I thought it was awesome. Very daring to try to take the interactive experience into such a quiet and contemplative place. I loved the birds, the light, the music, the overlapping viewpoints.
I only wish that I had been able to look around and explore a bit more.
Like the others, I’m not inclined to spend $5 just to watch her die. An unlocked exploration mode (perhaps without the old lady) would be a welcome added feature.
The videos on your site for The Path look really interesting as well. Is that a Unity project or are you using a different engine?
You can sit her down on the bench? I couldn’t figure out how to do that. I backed her up to the bench, but she didn’t sit down.
And I am getting a really tired feeling when thinking of walking all that way again
About what constitutes a game:
There is no competition in this game, but you can play without competition, as long as there is a difference in volition betwwen the player and the game. The example here being, that I, the player, want to explore and get to the bench,
but the decrepit old body, that the game lets me control, doesn’t seem to want to get there as fast as me.
It was Chris Crawford’s book “Understanding Interactivity” that made me aware of this and many other interesting aspects of play.
The Path is being developed with Quest3D. So sadly, there will not be a Mac version. It’s too complex a project for us to develop in Unity (We’re not programmers and the visual programming interface of Quest3D allows us to create much more sophisticated things than the scripting interface in Unity allows for).
I have noticed this too during development. But not so much lately. What machine were you using?
I like it. It is interesting. I have a couple constructive criticisms:
Maybe it was only the demo, but it seemed to me that I had very few options to explore. I could walk down the path to a bench, but if I veered too far left or right I ws leaving the scene. I’d prefer more options.
Only one place to sit and witness her life story music video was disappointing too. Again maybe this was just the demo, but I think an old woman visiting a graveyard would have much more to reminisce about and more places to do it than just that bench.
Otherwise the concept and execution are excellent. I like where you are going with this.
I second that. Places, sensations and impressions trigger memory. Why not extend the number of triggers and perhaps randomise them a bit? For instance the birds could perhaps remind the woman of a sunny summer experience whilst a name on a tombstone / a stone figure or a flower could remind her of something different.
The simple reason why there is not more content in the game is because we wanted it to be small (and thus require a low production budget and short production time). But I also find it an interesting experiment in minimalism. To see how little is required to create an experience that people still enjoy. (Or maybe to learn that such minimalism is not a good idea.)
We consider our work to be a long term process. The Graveyard is just one step in this process. The best we can hope for is that it inspires other designers. There’s a lot of work still to be done.
I agree that the suggested alternate directions could be interesting, but also wish to add that the current Graveyard scene is a reflection of the artists, and I’d rather we consider it as such; personally, I think it’s great exactly how it is.
Sure things might be different, but would you want to put back the arms on Venus De Milo because she looks funny without them? Make Mona Lisa’s smile more obvious instead of cryptic? These are silly examples, sure, but the point is; to appreciate something, the barrier is not always in the work… but in ourselves
It would be different if there were glaring quality issues that harm the experience, but that obviously isn’t the case here. ‘Simplicity’ doesn’t always mean ‘un-interesting’ or that the work can’t stand on it’s own for what it is.
I think to really see innovation in interactive projects, we need to change our expectations and definitions of what is possible; not just wait to be “wowed by” / “get hit over the head with” some marginal new technology factor or super-polished version of an old idea. Unless you just love more derivative work / clones?
Looks like you spoke too soon Jessy! Granted, it’s perhaps not the best example in the world, but the point remains. The work should be considered as a whole regardless of what we think is missing.
In the case of Aphrodite, sure any sculptor could restore the arms, but why hasn’t it been done? Because it exists on it’s own…
Just as Graveyard exists on it’s own, and is obviously not the work of an unskilled amateur; suggesting that we’re losing something if we try to shape it into something else, rather than consider it as it exists.
I think The Graveyard could use a little more. I like what’s there, but I think the visuals are too static during the song. I’m not suggesting any more exploration possibilities. Going off the path results in such a terrible experience, I recommend not allowing it to begin with.
The Venus is incomplete. The arms weren’t put back on because it would be a fallacy. It’s the same reason it hasn’t been repainted. Nobody knows how to properly recreate it. When we have a method to create a wormhole, travel very far away, and use a super-powered telescope when there to look “back in time” at Earth, then yes, I’m sure we will have a perfect recreation of the work, using some sort of more powerful 3D printer, to go alongside the original relic.
Something was familiar to me about your design style, but I didn’t think much about it. This morning I found myself thinking about some websites I liked in the late 90’s when I was learning web design myself - which is not something I normally think about. And then like a bolt of lightning, your name, “Zuper”, made it clear why I was thinking about some old NYC style websites.
You are the team of Entropy8 and the like. I very much look forward to seeing more of your work.
Thank you. And they are sending an amazing amount of people our way. It’s funny. This is not the first time they reported on our work. But we’ve never seen so much traffic coming from them. I guess Wired readers like little old ladies. On Easter Sunday.
Indeed! I’m a proud half Entropy8Zuper!, the “merger” of entropy8.com (Auriea Harvey) and zuper.com (me, Michaël Samyn). But we’ve been focusing on games for a few years now, with Tale of Tales.
It took me until this morning to put that together. I am very glad that you’ve shown up here. I think it was ten years ago when I first saw Auriea’s work.
I hope you find Unity to your liking and are active in this forum. I am only a hobbyist and thus contribute very very little here, but I do enjoy seeing the creative energy of the likes of you and Auriea. And that you would be using the same tools is inspiring somehow. Hopefully inspiring enough to get me to finish a project of my own someday afterwork…
Anyhow, the Graveyard is interesting. I would like more depth to the interactivity, but the quality of the execution is great and the mood expressed through the aesthetics is well developed.
If you don’t mind -and only in the spirit of encouragement- I’d like to point out a contradiction between these two things. The latter may be the reason for the former…
We have a motto: “It’s better to make something than nothing”. A very simple statement, but it has helped us a lot since we started working in this medium. Interactive 3D is so much work, that you need to choose very carefully where you put your time. Especially when your team is small and your budget is limited. We have learned -by failing first- that it often boils down to the choice between making something minimal and making nothing at all.
Yes, I understand and I appreciate the encouragement. In my own work I certainly don’t shoot for the stars. The problem is that this stuff is a hobby and so the rest of my life leaves only a few hours of freetime a week to work on this stuff.
Unfortunately due to my extremely limited schedule, I tend to have false assumptions that other teams doing this stuff have plenty of time to get their own projects done. I apologize if my suggestions were unrealistic.
You’re not wrong. We have no free time.
Thanks to arts funding and the support of some festivals, we have been able to work on game projects full time for a few years now. But we still don’t have enough time…
