The Path by Tale of Tales

1) This game is very slow paced
2) Depressing
3) Highly intriguing
4) Not very much action
5) Unconventional

When I first heard about this game coming out I was very excited. I thought that the Little Red Riding Hood story would be a great thing to expand upon. I really enjoyed what American Megee did with Alice and was hoping to see the same sort of treatment in The Path. What I got after the $9.99 purchase was very different than anything I expected.

The Path begins with the scene of a room with six girls doing various idle activities.
You select one of the girls to play through her story. The room fades out and the intro begins. There is the sound of a bus moving while presumably you are being taken to the edge of town. This takes quite a bit of time, setting the pace for the rest of the experience. Thankfully you have to option of skipping this section by hitting the escape button during this time.

After the intro, the girl you picked will be standing on a path and written instructions come up that tell you to go to Grandmother's house and to stay on the path. These are the only instructions that you are given and the rest is left for you to piece together. For those of you that haven't yet played this game, I don't want to give anything away. Lets just say that The Path begins messing with you right away. It defies preconceived notions of what a game is supposed to be. Many people have even stated that they don't consider The Path to be a game at all but rather an artistic form of expression. I am not about to get in an argument with random strangers over the Internet over such things. I believe that The Path means different things to different people. You'll get out of it, what you put into it.

The Path is very immersing to me. I quickly get lost when I go into the forest and I usually have a good sense of direction. You are forced to explore slowly. When you run, the camera fades back and up so you can't see where you are going or anything important that you may stumble across.
The music also changes into something frightening and odd shapes, whirls and splatters begin appearing on the screen giving a very disconcerting feeling.

The game is very slow paced and obviously designed to be so. This can be frustrating to people who demand instant satisfaction. Lets be honest though, the kind of people who would be interested in this game are the kind of people that probably will appreciate the fact that it's so very different from other games out there.

The Path is called "a short horror game" by Tale of Tales. The horror here is not achieved by having monsters jump out at you or running away for your life. The horror is psychological in that you are driving a little girl towards her fate. While it is your choice to do this, it is necessary in order to complete the experience.

I have attempted to explain this game without giving too much away. I believe it's important for individuals to experience for themselves this unorthodox approach taken by Tale of Tales. I absolutely feel that even though you may not consider The Path to be "fun-filled" or a "game" that people should give it a try. I think it's great that it makes you take a look at and think about yourself. So if you are not afraid of something different and do not cower when it comes time to think; than The Path is definitely worth $10.

As always I welcome your thoughts and opinions in the comment section. Please try to prevent spoilers for those that haven't given this a chance yet.

Free Browser based Video Game -- Civony -- A perspective after 2 days

1) This game is laggy as hell
2) This game is free
3) There are no beautiful models in the game
4) Strangely addicting
5) You must have great patience to enjoy Civony

I was reading something on the web when I ran across a picture of a beautiful girl with a picture of a castle or something behind her.
I thought to myself "hmm some kind of strategy game with hot chicks involved...count me in!"

I clicked on the link and it took me to the start up page for Civony. With expectations of medieval armies and busty wenches I gladly gave them my email address. This is all that is required to start your account and begin play.

I was taken to a city building screen and thought "Wow, that looks a lot like Age of Empires." I only have my memory of AoE to go by as I no longer have that game, but several people were mirroring what I was thinking over general chat. The animations look as if they were ripped straight from AoE.

I dove into the game almost without thinking. I began upgrading and making new structures like any standard RTS. The deviate from the rule being that you can only build or upgrade one thing at a time. Also, the higher the level building you are upgrading, the longer it takes to build each time. This involves a BUNCH of waiting around for stuff to be built. For example: when I first started the buildings were taking anywhere from 45 seconds to 3 minutes to build. Now, if I want to upgrade my castle walls it's going to take 3 hours and 36 minutes.

Resources in the game are Gold, Food, Lumber, Stone and Iron. You begin with a supply of each, with more rolling in all the time. The amount that comes in depends on how many resource gathering nodes you have built and the level you have upgraded them to. When I say "all the time" I mean precisely that. The game is like an MMO in that there is a persistent world where things happen regardless of whether or not you're logged on.

It is a multiplayer game and it throws you randomly onto a large map filled with other kingdoms. You are given a "beginner buff" which makes it so you have seven days where people cannot attack you. You can voluntarily give up this buff and go to war whenever you wish. I have not checked out much of the multiplayer aspect as I am making full use of the time you are given to build yourself up. I will update this post after I have some idea of the multiplayer.

Strangely, I have found this game extremely addicting. I cannot resist the urge to check on my little kingdom. I need to see if my construction is complete and check the levels of my resources. Honestly I've checked on my kingdom no less than 3 times since I began writing this. It's the kind of game you must have patience for. You will not have much instant gratification with this game, but I believe if you take the time, you'll find it to have that odd flavor that truly addicting games have. That "Why do I keep looking at this screen when I should be sleeping?!" voice going off in your head will annoy you almost as much the constant lame question spam coming over the general chat. Seriously people, read the "Quest" tab and it will tell you what you need to do to get started and how to play.

The makers of this game sell "coins" in exchange for real money. These "coins" enhance the game in various ways. You can make your army have more attack power or defensive power for 24 hours, or complete a structure instantly with the coins. I have not found that I wish to throw down my hard earned cash for these little advances yet. The screen they have set up for purchasing the coins is silly. There is a drop down menu for how many USD in exchange for cents Civony game coins. People read "30 USD in exchange for 300 cents Civony game coins". I don't know how successful they are going to be using this terminology.

If you hadn't noticed after the second paragraph I didn't mention hot girls or busty wenches again. It's because after two days of playing I have yet to see ANY picture of ANY female. I have not gotten a queen or anything like that. Some people may be disappointed by the distinct lack of cleavage in the actual game versus what was advertised. I am one of those people, however I will continue to give this game a chance and will write more if people are interested.

Please feel free to use the comments to tell me your impressions of this game. Also feel free to shoot me a mail in game. I am Lord Woozy and play on Server 1