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Video and computer games have quickly become an influential form of popular entertainment. And artists Auriea Harvey and her longtime collaborator Michaël Samyn, the duo behind the independent computer game development studio Tale of Tales, are redefining games as a fresh, timely art form.

Harvey, the recipient of a Creative Capital grant, and Samyn call their project, The Path, a “short game,” since it doesn’t require a player to spend 50 hours completing all levels, as many popular console games for the Xbox or Sony PlayStation do. The contained scope and stylized graphics of The Path suggest a dramatic indie short film rather than the epic Hollywood-blockbuster style of video games like Call of Duty. The loose plot transposes the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood into a contemporary narrative. Above all, it’s intended to provide an atmospheric, immersive experience.

Although the plotline is ostensibly familiar, the game play is intentionally counterintuitive. For one thing, the game is “won”—though there’s no reward or point system—when a player’s avatar, or onscreen alter ego, dies. This dark plot twist reduces the competitive pressure, encouraging players to freely explore the game’s exquisitely rendered environments.

To begin, a player chooses an avatar from six different “red girls”—modern incarnations of Little Red Riding Hood. There are also six wolves—two of them fantasy creatures and the others “men up to no good,” as their creators describe them. Set in an apartment building within a generic metropolis, the story starts with Red’s mother asking her to run an errand, which brings her to her grandmother’s rural home. As in the traditional fairytale, Red wanders off-path—and that’s the point. As a player in this game, “you only have fun by not obeying the rules,” say Harvey. “You succeed by failing.” By the time Red arrives at her grandmother’s house—rendered here in a labyrinthine layout that echoes the mazelike environments in many popular video games—her run-in with the Wolf has led to one of several possibile outcomes, including murder.

Harvey and Samyn deliberately chose a pre-existing story to draw parallels between the past narrative tradition of oral folk- and fairytales and the modern video game. Both share the characteristic of unpredictable, inconsistent endings, although a main storyline remains intact with each retelling or new game-play session.

The overall tone of The Path, which Harvey and Samyn characterize as a “horror-survival game,” is intentionally eerie. Rather than popular tension-filled video games such as Halo, the duo finds inspiration in the work of Alfred Hitchcock and other cinematic masters of suspense. No graphic violence is depicted; as in Hitchcock’s films, it’s implied. And as in other classic horror titles, such as The Omen (1976), theatrical music becomes a key element in setting the dark mood.

It should be pointed out that Harvey and Samyn aren’t simply modifying an existing game. They’re writing the software code that powers _The Path_’s interactive engine, which determines each plot twist and furthers the action via complex algorithms. They’re also crafting original 3-D computer-generated graphics that lend a fresh, updated look and feel to an urban Little Red Riding Hood. In his many manifestations, the Wolf resembles archetypal predatory male characters, such as a dangerously handsome Casanova figure.

Harvey and Samyn expect to have The Path ready in 2008. When completed, the game will be distributed and sold on the Tale of Tales website, www.tale-of-tales.com (and possibly other online gaming sites, too). There, it can be downloaded and played on personal computers. Harvey and Samyn see the project as pushing the boundaries of not only video games, but contemporary art—to the point that the boundaries between the fields also blur. “Our medium is real-time 3-D graphics,” says Samyn. “And our work is always collaborative,” adds Harvey. “It’s collaboration not only between us, but also with the player.”

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