You’re invited to take 6 sisters through the path to “Grandmother’s house” (1 at a time, in any order), interpreting the Brothers Grimm’s classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The first thing you’re told is to “stay on the path”, what where’s the fun in that?! And this is of course, the juice of the game. And, my friends, is it ever juicy! Indeed you’ll encounter many things, which will make our girls say a little poetic comment about and, if all goes well (or not, actually), you’ll find the Big Bad Wolf, unique to each girl (as are also certain places and objects). After you find your Wolf you’ll wake up, frail, on the ground outside Grandma’s house. Within you’ll explore various rooms until you revisit your apparent “demise”. What makes the experience so incredibly brilliant is in fact how due to the subjective nature of the tale and the ethereal feel of the game’s environment&atmosphere&direction, your imagination and interpretative skills are given free pass to conjure up what is REALLY happening to these girls and what they are actually seeing and doing. Filling food for thought which I have to say I had seldom been given in this medium.
Common to all 6 sisters is another girl, dressed in white, who usually takes us back to the path (& thus out of harm’s way) and is an almost omniscient presence in the forest. You also get to play as her in the concluding epilogue chapter. All in all this game has become one of my favourites, on the same pedestal as SotC and Shenmue and definite GOTY (MW2?! Hah!). A true mind-boggler that made me go “Oh my God…” every two steps, as our little girls braved through this most metaphysical of forests. It certainly conjured up feelings like a VG had never done to me, and on an artistic level reaches for a very ambitious place. A true beacon for indie game mentality.
Originally published December 2, 2009
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