A downloadable game for Windows

Curiosity is a desire, a need, or a thirst for knowledge.
Alex Beachum

Every person experiences curiosity in their own way, but how does this sense of curiosity arise?
For human beings, curiosity is a primary need, like eating or drinking, and its purpose is to bridge our uncertainties in order to gain more control over the surrounding environment.

In the book Uncertainty in Games (Costikyan, 2013), uncertainty is described as a strongly negative element in real life (because of its various forms that can complicate people’s lives), yet it takes on a completely different role within videogames.

Due to their closed-system nature, games allow players to experiment without any direct consequences. This nature also gives us, as designers, the freedom to experiment and even to “deceive” the player in many different ways, making their experience unique

The Path is my graduation project for the Level Design specialization. As I have pointed out, curiosity is a state of mind that fascinates me deeply—so much so that I spent this period studying as much as I could to understand it better.
[If I remember, I’ll add the link to the presentation slides, which show all the theory and design behind it.]

The game is a walking simulator, with strong aesthetic and narrative inspiration from Twin Peaks, and with gameplay focused on Curiosity-Driven Exploration. The player takes on the role of an unnamed character who relives certain memories in order to solve an unsolved case. He will wander through Old Town, an older mining city that hides more than it seems, searching for clues that will eventually lead to the solution of the mystery.

That said, I should be upfront: I am neither a programmer nor a writer. Moreover, I didn’t have the opportunity to develop the story more deeply due to limited time. The sole focus of my project was Curiosity-Driven Exploration and its behavioral and level design implications. In the future, I might revisit and expand it—but first, I need to finish the second season of Twin Peaks :)

With that in mind, thank you so much for reading this far and for being willing to try my little prototype.
I hope you enjoy it <3