bit-tech: One of the things that the reviews of The Path seem to highlight is that different people take different things away from the game. We saw the way the girls and the path itself are presented as playing on the ideas of self-security, disobedience and vulnerability, but others had very different ideas. Were there specific things you were trying to communicate with the game?
Tale of Tales: The main reason why we use the interactive medium for our work is that it allows us to present concepts without having to choose a point of view. We often don’t have a fixed opinion about things or we consider our own opinion not more important than that of the viewer.
That said, we do think that certain ideas are worth thinking about. If there is a message that we are trying to communicate in our work, then it must be that there are no absolutes. That many things in life are often both happy and sad, meaningful and shallow, beautiful and ugly, painful and pleasurable. Perhaps ultimately, we are seeking for a kind of balance. To see beauty in ugliness, to find tenderness in violence, etc. Mind you, this is as much a lesson for ourselves as it is for our audience. We have a lot to learn from our own games.
BT: Though we felt there were some parts of The Path that were clearly trying to communicate certain ideas, there were others that left us confused – like the room in Grandmother's house with all the jars on the floor. Were we missing something there, or do some sections of the game deliberately go off-message?
ToT: Everything in the game was intended to be confusing and vague. Nothing was deliberately clear. Anything that seemed clear to you was only so because of you, not because of us. You gave those things meaning, not us.
This doesn’t mean that we fill the game world with random elements. Quite the contrary. We tried to put elements in the game that are extremely rich in meaning. That can symbolize many - sometimes even contradictory - subjects. We deeply believe that the everyday language we use in conversation severely limits our perception of reality and forces us to think in oppositions that do not exist, or would not exist without language. Our artistic “language” is a vehicle that allows us to talk about things that cannot be captured in words.
The jars on the floor could have been better executed. They do refer to a few specific narrative elements (and to an analogue work of art we had made years ago), but it would be unfair to talk about this now and to rob people of their own interpretations.
BT: There were certain aspects of the game that drew a lot of scorn, mainly the fact that the girls all walk so slow. Can you explain the specific reason you built the game this way, and how important you think these bits are?
ToT: The girls walk so slow because this is how Laura Raines Smith has animated them. Their speed is absolutely normal. Perhaps in other games, characters walk unnaturally fast. And maybe that improves gameplay, but fidelity was more important to us.
The relative slowness also forces you to pay attention to the walking itself, and to get lost. It forces you to spend more time with the girls, instead of using them merely as a vehicle for navigating through the world. They are not meant to be a substitute for a cursor arrow. They are actresses, in a way. See them as real one moment and the digital fabrications they are the next. It is an interactive theatre. We consider the feeling of the girls walking, and even standing still, to be at least as important as any of the interactions.
Tale of Tales: The main reason why we use the interactive medium for our work is that it allows us to present concepts without having to choose a point of view. We often don’t have a fixed opinion about things or we consider our own opinion not more important than that of the viewer.
That said, we do think that certain ideas are worth thinking about. If there is a message that we are trying to communicate in our work, then it must be that there are no absolutes. That many things in life are often both happy and sad, meaningful and shallow, beautiful and ugly, painful and pleasurable. Perhaps ultimately, we are seeking for a kind of balance. To see beauty in ugliness, to find tenderness in violence, etc. Mind you, this is as much a lesson for ourselves as it is for our audience. We have a lot to learn from our own games.
BT: Though we felt there were some parts of The Path that were clearly trying to communicate certain ideas, there were others that left us confused – like the room in Grandmother's house with all the jars on the floor. Were we missing something there, or do some sections of the game deliberately go off-message?
ToT: Everything in the game was intended to be confusing and vague. Nothing was deliberately clear. Anything that seemed clear to you was only so because of you, not because of us. You gave those things meaning, not us.
This doesn’t mean that we fill the game world with random elements. Quite the contrary. We tried to put elements in the game that are extremely rich in meaning. That can symbolize many - sometimes even contradictory - subjects. We deeply believe that the everyday language we use in conversation severely limits our perception of reality and forces us to think in oppositions that do not exist, or would not exist without language. Our artistic “language” is a vehicle that allows us to talk about things that cannot be captured in words.
The jars on the floor could have been better executed. They do refer to a few specific narrative elements (and to an analogue work of art we had made years ago), but it would be unfair to talk about this now and to rob people of their own interpretations.
BT: There were certain aspects of the game that drew a lot of scorn, mainly the fact that the girls all walk so slow. Can you explain the specific reason you built the game this way, and how important you think these bits are?
ToT: The girls walk so slow because this is how Laura Raines Smith has animated them. Their speed is absolutely normal. Perhaps in other games, characters walk unnaturally fast. And maybe that improves gameplay, but fidelity was more important to us.
The relative slowness also forces you to pay attention to the walking itself, and to get lost. It forces you to spend more time with the girls, instead of using them merely as a vehicle for navigating through the world. They are not meant to be a substitute for a cursor arrow. They are actresses, in a way. See them as real one moment and the digital fabrications they are the next. It is an interactive theatre. We consider the feeling of the girls walking, and even standing still, to be at least as important as any of the interactions.
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