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The Path was released today, at 9:00pm PST. I'd been following this one for a year or two now. I downloaded it via Steam. $10. There's also a direct installer download as well, but this wasn't there when I first visited the site, so I got the Steam version. I'd rather have gotten the direct install, but oh well. *shrug*
So, I've played it a couple of hours and... well... I'm not sure what to make of it yet. I'll just describe my first two playthroughs so far:
(Spoilers, but kind of vague.)
First, I played as Ruby. I did nothing interesting, followed the path directly to grandmother's house, walked up to the bed room, saw a wolf in the room with grandmother! But apparently it was just stuffed or something because it did nothing. Ruby lay down in the bed beside grandmother, grandmother woke up, and then it told me that I had "completed chapter 1". Collected 0 out of 10 items, 0 out of 3 rooms opened, walked 277 meters, and didn't encounter the wolf. "Failure!" Rank D. :(
I didn't get much of a sense of Ruby's personality, because I just went straight down the path and didn't interact with anything.
Second, I played as Carmen. This time I just wandered aimlessly through the forest. Whenever I started to run, the screen would start to get dark, the music would change, a heart beat would kick in and, most ominously, wolf tracks would start appearing on the screen. If I stopped running, it would go away. So, I didn't run too much. Standing in one place for too long seemed to cause this to occur as well, or at least, the heart beat anyway. So I didn't stand still for too long either. I met a little girl in white, and a woodcutter. I stole the woodcutter's hat off of his head, but nothing else happened with him (though a screenshot in the link above shows her interacting with him more). In the same area, I built a fire and drank some beer. Nothing seemed to come of that, but I'm sure there's more to it that I haven't figured out yet. Continued wandering around. Started finding several little golden antenna looking things, which if I interacted with them, Carmen would pick them up. Each one added to a # out of 144 counter, I found around 17 or 18 of these. I found an old, empty bathtub, and Carmen got inside it and sat there. Nothing happened much, but I didn't hang around too long. Some of the things I interacted with apparently unlocked the secret rooms mentioned above, because they showed in the background when I picked something up. Ran into several other items/areas that seemed to require one of the other girls to interact with, indicated by their faces appearing on the screen, so didn't mess with those much. Couldn't find my way back to the path, so was just wandering aimlessly, until I chanced upon the little girl in white again. She brought me back to the path. I went to grandmother's house. This time the path to the bedroom was different than before, and the house was kind of freaky, in a MC Escher sort of way. Made it to grandmother's room. The wolf statue(?) was in a different position this time, closer to and facing the bed, but still not moving or doing anything. Carmen laid down on the bed next to grandmother, grandmother woke up, and it told me again that I had "completed chapter 1". This time I had 4 out of 10 items, 3 out of 3 rooms, walked something like 2600-2700 meters, and had not encountered the wolf. "Failure!" Rank C, this time. :(
Carmen seemed... vaguely slutty, in a way. >_> Maybe that's too harsh, I dunno. When I would approach different areas and interact with different things, text would appear on the screen which I assume were her thoughts (and I assume this will be the same for the other girls as well). The first one was when I approached a lake and was something like "I wish it were warmer so I could go swimming and, with luck, be seen by a handsome forester" or something along those lines. And she seemed rather enthusiastic about drinking the beer. Hmm. Most of her little snippets were like that, or about being lonely.
(End Spoilers)
So, generally speaking, the basic premise of the game seems to be to pick one of the girls and just... wander around. Find things and do things with them. I'm sure if you futz around too much you'll run into the wolf. I'm guessing this is probably bad, but it hasn't happened to me yet. And I've gotten "Failure!" both times so far and didn't encounter him, so... I don't know?
One fault I had with the game was that during the second playthrough, as I was wandering around more, the game gradually became slower and more laggy. Lowering the graphics settings seemed to have little to no affect on making it less slow and laggy (though didn't really make it much more slow and laggy either *shrug*). It was rather annoying. I'm guessing there's a memory leak somewhere.
There are four other girls left to try, and stuff still left to find/do with the two I've already tried. The setting/music/ambiance is suitably surreal and freaky, but it's nothing approaching Silent Hill or anything like that (at least, out of what little I've personally experienced thus far, but some of the trailers seem to indicate some pretty freaky stuff hidden about). I'm still not sure quite what to make of it yet, but I leaning toward a thumbs up. I'm certainly going to be playing it some more.
So, I've played it a couple of hours and... well... I'm not sure what to make of it yet. I'll just describe my first two playthroughs so far:
(Spoilers, but kind of vague.)
First, I played as Ruby. I did nothing interesting, followed the path directly to grandmother's house, walked up to the bed room, saw a wolf in the room with grandmother! But apparently it was just stuffed or something because it did nothing. Ruby lay down in the bed beside grandmother, grandmother woke up, and then it told me that I had "completed chapter 1". Collected 0 out of 10 items, 0 out of 3 rooms opened, walked 277 meters, and didn't encounter the wolf. "Failure!" Rank D. :(
I didn't get much of a sense of Ruby's personality, because I just went straight down the path and didn't interact with anything.
Second, I played as Carmen. This time I just wandered aimlessly through the forest. Whenever I started to run, the screen would start to get dark, the music would change, a heart beat would kick in and, most ominously, wolf tracks would start appearing on the screen. If I stopped running, it would go away. So, I didn't run too much. Standing in one place for too long seemed to cause this to occur as well, or at least, the heart beat anyway. So I didn't stand still for too long either. I met a little girl in white, and a woodcutter. I stole the woodcutter's hat off of his head, but nothing else happened with him (though a screenshot in the link above shows her interacting with him more). In the same area, I built a fire and drank some beer. Nothing seemed to come of that, but I'm sure there's more to it that I haven't figured out yet. Continued wandering around. Started finding several little golden antenna looking things, which if I interacted with them, Carmen would pick them up. Each one added to a # out of 144 counter, I found around 17 or 18 of these. I found an old, empty bathtub, and Carmen got inside it and sat there. Nothing happened much, but I didn't hang around too long. Some of the things I interacted with apparently unlocked the secret rooms mentioned above, because they showed in the background when I picked something up. Ran into several other items/areas that seemed to require one of the other girls to interact with, indicated by their faces appearing on the screen, so didn't mess with those much. Couldn't find my way back to the path, so was just wandering aimlessly, until I chanced upon the little girl in white again. She brought me back to the path. I went to grandmother's house. This time the path to the bedroom was different than before, and the house was kind of freaky, in a MC Escher sort of way. Made it to grandmother's room. The wolf statue(?) was in a different position this time, closer to and facing the bed, but still not moving or doing anything. Carmen laid down on the bed next to grandmother, grandmother woke up, and it told me again that I had "completed chapter 1". This time I had 4 out of 10 items, 3 out of 3 rooms, walked something like 2600-2700 meters, and had not encountered the wolf. "Failure!" Rank C, this time. :(
Carmen seemed... vaguely slutty, in a way. >_> Maybe that's too harsh, I dunno. When I would approach different areas and interact with different things, text would appear on the screen which I assume were her thoughts (and I assume this will be the same for the other girls as well). The first one was when I approached a lake and was something like "I wish it were warmer so I could go swimming and, with luck, be seen by a handsome forester" or something along those lines. And she seemed rather enthusiastic about drinking the beer. Hmm. Most of her little snippets were like that, or about being lonely.
(End Spoilers)
So, generally speaking, the basic premise of the game seems to be to pick one of the girls and just... wander around. Find things and do things with them. I'm sure if you futz around too much you'll run into the wolf. I'm guessing this is probably bad, but it hasn't happened to me yet. And I've gotten "Failure!" both times so far and didn't encounter him, so... I don't know?
One fault I had with the game was that during the second playthrough, as I was wandering around more, the game gradually became slower and more laggy. Lowering the graphics settings seemed to have little to no affect on making it less slow and laggy (though didn't really make it much more slow and laggy either *shrug*). It was rather annoying. I'm guessing there's a memory leak somewhere.
There are four other girls left to try, and stuff still left to find/do with the two I've already tried. The setting/music/ambiance is suitably surreal and freaky, but it's nothing approaching Silent Hill or anything like that (at least, out of what little I've personally experienced thus far, but some of the trailers seem to indicate some pretty freaky stuff hidden about). I'm still not sure quite what to make of it yet, but I leaning toward a thumbs up. I'm certainly going to be playing it some more.
