The Path Turns Beta

January 8th, 2009, 17:27 Posted By: wraggster

After two and a half years of intense work, Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn release a sigh of relief: their little baby is ready to see the light of day. The Path is a gloomy interactive exploration in realtime 3D of the fairy tale of Little Red Ridinghood set in the present day. And now, just as the new year has begun, the production has achieved beta stage. A release date will be revealed soon.

"We have not fully recovered from those final six months of crunching yet. But when we see what we have created, we can't help but feel pride and joy. We live together as a couple, and we work together day in and day out. Long days, working until the small hours, for months and months on end. We wouldn't recommend it. And we may never do it again. But we have done it now! And we are glowing like fresh parents: The Path is great and wonderful! Anyone who disagrees is dead."

The first time The Path was introduced to the public was at the Game Developers Conference of 2007, when a teaser video was released. One year later, a "vertical slice" playable demo of the game was selected for the Independent Games Festival 2008 -and another videoclip was released, containing gameplay footage. The following nine months -briefly interrupted by the release of the controversial art/non-game The Graveyard- were dedicated to expanding the demo to a full game, with the aid of animator Laura Raines Smith, composer Jarboe, sound designer Kris Force and technical artist Hans Zantman.

In the mean time, fabulous graphic designer Marian Bantjes created a new hand-drawn logo, which is being revealed now to celebrate the occasion. You'll find a desktop wallpaper with the new logo and an animated version on the game's website. http://Tale-of-Tales.com/ThePath Expect more graphics to be revealed throughout the month.

Further progress in the production -we're not entirely done yet- continues to be reported on in the development journal: http://Tale-of-Tales.com/ThePath/blog

The Path is being created with the support of Creative Capital, Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds, the Flemish Authorities, Villanella and Design Vlaanderen.

Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn have been working together since 1999, when they met in an online artists community and promptly decided to merge their lives and businesses (entropy8.com and zuper.com became entropy8zuper.org -as was the style of the times). Auriea left New York to live with Michael in Belgium, from where they still run their global operations. In 2003, the couple swapped web sites for video games as their primary artistic medium and founded Tale of Tales. Their main game projects are 8, a unreleased dreamy exploration game based on Sleeping Beauty, The Endless Forest, a multiplayer screensaver in which you play a deer, and The Graveyard, a very short game about an elderly lady who visits a cemetery (nominated for Innovation in this year's Independent Game Festival). Now joined by The Path, their biggest project to date.

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