don't know what is.

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it's not really horror, IMHO. And I'm not sure I like it. Just played a little bit.

I'm inclined to agree with RPS so far, but I need to play some more.

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I agree, it is an uncomfortable experience, but that's what darker entertainment should be. I've never understood the whole popcorn-horror flick mentality. RPS seems to agree: this is actually a good thing.

I'm not saying the game is perfect, but it's great. The fact it was made by two people just makes that much cooler.

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Oh I'd say this is definitely horror. The conviction grew the longer I played. Eventually I just kind of got lost in the experience - quite probably the desired effect and metaphor that it is aiming for.

I played as Ginger. Followed the path all the way to grandmother's gate... and then thought what the hell, I'll go for a wonder. Found a bunch of stuff, encountered a charming little woodland girl who eventually led me back to the start. Then I accidentally used the phone and went back to the selection screen doh.

Started up again, found a bunch more stuff. Then

I started to suspect that once you leave the sight of the path, you can never find it again. I tried for ages to backtrack, and it was just... gone. This is when I started to feel uneasy.

I realised I could wait for the woodland girl to show up and lead me back to beginning again, but then I noticed she was a bit... wolflike maybe. SO I thought I'd try harder myself.

Eventually I found the field of flowers. I played with the woodland girl, it was very touching, then she lay down and invited Ginger to join her...

Waking up on the path in the rain was an incredible shock. I thought I was dead until I tried the control. Not being able to do much else I took the long trudge up the steps to grnadmothers house.

After all that, the inside was even more freaky.

I am taking a break now before deciding which sister to travel with next (I think Ruby). I am definitely slightly shaken, but I think only because I got so relaxed and hypnotised by it. If I had remained lucid and in control it might well have been underwhelming.

This is indeed horror, just a very rare type.

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Have you seen, well, as a hint (I'm not giving it away, just hints):

something involving a bench, an old man and cigarettes?

.

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Hmm, as Ruby I encountered a bench, but

it was occupied by a young man, not an old one, with cigarettes. He was seen dragging a rolled carpet, and accompanied by the sound of motorcycle engines.

When I got to the house, the upper floor was full of exhaust smoke and had been transformed into the inside of an engine.

I'm guessing the house represents the events that we don't see during the girls... encounter, in the woods. It is also filled with their other recent memories.

I still have no idea how to unlock the secret rooms.

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What's wrong with that kind of indie?

I don't know, what's wrong with it?

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:deranged:

I think we're thinking the other is thinking a different thing. Yo.

Edit: My wonderful humour aside, what I mean was I have no idea what you mean by "that kind of indie," Toblix.

Edited by Kroms

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Well, it's a pretty low-budget game...I dunno. I rather like it. I appreciate it very much. It's like listening to Black Flag.

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I still have no idea how to unlock the secret rooms.

I think that finding certain items before finding yourself in front of your grandmother's house unlocks the rooms.

With Ruby...

a knife I found lying in the woods, the man's two-headed teddy bear, and the car

all had prominent rooms in the house to incredibly great effect, and the results screen said I unlocked all three rooms. Conversely, with another girl whose name I forgot, I found her traumatic incident after finding only one or two items. The end house was relatively straightforward, and I was more confused than creeped out since I barely knew the character.

Ruby also had one of the most frightening moments I've had in the game, made possible by the combination of two design decisions. First, grandmother's house takes place from a first-person perspective, where every single button on the keyboard moves you forward along the path, and the mouse limits your view to a small radius. Second, to get a girl to interact with something, you leave the controls alone for a few seconds. There is no action button. You leave her alone, and she acts under her own accord. This really drives home the Little Red Riding Hood theme, since everything potentially terrible that happens to her isn't something you directly ordered her to do. It is an action that the character performs of her own free will, done simply because you did not say no, because you yourself did not take the action to stop it. Without giving too much away, something startled me enough to stop moving, then start moving again out of fear of what the girl might do with it.

The girl had shown suicidal thoughts when wandering through the woods, and I physically fought with the controls to try and stop her from picking the knife up during her explorations. When I saw it pop up in the house, I stopped with shock. After a few seconds, the screen started to go dark, and I started mashing the keyboard to get her out of the room as fast as possible. One of the few moments of true fear instead of gut-wrenching foreboding I had in the game.

I only played three characters of this so far, in two sittings. Doesn't seem like the type of game to power through all at once. Loving the atmosphere.

Edited by Noyb

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...What the second spoiler tag is talking about is brilliant. That's incredible. Oh wow, I'd freak-out playing that.

That's good horror, right there. And man, that's just great gameplay. :tup:

You see, games industry? You can break away from what everyone else is doing and still be fucking awesome.

Holy shit yes. This has made my day. Games might not die on their ass after all.

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$10 on steam I believe.

If you are at all interested in non-traditional games (the sort that people tend to call 'interactive experiences' or 'art games') then it is definitely worth a look.

If you only like games with action and traditional objectives and all the other usual conventions, then it is not for you.

-----

Anyone else finished it with all the girls yet? Nice twist at the end I thought. At some point I will play it again, since it seems like you can't see all the 'experiences' in a single playthrough.

The official forums for the game have some nice discussion on the symbolism and meaning of various aspects, for those that have finished it.

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oh man, i finally got this and played 2 of the char last night. i like seeing something so different, but i'm not completely sure how to internalize it yet. wanted to read some more impressions. maybe another perspective before playing some more of the characters.

i'm glad i picked this game up so lttp, because i forgot anything i had read or heard about it before, so i got to play it without any presumptions.

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Man, I finally got to playing this little gem. It took me a while to get this game because I was anxious it would be crap. The stuff that I had seen about it didn't quite grab me in ways that I would've liked and I was apprehensive.

I just went through two of the girls, for what its worth (

Robin with her werewolf and Carmen with her woodsman

), so my impressions are nowhere near complete. But here's a few scattered thoughts:

:tdown::tmeh::tup:

I thought the weird gunk of fleurons overlaid around the screen was really dumb—until I realized that the black bits directed me towards the wolf, while the white bits directed me towards the girl in white. On one hand, it was a good decision to try to hide the radar, but on the other it was visually off-putting; it looked like gratuitously designy flare plastered around the periphery of the screen. I'll give them props for realizing that they had to hide it (and for hiding it well enough, I guess), but the fleurons were maybe a bit much. Maybe there is a subtler way of doing this. Maybe it is as simple as using less obnoxious curlicues.

:tup:

On the whole the interface does some neat things, such as the overlays of the closeup of the object in the vicinity that the girl will interact with if you leggo of the controls. That was neat, if maybe a little too slick. It didn't help the immersion, I don't think. But it was different than your stock color-coded halo, or giant throbbing arrow, and therefore worth noting among the tups.

:tmeh::tmeh:

What Noyb said above made me appreciate the control scheme a little more, but I am still ambivalent about it. I would be cool with do-nothing-in-the-vicinity-of-something-to-make-the-girl-do-her-thing mechanic, if only the walking and running and looking around did not feel so broken. If only there was a more conventional mouse look, I would be fine.

:tup::tup::tup:

The forest is amazing. I got lost so thoroughly and uneasily in there, time and again. The objects in the forest are also nice and a really fresh way of telling the girls' individual stories. And the fanciful foliage is really impressive. I wouldn't mind having to go through a forest like that in a more conventional exploratory game. I wish I could conjure more ready superlatives about this aspect of the game.

:tup::tup::tmeh:

Grandma's house felt a little bit weird. Not so much the utter lack of control, but the inability to really pause and reflect upon what I was seeing and go back and look at that previous room again. It would've been so much better if they just let me wander around in there a little more aimlessly, taking in things at my pace. Tale of Tales duders really like to limit the player's faculty, and I am not sure I appreciate it. It feels like they are not sure if they want to make a video piece or an installation. The fact that they're making a video game allows them to mix the best of both media, but they don't. They make an on-rails video that is over too soon, and I am not sure I've internalized all that they've put there for me to look at. But at the same time, they don't let me watch it again at my leisure.

Overall a really important game. :tup::tup::tup:

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Thanks for reminding me of this game. I bought it when it came out, but I'm too lowbrow to appreciate games as art, etc. so I didn't play/interact with it enough. I'll load it up again tonight.

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