Small game studio releases The Path horror game

It’s always surprising to see indie developers pull off games that require heavy investment. Today,  Belgium-based game studio Tale of Tales is announcing that it has released its original horror game, The Path, for download on the Internet.

The game is available for $9.99 on download site Direct2Drive or Steam. The game itself is not really unique. But it’s interesting that this small studio created a very serious game project after more than two years of work. You don’t see that kind of ambition every day. The company chronicled its endeavor here.

The title refers to the path to grandmother’s house in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, according to designers Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn. That’s the path you’re not supposed to stray from for fear of meeting the wolf. In the game, six sisters live with their mother in a city apartment. One by one, they go on errands to their grandmother’s house. Alone on the path, they’re tempted to stray into the dark forest. But there’s always some kind of wolf in the woods.

The game isn’t focused on violence. Rather, it’s an introverted, slow-paced game with a story that hooks you. The player has a lot of freedom to explore the game world, without a directed path, despite the name.

Harvey and Samyn (pictured) have another game, The Graveyard, that has been nominated for best innovation at the Independent Game Festival awards being held at Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week.  The two developers have been working together for 10 years. A team of five freelancers helped the pair put the game together.

The game production was financed by Creative Capital, the Flemish Authorities, Flanders Audiovisual Fund, Design Flanders, CultuurInvest and Villanella. Here’s a trailer to the game.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.