"Would The Path work if it weren't so slow?"

Considering it only "works" as a statement about the delusions its creators have about "art" and the relative unimportance of interesting game mechanics, yes. As if a mechanical change means anything to the kind of people that praise this trash--the theme and "message" is EVERYTHING to them.

P.S. Inform 7 rules and Emily Short's games are 100 times better than this slop she is wasting her time writing about.

Re: Dervish

You seem to really dislike The Path but you don't really give any reasons why you think it's so horrible. Care to elaborate before you're called out as a troll?

I know I'm playing right into the "art games" crowd's hands by even answering. I mean, it should be obvious from both Short's comments and those in the "hate it" review she linked why The Path utterly fails as a game.

But Tale of Tales insists on branding it as such, so I have to take the bait: they fundamentally misunderstand what makes games interesting, which is interacting with their rule systems. On that count, The Path is a borefest propped up by some uncommon themes and some atmospheric polish. Even if you think the game contains neat ideas to ponder, you could just get them off a youtube playthrough or something. But within the game, there's nothing interesting to DO. It's not something an intelligent person would want to PLAY.

tl;dr: if the experience your game provides is not diminished by simply watching someone ELSE play it, it sucks. It's like saying the best part of the game is the cut scenes.

The paradoxical thing is that even though I found playing frustrating (sometimes extremely so), it was more meaningful for me than watching YouTube videos of the same sequences. (I did use YouTube to check out other people's experiences with some of the girls' endings, so that's not a purely hypothetical statement.) I came away feeling that the frustration was part of the point of the work. The will to make horrible things happen to my avatars was strengthened many times over by the excruciating impatience that led up to these events.

So, yeah, "The Path" is not really fun, and maybe not a game at all (depending on your definition), but it absolutely wouldn't be the same work when divorced from its ruleset. And as it was one of the most vividly memorable play experiences I've had all year, I can't say it was ineffective.

I must say I was unable to bear more than 10 minutes of "The Path". Now after Emily's review I feel intrigued, though unsure whether I want to give it another try.

The work is touching on a popular and interesting subject of art vs. games. Games are supposed to be fun, that's what they are made for - to entertain. It's clear that "The Path" offers very little of it. Thus Dervish's indignation that I can easily understand.

On the other hand, art is (arguably) not supposed to be fun. Not always. There are brilliant books, for instance, which are perfectly agonizing. Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" is the finest example. Some of Salvador Dali's works are utterly revolting, etc.

So what is wrong with "The Path" then? The fabric of literature is language, of painting - colors. The primary fabric of computer game is (inter)action. "The Path" seems to ignore it altogether, relying more on 3d graphics, animation and (boredom) suspense. The problem with the latter is that they have always been supplementary in games, existing only to support and enrich interaction.

"The Path" invades into uncharted territory between art and games, which makes it interesting. It is made as game, advertised and sold as one, while essentially it is not a game, which makes it extremely frustrating.

"Don't look back" worked for me much much better, although I was continuously upset by my slow progress. I played through the end, which was immensely satisfying experience.

Emily, I wonder would you go all the way along "The Path", if not for the review?

(I didn't play The Path, so I cannot comment on it. This review doesn't exactly make me eager.)

Alexander, although I immediately agree with you that art need not be fun, I am not sold on the idea that art can be boring and successful at the same time. Kafka is not boring. Dali is not boring. "Requiem for a Dream" is not fun, but again, it is not boring.

(I know from reading reviews of my own game "The Baron" that many people who thought it was successful did not think it was fun, and often made a point of saying so explicitly; but none of them thought it was boring.)

To bore is to fail to engage me with enough stimulating ideas, design decisions, and so on, which very much sounds like a weakness on the part of the authors. This doesn't mean that boredom is always to be avoided--perhaps it can be an important part of a formative experience. (It is, for instance, in "The Karate Kid".) But I doubt whether it is art.

Victor, I agree.

What I was attempted to say in my comment is that "The Path" apparently strives to be more than a game. However, it fails to use the medium to its advantage and screws up.

I mean, "The Metamorphosis" could be 800-page-long chronicle of lying still, crawling around and wasting away. Thankfully it is not. It's concise and intense.

Is "The Path" a work of art? I don't know, but it's a bad game.

Well said, Victor. Tense, frustrating, disturbing, scary--all things good games can be, and not really what most people would call "fun." But "boring" really is the unforgivable sin.

Anyway, what was perhaps lost in the vitriol of my first comment is the idea that when people like a game almost solely for its messages, themes, images, music, atmosphere, etc., you'll be hard-pressed to come up with a mechanical change (e.g. movement speed) that would turn them off.

You could probably make the girls run at super speed and have the power of flight, and you'd still get a crowd praising the game for using such clever symbolism (It represents the liberation of innocence!).

I'm another person who hasn't played The Path, but I'm not sure that art can't be boring and successful at the same time -- or at least boring in parts but still successful. Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories is a piece I would describe as boring but successful. It means to "slow down the process of dissolution, and, by prolonging the final outcome for an inconceivable length of time, plunge the listener into the immediacy of pure perception, free from all formal preoccupations." And some of Beckett's early novels are the same way, I mean the ones where if he's discussing four people leaving the house in a certain order he will actually write out all twenty-four orders in which they can leave the house. During these passages he's not stimulating you, but that's part of his point. Not that I'm sure exactly what that point is.

(I also wouldn't necessarily say that "The Metamorphosis" isn't fun. It is horrifying, devastating, and all that, but one of the other things it is is funny. Or perhaps I'm just a bad person.)

Thank you for this article, Miss Short. It's always wonderful to hear how fellow designers experience one's work.

For the record, though, before we assume a consensus that doesn't exist, for us and many many players, The Path is actually a fun experience. There's people who find it interesting and memorable despite of not being fun (like you, to some extent, I believe). But there's also people who actually find it fun. It's just a different kind of fun and requires a different attitude from the player. But we understand and respect that not everyone is willing to go there.

It is possible that we are simply bad designers. But I would like it to be clear that The Path was designed very carefully to be exactly what it is now. I completely disagree with the criticism that interactivity is not at the heart of our creation. It's just, again, a different kind of interaction. One that is less about direct action and reaction or control but more about gradually growing into a narrative, and it growing into you.

We want our work to find a place in your reality more than we want you to find a place in the reality of our work. We measure success more by the time you spend outside of the game thinking about it or being affected by it than by the minute-to-minute entertainment it may or may not offer. That being said, I'd like to repeat that for many The Path offers exactly the kind of experience they want from the interactive medium. It's a different kind of fun for a different kind of person.

It's ok to criticize The Path (less so if you haven't played it, obviously), but let's not assume a consensus here. Lots of people deeply enjoy The Path.

You changed your point from having fun with the game to enjoying the game. Those are two difference things.

http://www.freeprizesite.com/?ref=13348 Ok so I was skeptical about the places that let you fill stuff out and get free stuff. I stayed away from it I thought it was junk. But today I finally dicided to try it. Just go on there make an account fill a few things out....No spyware No Adware No Malware No nothing! I was so suprised I thought all that stuff was a bunch of junk. It takes around a week to get $100 just get on every day for about thirty minutes. Monthly game codes for wii, xbox, and about any MMO you can think of, they also have direct cash or even prepaid gas cards. I couldnt believe this is real. So just letting you know if your skeptical, thats understandable. But this is real and worth it and it pays off. By the way this is not to accel myself or anything with me but to benefit to the gaming community. Keep on Gaming Gamers.

I do see this problem -- if a game is about the consequences of the choices we make, limiting or discouraging player interactivity is not a good thing. And if it's about how the straight path is safe, but dull, and there are more interesting things to be found in disobedience and exploration, then making the world off the path largely just as dull is not a good thing. It all depends on what the game is about.

Michael: point taken. Even though we specifically stated that we hadn't played The Path and were approaching the issue of art and boredom as an interesting issue in itself, I can understand that you're not happy with having that discussion in a topic about your game.

One thing I wonder about is this: "It's just, again, a different kind of interaction. One that is less about direct action and reaction or control but more about gradually growing into a narrative, and it growing into you."

I can see how action, reaction and control could be forms of interactivity. What is not clear to me is how gradually growing into a narrative, or this happening the other way around, is a form of interactivity. I can gradually grow into a narrative when I see a movie, but movies are not an interactive art. Could you elaborate a bit on this point?

Matt, I didn't read Beckett's early fiction, but I am just now reading the Trilogy. Having finished Malone Dies yesterday, I was searching the net, and found this:

http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/182/1/Brooker1.pdf

It's a discussion of boredom in Malone Dies (no real spoilers). The author make a point of the fact that boredom analysed and discussed and heightened through art stops, at a certain point, to be real boredom.

Victor, I don't really care too much about the exact meaning of words. But I've always like Chris Crawford's definition of interactivity as a form of conversation because it puts equal importance on both sides of the activity (hence "inter"-activity). Applied to videogames, it means that the player does something to which to computer responds after thinking about it. So the computer is equally active as the player.

The problem with this definition (probably a sneaky trick from Mr Crawford) is that a lot of videogames can't really be called interactive in this sense. Because there is a fixed response to most player actions, excluding the "thinking" that the computer is supposed to do, or definitely excluding some kind of equality of system and player (that is required for a conversation).

I'm not sure if this explains our approach at all. I guess what we're aiming for is a sort of partnership between game and player. Our games are not machines that you learn how to operate. They are a kind of artificial organisms that you can collaborate with to achieve a certain experience. This tends to be a slow process because you sort of need to get to know each other and gain each other's trust.

I'm sure the games that we have made so far are not exactly ideal expressions of this concept. But it's what we're trying to work towards.

"Our games are not machines that you learn how to operate. They are a kind of artificial organisms that you can collaborate with to achieve a certain experience. This tends to be a slow process because you sort of need to get to know each other and gain each other's trust."

That sounds rather interesting, actually.

So the computer is equally active as the player.

But that's not the challenge to designing interactivity. The challenge is to make the *player* have as much opportunity for action as the *computer.*

In most games, the player does far less than the computer. In non-interactive media, the audience has a purely passive role -- physically, although not always mentally.

Conrad.

ps - interesting point about establishing trust with the player, especially in a game where one plays Little Red!

Conrad said: "In most games, the player does far less than the computer."

This did make me pause for a moment. But it's only partially true, though. A lot of the things that the computer is doing are pure maintenance. Perhaps comparable to how the player is breathing and digesting while playing a game. If you take those actions into account, then the player does a lot more, only mostly things unrelated to the game.

So, while perhaps technically incorrect, a videogame often feels like a passive system that just sits there waiting for the player to do something. It's always the player who plays with the game. But I like the idea of a game that plays with the player too. Maybe a balance between the two is ideal.