Far and away one of the most interesting LRRH-themed games I've heard about is Tale of Tales'
The Path, due for release next year. From the official website:
The Path is a short horror game with a unique form of gameplay, designed to immerse you deeply into the dark themes of its story. Every interaction in the game expresses an aspect of the narrative.
There is one rule in the game. And it needs to be broken.
There is one goal. And when you attain it, you die.
Obviously I can't speak on the quality of the finished product, but based on the concept alone this seems like a fascinating game: a perfect example of form mirroring content. As the title illustrates, the game focuses primarily on what path you take through the forest and what choices you, as Little Red Riding Hood(s) make whilst inside. Video games have a complicated relationship with free will and determinism: the player has the illusion of choice, but is really very constricted by both the limiting path mapped out by the game and by the limited grammar of the game's construction, preventing one from truly doing whatever one wants.
The Path exploits this idea, relating it back to the way in which fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood operate. The game not only reflects events within the classic tale - Red's choice of the path of needles or the path of pins, the way her mother advised or the way the wolf dares her to travel - but also highlights the meta-narrative of the tale, the fact that the Little Red Riding Hood story itself is one that can go through countless differing iterations (multiple paths) but ultimately must follow the same basic structure and come to the same (in the game, fatal) conclusion.
The game further illustrates this theme of the similar-yet-different stories through the multiple takes on Little Red Riding Hood herself. The game does not limit itself by having one protagonist - just as there is not one Little Red Riding Hood - but instead features multiple lead characters who seem to be reflections on one another and also representative of the various different ways of presenting individual versions of the tale, from Robin, the kid-friendly one, to Ruby, the more American McGee-influenced one, to the adult Scarlet, no doubt representing versions of the tale that seem to explore a more adult sensibility.
Even the structure of the game seems based around the notion of retelling; a key feature of any notable fairy tale. The same story is told over and over again and yet never told twice.
What's also interesting is of course the way that this game focuses on the importance of audience interaction. Video games are naturally a medium entirely based around the concept of the player becoming an active participant in a story crafted by someone else, but the same can also be said of the way fairytales are told, either with young children becoming active participants in the storytelling (chiming along with repitions of "what big eyes you have," etc.) or with the fact that tale-hearers ultimately become tale-tellers, and interact with and construct variations on the story themselves. In the game, the player not only constructs their own version of the story (again, within set limits), but their actions also manipulate such things as the ambient music, "mixed in real time through in-game activity."
Really though, I could go on about this game for ages. At first glance you may just brush it off as some kind of Fable clone, but that would be doing this game a great disservice. The Path doesn't just feature differing paths towards the same end, but uses those paths and the nature of the game's own construction to make a point about the very essence of fairy tales and oral folk tales (and video games) and the way the same stories can repeat over and over again, throughout various stages in our lives (represented by the differing ages of the Red Riding Hood characters) without ever becoming truly tired or repetitive. And wow, do I love it when form is married together with content.
I will very much be anticipating this game's release, set for Spring 2009 for Windows. Look forward to an update some time after that.
Far and away one of the most interesting LRRH-themed games I've heard about is Tale of Tales' The Path, due for release next year. From the official website:
A rather impressive example of LRRH-themed papercraft from Elsita (via flickr).
Your own tolerance for low-budget European horror may vary from my own, but if you do happen to like that sort of thing, you can do a lot worse than Giacomo Cimini's 2003 gory horror that actually features a great deal of tongue-in-cheek humour, as well as a curious performance from the young girl playing the protagonist.
A Little Red Riding Hood Magic the Gathering card, from a set of other cards based on this tale that are also part of a larger set of cards based upon fairy tales. Please check out the blog "Mazo de Muchas Cosas" for more.
Little Red Riding Hood by The Mico.
I heartily encourage you to check out photographer Sarah Kane's portfolio, which includes a series featuring this rather haunting Red Riding Hood.
Nuno Plati's blog is a great place to check out lots fantastic works from this wonderfully talented artist. Largely, his stuff focuses on American superheroes, and I have to say that I adore his takes on certain popular characters.
American McGee, video game producer and the man behind the wonderfully gothic Alice, is currently in charge of an episodic series of games entitled American McGee's Grimm. The games' premise is a somewhat intriguing one: the player controls "Grimm", a dwarf who must spread a vile and malevolent influence throughout numerous fairytale stories, returning them to their supposedly darker roots, far from the saccharine versions that we know today. The stories range from the well-known, such as Little Red Riding Hood, to certain less famous Grimm brothers tales, such as "The Girl Without Hands".
I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a certain upcoming game for the Nintendo DS, namely: Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ (also starring MomotarÅ from Japanese folklore).
I particularly like the way in which the wolf appears to be constructed out of the very forest itself. The eyes that line up with LRRH's own are also a nice touch.
