In 1992, I woke up one morning, got dressed, and got on a large yellow bus plagued by self-doubt. Was Super Mario Bros. 4 real? Was there a game where Mario had to scale a blue giant with red hair, jumping from platform to platform to scale its towering form, using a kite to reach heights his stubby plumber’s legs couldn’t reach on their own? It seemed so real! I played it! Nah. Like an atrocious short story ending from some freshman creative writing workshop, it was all a dream. Super Mario Bros. 4 existed in my head. Much as I thought The Path did, until earlier today.
Like MMO Love, The Path was a game I first read about in an Edge preview almost two years ago, and it sounded far too good to be true. A surrealist re-telling of Red Riding Hood crafted by Belgian artists Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, The Path would be a freeform adventure game comprised of three acts in three genres, crossing between point-and-click, third-person exploration, and a first-person conclusion. The Path aimed to not only reinterpret a time-honored fairytale but also explore the emotional experience of a girl growing up. Harvey and Samyn said that they wanted to do away with linearity entirely, to allow every interaction in the acts to feed into emergent, personalized narratives that deal in discomfort and fear triggered by the player. All of it rendered in stark, primary colored 3D imagery. I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere in the press since. Who could blame me for thinking I’d just imagined it? It sounds incredible!
Turns out it’s coming out next week. Here’s a launch trailer, courtesy of Joystiq.
The Path looks suitably spooky here. It’s stocked with a few of the more prevalent psychological horror tropes that have prospered in the past decade: distorted woodland imagery, creepy little girls, unhinged narration, and the sort of screeching discordant soundtrack that would make John Carpenter proud. But there’s nothing here to indicate that Samyn and Harvey realized their ambitions in play. Only one way to find out, I suppose.
Man, I hope I’m not hallucinating this trailer or writing this article…
Editor’s Note: How sweet would a kite power up be in Mario? Ten year-old me was onto something.
Related links:
The Original Adventure - Now Portable
Whatcha Playing: The Thirst For Adventure, Pointing At Things, and Not Knowing What to Say
Question of the Day: How Do You Make a Horror Game Horrifying?
10 Years Ago This Week: Silent Hill