The Path

It's just a game that I got super into during middle school (though maybe considering some of the content within the game maybe I should not have), that's left a very strong impression on me that lasts even to today.

I guess the best comparison is that this game Haunts me the way that one rabbit toy continues to Haunt Rebecca Sugar

It's also on the verge of becoming lost media because it was made on Quest 3D game engine. The engine that's so old that these days it really can't be played on a good chunk of newer computers. It's a fascinating example of the problem of computers developing in such a way that the older stuff of older computers is no longer comprehendable to the newer things, or at least not without either recoding it on a newer engine like unity or developing an emulator / virtual machine to play the game from within.

It's main websites are Here and Here, and Tale of Tales also made Livejournals for the cast, which in hindsight is a neat way to be multimedia with a videogame. Granted this was before things like ARG's became popular so while you can get character insight, it's not like you're going to find any secrets in there that wouldn't be uncovered in the base gane.

The plot synopsis

It is a simple enough game. As a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, the objective is rather simply "Go to Grandmother's house, and Stay On The Path". You can do that, and it's a very droll walk and a rather quick little jaunt that is one straight and boring line.

It should be obvious, but the more interesting things can be found off the path. For better or worse, there's much to be found if you break the one suggestion the game has. You can find many little "attractions" of sorts to poke around in, as well as collectable items and things. Who knows, you might find something out there.

The Cast

You've got a cast of seven playable characters to Peruse, and the game is at least somewhat of a character study in of these characters given that they will comment on anything you find, and each one will have different commentary on the items.

1. Robin - "Kid Red" the Youngest of the sisters, she is the most optimistic of the bunch, clocking in at 9 years old. She loves to have Fun and Play! Her Livejournal is here!

2. Rose - "Innocent Red" Considered to be a Old soul in a young body, she is still quite naive and innocent like Robin, but also mature for her age. She's a firm believer of the goodness and beauty of nature. Her Livejournal is here!

3. Ginger - "Tomboy Red", a rough and tumble 13 year old who isn't quite in a rush to grow up though she's toeing the line. Likes to be a Loner and loves things that aren't "girly". Her Livejournal is here!

4. Ruby - "Goth Red", she's pretty much an open book (though she's loathe to admit that). She's 15, and is going through the motions and the Goth phase(?) and struggles with wanting to fit in, yet wanting to stand out, alongside dealing with the Leg Brace and all the baggage that the brace seems to carry. Her Livejournal is here!

5. Carmen - "Party Red", the second oldest. Perhaps it's just injecting my own opinions on her and how her route goes but I quite dislike the moniker of "Sexy Red". That being said, this 17 year old simply can't wait to be an adult and is more than aware of her beauty (and isn't afraid of using it). Ultimately all she's looking for is love and Attention. Her Livejournal is here!

6. Scarlet - "Stern Red" The Oldest of the Lot is 19 and is the one tasked for looking after her younger siblings with her Mother / Parents being perpetually not in the picture (though we do know they have at least a parent given how else are they related to grandmother?). She's abandoned her youth to look after the rest and feels rather aloof to things. Her Livejournal is here!

Other

There is a rumor that i've yet to really confirm, is that if you can get behind grandmother's house and just keep walking forward you can find a patch of light, and this is distinct from the patch with a scarecrow on it. This is hard to confirm though I am likely going to attempt to confirm or not due to the nebulous nature of navigating the woods once you leave the path. It's surprising that nobody's gotten any good screenshots of it, so if I do actually find it, I'll post the findings here.

It's also rather unfortunate that due to the lack of any sort of documentation or preservation on Quest3D Games it's hard to actually rip the models or textures or really anything from the game. The only people with the technical know-how at this point would be the developers themselves as shown through the fact that they're re-porting The Endless Forest to modern PC's and were able to rip most of the stuff from the old iteration of that game to put into the new game without having to remake everything from scratch. And not for lack of trying, it genuinely just uses tools that are so outdated that you can't really do it on windows (or at least probably without having something on windows 7 or earlier)

Well, why did / do you enjoy it?

A fair question given that these days i'm not all that big on Tale of Tales after their big twitter blowout, and them coming back with the attitude of "oh well all these NFT people are so nice much nicer than the mean stinky gamers we absolutely still mean what we said with our chests and don't regret saying what we did we're still auteurs (: ".

I guess at this point for the nostalgia of it. I got super into it in Middle school (perhaps not that great given the nature of Carmen's chapter), but I was more taken in by all the people doing literature reads on the game as a piece of media. I loved it at the time all the critical thought getting thrown around in the few avenues there were for discussing the games. I remember someone trying to string some reading along for Rose involving the fact that a bedpost whacks her at the end of her run if you do find her wolf and what that really means about her as a character. Discussions like that are what drew me to the game as a piece of media, the fact that the devs at the time absolutely encouraged this kind of discussion made a lot of folk really start picking at it as a metaphor rather than a literal piece. And a lot of it was trying to reach deeper meaning than the very shallow reading the devs pushed of "well to grow up you must break rules and suffer the consequences, growing up into womanhood is at least somewhat inherintly full of only suffering".

That, and like I mentioned earlier, for some reason the game's had a wildly profound effect on me in that it weirdly haunts my subconscious and has for a long time, like Rebecca Sugar and that damnable rabbit toy they lost once upon a time.