I agree with you; it's more of an 'experience' than a game. Though there's still enough of a game to classify it as such.

I've been out all day and The Path has been in my thoughts most of the time, which hasn't happened since... hmm... Pathologic

[Also, on a really weird note: I was walking home tonight. It was dark and, as always, I had to cross over a long red brick path that goes through a wooded area, with trees on either side. Tonight, I saw that someone had written a chalk message on the path: 'NO WAY BACK' and underneath 'OK DIE.' I've crossed that path thousands of times over the years and never seen any graffiti there before. Very strange...]

Wow. After playing through two scenarios in The Path, I thought I had it figured out.

Now I've played 4 out of 6 and I don't have it figured out at all

I will say this, though:

I was wrong when I said it's more of an experience than a game. It's definitely a game, and I'm really excited by the ways in which it innovates with both storytelling and interactivity.

*Rolls up sleeves*

Right, I'm getting this now.

Ouch. Had to stop playing. I could almost handle the very low framerate, but constant audio stutter drove me insane.

Do they use own game engine?

I just did a quick Google search, and it seems they used Quest3D.

Sorry to hear that, Yakjazz. What's your PC spec (and are you using integrated sound and/or video)? I don't have a monstrous machine, but it runs fine for me. I just checked the game's support forum. Not much useful info that I could see there, except the game wasn't tested with Vista 64 bit. Also, make sure you're running it from the game's shortcut, not clicking on the EXE. And mess around with the in-game settings as much as possible.

I'm on a lappy right now, so maybe my sound and graphics are integrated. I've tried to put all of the game settings on minimum, but it doesn't make any difference. If I leave the path then I get a frame rate of less than 1 per second, especially if I approach another character.

Windows XP
Intel T2300 @ 1.66 GHz (2 CPUs)
1GB RAM
GeForce Go 7400

This is what DXDiag is telling me anyhow. I'll be able to fix my desktop pc in a few months, so I might save The Path until then. It's just frustrating because over the last few days I've warmed to it, and this laptop can easily handle Half-Life 2 and Doom 3.

I read something on the forums about integrated sound/graphics not working well with 'The Path' so it sounds like you'll have to wait and try it on your desktop machine... I'm impressed that the laptop is fine with those other games, though. The GeForce Go must be pretty damn good.

Yes, I was impressed too actually. I suppose I let my expectations get the better of me.

I guess I've found another incentive to get my PC fixed. I also can't write any decent music on this lappy.

Well, I hope you enjoy the game when you get to it. It's all about your own interpretation of it. It makes you think, and that's an incredibly rare thing in videogames.

(Btw, I waited for months to play Cryostasis, bought it on the day of release, then found it was almost unplayable on my system (that managed to handle Crysis pretty decently). So I'm now waiting for the devs to release the performance-enhancement patch they promised )

It's definitely one of those games where you can take your time or rush through it, whatever you prefer. But going slower, you can get much more enjoyment out of it.
There's a whole heap of interpretations going on in their own forums at the moment.
Just wait until you get to the end of it all. You'll probably change your opinion all over again.

Hehehe, I finished it last night. I've got plenty of my own ideas about it, but I want to play it again, try some different things and find the last few objects I missed.

It's a fascinating game

I'll probably try it after I'm through Valkyrie Profile: Covenenat of the Plume.

I'm going to buy this right now!

Oh, my! Finaly got it. It's absolutely orgasmic!!!

60/10! Ten for each girl. My innards fail to understand how they managed to deliver THIS in only 450 megabytes! I wondered around the enwironment for 2 hours collecting butterflies and it was so ecstatic as if I were the girl myself.

Many folks complain about performance. Personally I have no such issues, everything runs smothly like I'm inside a movie. My rig: athlon 4800+, 2 gig ram, 512 mb geforce 8800GT, Windows Seven built 7057.

I'm deeply impressed and all the scepsis I had before seeing the game with my own eyes vanished for good. This game is a musthave, if not to enjoy it then to see that the games can be made with an absolutely alternative formula, that the the games can be art... and maybe a little bit entertainment at the same time.

I'm really glad you like it so much Yeah, it runs fine for me on my Pentium 4 My opinions on it kept changing the more I played. I had more 'revelations' and theories as it went on. I'm on my second playthrough at the moment - I just found the final item, and I'm really excited to see the changes it will make to a certain character's story.

Just played through my first chapter, as the little girl, and so far I like it quite a lot. Visually and aurally impressive with a nice meditative pace to the gameplay which is unfortunately slightly marred by the sometimes clunky controls.

I will say however, and this might ruffle a few feathers, that the slow walk to grandmas was more than a little tedious. I lap up stuff like Tarkovsky and Kubrick et al so have no problems with slower-paced entertainment but I felt that this was more of an obviously self conciously 'arty' move on the developers part. I do suspect however that in subsequent chapters this part may perhaps work better since I will have more to ponder and think about, much like how the long walks in Pathologic never bothered me at all since my head was always buzzing. The FPP section in the house creeped me out though!

I must also protest the whole 'games/art' argument that often appears around games like these. Not to take anything away from the artistic achievement here but why does it always have to be 'serious' and abstract before people start going on about art? Can not something as delightful as 'World Of Goo' be considered art? I am sure most of you will say yes but it just gets to me sometimes that people often have this very narrow view when it comes to 'art'.

The games/art debate is really boring, particularly as my opinion is much like yours: I think 'art' can be anything that is aesthetically pleasing, interesting, stimulating, provokes thought or is basically the product of creativity. So... pretty much anything. Another definition I like is 'The moment something goes beyond its pure practical usage - it becomes art.'

I think most, if not all, games qualify as art. And that can include modern FPSs with dumb gameplay as well as ancient relics from the Atari 2600 era

Do you have the courage or baldness to face your wolf?

Finished it last night and my thoughts below:

Visually and aurally the game is very well realised and both elements combine to create a very unsettling atmosphere. The writing is generally pretty good, although I was certainly rolling my eyes at some of the immature cynicism but that is perhaps the intented response for some of the characters. Of particular note is the writing for the youngest character, Robin. I really felt they nailed the child world view and it was a delight to play as her.

I quite liked the variation on the 'wolves', with Ruby's being quite brilliantly realised and a moment that I'm not likely to forget, and the FPP trips though grandmas house where well done also . I found the overall the themes of growing up and it's various stages quite affecting even though they are often from strongly female prespective. In some small ways I felt I even came to some understanding of certain things that perhaps I hadn't before.

However the game has some slightly clunky controls and collision detection problems. I really don't know why they didn't go for the more conventional control scheme. The game is also undeniably boring at times, the painfully slow walks to grandma's house being notable examples, and the RPS review sums this up better than I could: I think 'Pathologic', for example, does a much better job of sustaining your interest during the slower parts of the game.

I also think that the idea is perhaps streched to thinly and some of the girls could have perhaps been cut or combined. The criticism of games and their trappings, eg the collectable flowers, seems out of place and to be honest quite condescending to the player. Once again I think 'Pathologic's meta-narrative about games works much much better.

All in all a very good game that goes into some interesting places, and well worth the 10 or so dollars I payed for it, but I think it's obvious self-importance prevents it from being a great one.

I've been sitting on the fence on this one, and since the demo was released a few days ago, I decided to try it out.

OMG is what I have to say.

Never ever have I had such feeling of being lost and lonely and I love it!

The sounds and ambiance are all top notch and I'm very impressed. Such cold lonely world, variation of light mood and sounds. The feeling of lost and angst ripping through me had me hooked on the demo for a least an hour and not more since I had work today.

Insta buy last night though

I'm really happy to hear that. I loved the game, but I thought the demo was a poor advertisement for it, because they stripped out nearly all of the interactivity!

Well I think they were trying to achieve an ambience demo, which works well for suckers like me

The lonely, melancholy feeling of the woods is quite remarkable. And if you enjoyed the demo that much, you'll love the game