Straying From The Path

The first assignment has begun and before I can create concepts, I've been looking at various games that relate to the idea of a twisted fairytale. The idea is to take a well known folk story or fairytale and use inspiration to turn it into something that resembles a twisted version of it through a game, trailer, cutscene.

A Wolf among us, created by Telltale games (based on a comic originally) uses this idea of modernizing characters from old tales and putting them together in a city where they have to use a potion called Glamour to keep themselves looking like a regular human or "mundies" as in mundane. That, or they are sent to "the farm". This game sets itself apart from most games in this topic of Fairytales. Fairytales usually come with the assumption of medieval type fantasy whereas The Wolf Among Us is set in a modern world with modern services, law, societies and realistic interaction between characters.

 Tale of Tales have created the game "The Path" which follows six sisters who are visiting their grandmother. On the way, they are to follow a path but the aim of the game is to ignore the instruction and explore the forest anyway. The Path disappears the further you run into the forest and for each sister, there is a threat or a "wolf". For example, one of the sister meets a young man in the woods and shares a drink with him before she meets her demise. Some people think that each sister represents a stage in a young woman's life and the dangers they encounter.

similarly, the story of Alice in Alice, Madness Returns, Depicts Alice as suffering from madness and being taken advantage of by people who otherwise seem harmless and for the most part helpful. She switches between reality and a disturbing dream like state where her subconscious is leading her to an important truth. Though a fairly charming game, the story at heart is disturbing. The only problem I have with this game however is that Alice, the main character is difficult to relate to and has little development throughout the game. She is formal, uninteresting and hardly likeable.