The Path

The Path

Author: nur_ein_tier
codzine@gmail.com
version 1.8
8/7/2009
homepage: 
http://circleofdestruction.net/thepath


========================================================================
Contents
---------------
1. Notes

2. Gameplay/Controls
	-Controls
	-Unlockables and maps
	-Collectible items
	-Rankings

3. Little Red Riding Hood

4.   Ruby 
	-Items
	-Dialogues
	-Wolf & Grandmother's House
	-Ruby's Ravaging

5.   Robin 
	-Items
	-Dialogues
	-Wolf & Grandmother's House
	-Robin's  Ravaging

6.   Ginger
	-Items
	-Dialogues
	-Wolf & Grandmother's House
	-Ginger's Ravaging

7.   Carmen
	-Items
	-Dialogues
	-Wolf & Grandmother's House
	-Carmen's Ravaging

8.   Scarlet
	-Items
	-Dialogues
	-Wolf & Grandmother's House
	-Scarlet's Ravaging

9.   Rose
	-Items
	-Dialogues
	-Wolf & Grandmother's House
	-Rose's  Ravaging

10.   Forest Girl
	-Items
	-Dialogues
	-Wolf & Grandmother's House

11. Analysis of story

12. Grandmother's House

13. Miscellaneous

14. FAQs

15. Thanks

========================================================================

========================================================================

############################# 
1.	NOTES
############################# 

-----------------------------

Version 1.9 1/30/10
I lost a hard drive containing my newer versions of this, so I am redoing
a lot of stuff, had to reinstall the game, etc. More coming soon. Added 
some dialogues and minor things here and there.


#############################
2.	GAMEPLAY/CONTROLS	
############################# 

Objective: "Go to Grandmother's house.
Don't stray from the path!"

There is one rule and you must break it by straying
from the path, though it is possible to go directly to
Grandmother's house. This will get you a failure ending.

Controls are pretty straightforward. You can use the keyboard
or a controller. Since it's mostly a lot of walking forward, I 
prefer using a USB controller. The only other key you will need
to use a lot is the "action" key, which on the keyboard is 
"enter." Space will bring up your items and ESC will give you the
menu, which explains the keys and give you other options for
the display.

-------------------
UNLOCKABLES & MAPS
-------------------

Those symbols on the screen:
The white squiggly lines indicate the direction of the Forest Girl,
who usually hangs around items or locations you want to go to, so 
if you are lost or looking for items, try following her.

Likewise, sometimes tiny items appear on the screen for short periods
of time, and if you follow the direction of these (as if they were the
point of a compass, just turn toward it and run that way) you will
go toward that item. Wolf footprints on the screen mean you're heading
toward the wolf area.

Unlockables: For each girl, there are three unlockable rooms inside
of grandmother's house which will give you more insight into that
girl. You have to visit certain places or collect certain items to
get these. 

After you play through with all girls and start over, it unlocks
a map screen with the control button or one of the gamepad top
buttons. If you can still see the path, all it shows is the start
and grandmother's house; if you are in the woods it shows you
where some of the things are. Important: the map tiles forever. IF
you go off the map, and then check it again, you will notice that
if you went off the bottom of the map, you will now start over at
the top of the map, for example. This is why it's so easy to get
lost: the forest goes on forever in all directions and areas repeat.
Comparing the map screens for different girls, I noticed that
areas are in different places for each girl, so it's not possible
to make a general game map for this, and also it is not really
possible to say where each item is, except by relation to other
items/areas.

I also noticed after I played through once, the rainy walk to grand-
mother's house in the success endings would change slightly: once I
walked the girl to the gate, the game would take over and she would
walk by herself to the house. This is nice because that long walk
is excruciating and this lets you take a bathroom break, take out
the garbage, go shopping, etc. and when you come back, the ending 
will have loaded... Also, after you collect all the items, the girls
walk on their own, without you hitting the forward button, and you 
don't need to steer them at all on the excruciating walk up to the 
fence and to grandmother's house. This is interesting, because while
many games give you "unlockables," this one actually takes control
away from the player after you've unlocked things. Sort of. It's nice
to not have to do that walk though.

It is also worth noting that if you start another game with the same
save, you will keep your items and flowers (the flower don't seem to
do much though) so that you can continue trying to collect everything.

More Coming soon. [For problems getting it to run right, scroll
down to the FAQs section at the end.]

-----------------------------------------------
All collectible items:
-----------------------------------------------

Row 1: bread, wine, knife, bullet, feather, mask
Row 2: dead bird, treasure, hypodermic needle, bear, boot, record
Row 3: Flower, balloon, piano, playground tower, wall, grave
Row 4: grave (open), swing, shopping cart, crow, skull, well
Row 5: fence, tree, shed, wheelchair, pumpkin head, car
Row 6: Fire, beer, bathtub, spiderweb, TV, clothesline

Which items can each girl get? I tried to make a
list but it seems to be different sometimes, I know
that some are available to more than one girl, like
Ruby and Carmen can both get the record. Go to your
basket screen and the ones you can get will have a
shaded background, then compare this with the list
above. The number of items changes also. 

The bread and wine are with you from the beginning, and
there is some overlap in who can collect which of the
other items. Many of the items are just sort of lying around in the
forest and in a different place for each girl, so you have to just
hunt for them. The easiest way to find an item is to follow the white
cloud thing on the edges of the screen as though it were the point of
a compass, keep turning and changing direction until it is at the top
center of the screen, then keep going until you find the Forest Girl,
who usually hovers around items you need. 

Additionally, if you collect five or so flowers, an item will show
up around the edges of the screen also, and you follow this like a 
compass until you locate it. 

Some items are always in the same place, but can only be picked up by
certain girls:

Bullet: at the building facade.
Mask: on the theater stage
Piano: on theater stage
Dead Bird: graveyard
Bear: on playground carousel
Playground tower, swing: in playground.  
Graves: in graveyard
Tree: in graveyard
Shed, fire, beer: campsite
Pumpkin head: the head of the scarecrow in the flower field
Live bird: on/near the edge of the path at beginning

-----------------------------------------------
Rankings:
-----------------------------------------------
The ranking system is a farce. There has been much discussion of this
game as a nongame or parody of games, with all the pointless collecting
and so on, but nowhere is this more evident than in the ranking system.
You have to collect all the shaded items for each girl and get her
special items to unock the rooms in grandmother's house, but some items
aren't available, or you collected them with another girl and can't 
collect them again, etc., so you will pretty much always get a bad score
at the end. The best I've gotten was a "B."

#######################################################################
3.	LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD	
#######################################################################
Clearly this is based on the fairy tale, but which version and to what 
extent? On the website it is said to be based on earlier versions, which
means probably the versions of Perrault and various others. Some of the
others involved the girl finding a wolf and it suggests a race to 
grandmother's house, asking her if she will choose the path of needles 
or the path of pins. This story involves not only the wolf killing and 
impersonating the grandmother, but he also sets out what's left of her 
as food and drink for the girl. The girl comes in, cannibalizes the grand-
mother, then is told to remove her clothing, piece by piece, and toss it 
into the fire. Then she gets into bed with the wolf, remarking that 
he's rather hairy and has big teeth. She saves herself by saying she 
has to go relieve herself outside. Apparently in some areas of France, 
girls were sent to spend time with the local seamstress when they reached 
puberty, as a sort of rite of passage, after which they were allowed to 
see boys and go dancing, etc. and were considered young women rather than 
girls, so the needles/pins bit probably refers to the passage into 
adulthood. The girl escapes, aided by laundresses who stretch a sheet 
over a river, and then cause the wolf to drown. In these versions, the 
girl escapes, though certainly she would've been changed. It is a story 
of rebirth. The sexual implications of the undressing in front of the 
wolf and then climbing into bed are also undeniable. Presumably, the girl 
is now a young woman and is more careful around strangers. 


Charles Perrault's moral at the end of his version:

    "From this story one learns that children, especially 
young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very 
wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard 
thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. 
I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; 
there is one kind with an amenable disposition — neither 
noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and 
gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even 
into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these 
gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous! "

-----------------------

In "Der Wolf und die sieben Geisslein [the Wolf and 
the 7 (Goat)Kids]," there is the similarity of the 
number of children and baby goats/kids, seven and six, 
but the point being in many versions of Red Riding Hood, 
there is only girl. The goats are home alone, and they 
see through the wolf's initial disguise when he knocks, 
because of his voice and the color of his paws. He 
disguises these by eating chalk and puts flour on his 
paws. This time it works, and they let him in. He eats 
all but one (who hid in the clock). The mother returns, 
cutting the wolf open and replacing her children with 
large stones, which later cause the wolf to drown at 
the well. 

-----------------------

How does this all figure into the story? I think that what actually
happens to each girl is open to interpretation, but that the game
generally just represents their passage into adulthood. Something
traumatic happens to each, and from that point on they are changed.

#############################
4.	RUBY
############################# 
-----------------------------
	ITEMS
-----------------------------
-Teddy Bear with 2 Heads - found in the playground
-bullet - near building facade
-money - in a treasure chest
-record - near phonograph
-pumpkin head (on scarecrow)
-car
-knife - in a stump
-playground tower
-----------------------------
	DIALOGUES
-----------------------------

"Engines. And friends. Turn them on. Turn them off. 
Life. Death. Are they so different?"
	[while checking the car]

"The world is a stage. Nothing is what it seems.
Except for nothing itself."
	[in the theater area]

"Don't come close if you want something from me.
Whatever it is, I probably don't have it. Just
leave me alone."
	[while sitting on the couch]

"There's such beauty in decay. Rust is lovelier
than paint. I doubt old age will happen to me."
	[in the playground area]

"Two heads on one bear. Makes sense to me."
	[after picking up bear in playground]

"A scarecrow. And no birds. Efficient! Wish I had
one to keep the idiots away."

"If you give me your head, you will please me so much
more. From a silver platter, I shall eat you!"
	[after taking scarecrow's head]

"Flowers like these only last a short while
after they are picked."

"Cigarettes. I can't believe I have never smoked.
They say it makes your life shorter. I should."

"Guns are just boring. Wish people still fought 
with swords and spears."
	[building facade]

"I prefer my music engraved in black."
	[after picking up record]

"What's the point in wanting anything if you
can't have everything?"
	[after picking up money]

"I must be getting old. It's about time!"

"Men are like motorcycles. You just drive them
where you want to be and then let somebody else
take care of them."

"Sitting on wheels. Paralyzed soul. Nowhere to
go. Fast."
	[wheelchair]

---------------------------------------
	WOLF & GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
---------------------------------------
On the official website, the blurb about Ruby talks about
her being stereotyped as a goth, but all the characters are
more or less stereotypes. I don't mean that in a negative
way, but it seems that each character is not so much a
person as a sort of archetype of a young girl in more
modern times. Judging from the comments she makes about
things and the website, she probably doesn't fit in well
at school and perhaps has a desire to find people who
accept her. Her teddy bear has two heads, which again seems
to show a sort of oddness. She professes a love of rust and
decay and an obsession with death. Her wolf is a blond man she
meets in the playground, and the juxtaposition of the older
guy giving her a cigarette (earlier she had already mentioned
wanting to start smoking because it shortens your life), 
smoking being a more adult pastime which she associates with
death, the man representing both peer pressure and 
relationships, and the fact that this takes place in a play-
ground all show the contrast between youth/innocence/childhood
and death/adulthood/sexuality/decay.

-------------------------
Ruby's Grandmother's house:
-------------------------
SUCCESS ENDING:
-Wall painting: on wall.
-Fridge: closed.
-Table: has knife on it
-Extra rooms: a school gymnasium with a smoking red car
in the corner. You get into an empty birdcage and it crashes
to the ground. Then there is a hall full of lockers and a room
with a tire and some barrels leaking green stuff. The long hall
has some sort of machinery on the walls.
-End room: bed rotating on carousel

-----------------------------
	RUBY'S RAVAGING
-----------------------------
Ruby was the first character I played through the game with, and
after reading so many reviews saying everyone in the game is raped
and then murdered, that was my first thought, too. We see her on a
bench in a remote area with a creepy stranger, then she is unconscious
in the middle of the road. It is easy to come to the conclusion of rape.
I don't think it's that simple though, and the more I think about it, 
the less I think any one specific thing happened to her, but rather,
several possibilities.

There is a lot of car imagery, but then, that goes along with a lot
of the things she comments on also, about men being like motorcycles
and friends being turned on and off like engines, so I'm not sure if the
cars themselves are to be taken literally. In her grandmother's house,
there is a gymnasium with a car that has smoke coming out from under the
hood in the corner. You enter a bird cage and it crashes to the ground.
jarring the player. There is motor-like imagery in the long hallway, and
a hall full of school lockers, perhaps denoting Ruby's attitude toward
school. She seems withdrawn and not very social ("just leave me alone..."),
yet perhaps still wanting to fit in and unable to resist peer pressure
from what appears to be an older guy. The scene with him dragging the
rug is confusing, but it could just be to raise a red flag in the player's
mind that this guy could be trouble. He looks sort of creepy, and offers
her a cigarette before the scene fades out. 

I think in Ruby's case, it was not so much one thing or one experience
with this guy as it is with her taking chances that may lead to her death.
The smoking (crashed?) car, the cigarettes, the strange man in the playground
who may or may not have been dragging a dead body in that rolled up rug. 

All the themes of decay and rust and so on are noteworthy, along with the 
leg brace. Ruby is a pretty young girl, and yet she is damaged: physically, 
because of the leg, and psychologically/emotionally, because she sees decay 
everywhere. The dynamic with the wolf is interesting as well, she does seem 
to have a rebellious side, and there is a seemingly older guy with a cigarette, 
a common stereotypical rebellious situation. Who is he? Doe he represent her 
rebellious side? Is he a guy she is smitten with, perhaps from school, or 
someone she has never met before? The dragging of the rug shows us that he 
is not just some guy with a pack of smokes; he is actually dangerous or 
represents danger. dc hewitt suggests that while she may be pretty and 
young, she is unlikely to see anything positive about herself. She rebels 
and associates herself with people like her wolf. 

#############################
5.	ROBIN
############################# 
-----------------------------
	ITEMS
-----------------------------
-Gravestones - the open grave and one of the others,
you see a cross when you get near them.
-Shopping Cart 
-hypodermic needle
-dead bird - in graveyard, near tree
-money - in treasure chest
-boot


-----------------------------
	DIALOGUES
-----------------------------

"I want to play with a big and cuddly thing."

"Ladies and gentlemen! Children and pets! Come and see
the wonderful circus of Robin the Great!"
	[theater area]

"Wild games are the best! Running and jumping!
And best of all, riding!" 
	[theater area]

"People die. It's hard to imagine for a kid like me.
They die and we put them in the ground. Like flowers."
	[graveyard]

"A young dead bird. Not me."
	[graveyard]

"Dear Lord, please make Heaven a fun place."
	[graveyard]

"Is this the balloon that I lost on my birthday?"
	[after picking up balloon]

"I see a cloud howling at the moon!"
	[at misty lake]

"I'll have to be very careful with this and not run
anymore."
	[after picking up hypodermic needle]

"I see-a-saw. Slide the hide. Go round the merry.
And swing-along."
	[playground]

"Tickles in my belly. Cuddles in the wind."

"Wolves are just dogs. But werewolves are like people."
	[whenever she sits on bench or chair]

"I'm a kid, I'm a kid. And I play and I play, in my little
way! Buy me now at discount prices!"
	[shopping cart]

"Digging in the dirt. Getty dirty nails. Scratching in the 
grave. Dirty dirty dirt."

"Yum! Candy!"

-----------------------------
Robin's dialogue is the most straightforwardly foreshadowing
of all, and shows how innocent and trusting she is. She has
no fear of death, she happily plays in the dirt in the 
graveyard. There is an emphasis on animals, too: wanting to 
play with a big cuddly thing, and she mentions pets also 
should come to see Robin the Great's circus and she 
likes "riding." She likens burial to planting flowers, 
further emphasizing the contrast between these
in the player's mind. She mentions the dead bird, saying 
it is not her, referring to her being named after a bird. 

---------------------------------------
	WOLF & GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
---------------------------------------
Robin's wolf is an actual wolf, or more probably, a 
werewolf, judging by the humanoid movement and size. 
This fits well since Robin looks the most like the 
Red Riding Hood illustrated in most children's books. 
Young and wearing a red hooded cape. While the her 
wolf is a werewolf, it's likely that this isn't to be
taken completely literally either. The website says wolves
are her favorite animals, she talks about wanting to 
play with a big and cuddly thing, and it is likely
that her wolf is some kind of bad experience with
animals. She clearly doesn't fear animals, and this
also implies that she doesn't even have a realistic
fear of animals. Liking animals is one thing, but
she is not aware that she must be careful around
them because they are capable of hurting her. 

To take things further, Robin may not actually have been
mauled by a wolf, but it may just show that she is so 
young and innocent and trusting, that she could easily be
hurt by anything in the outside world. She sees no evil in 
the world. Even in the graveyard, she likens dead bodies
to clowers and says death is hard for her to understand. 
Rather than meditating on death and decay like Ruby might
do, Robin plays happily amongst the tombstones and sees
the wolf as a friendly, cuddly thing. She is vulnerable to
the outside world because she is so trusting, and something
is bound to hurt her or take advantage of that trust.

-------------------------
Robin's Grandmother's house:
-------------------------
SUCCESS ENDING:
-Wall painting: damaged and fallen down.
-Fridge: closed.
-Table: overturned
-Doors: claw marks
Extra rooms: a baby bed which is lit by a spotlight in
an attic (A-frame ceiling), another room past that which
has a rocking chair on top of the room, in the room there
are chairs, presents, balloons, and a cake.
-End room: Full moon, window, bloody bed. Empty grave.

-----------------------------
	ROBIN'S RAVAGING
-----------------------------
Her "ravaging" was turning from a naive and trusting
little girl into a girl who knows that wolves aren't
"cuddly things" and that death is a real danger. She
becomes jaded and untrusting rather than sweet and
innocent.

Despite her being the youngest, I think some of the imagery
in her grandmother's house most strongly correlates with the
theme of growing up: there is the room with the baby bed, 
followed by a room with presents and a birthday cake. Outside
the window is a full moon. What is the bloody bed? One could say
that in LRRH, the hunter cut the wolf's belly open to free the 
girl, but I don't think that's what's necessarily happening here.
Again, if this is a "game about growing up," and all the characters
you play as are girls, maybe it represents sexual maturity. Maybe not
in the sense of Robin, because she is so young, but in the sense of 
all the girls in the game. The blood could also represent childbirth
(in the sense of being a possibility of sexual maturation/adulthood;
I'm not suggesting Robin is pregnant). First we see a baby bed, then
a bed covered in blood next to a grave. There is a theme of babies,
of getting older, and of death. Birth and death. See also the 
discussions of the color red, menstruation, and virginity below in the
Story Analysis section.

#############################
6.	GINGER
#############################
-----------------------------
	ITEMS
-----------------------------
-Tree on the hill in the graveyard (she climbs it)
-Aerosol can (she paints some grafitti)
-Feather (on a tree trunk)
-bullet - at building facade
-shed

-----------------------------
	DIALOGUES
-----------------------------

"Ok. Stuff. In the shack. Let's get it! And light
that fire, comrades! We're staying the night!"
	[campsite]

"There is always a door. And a door can be either open
or shut. The difference is small."
	[campsite]

"I bet I can make this explode somehow."
	[building facade, while picking up bullets]

"A feather for my collection!"
	[tree trunk with feathers on it]

"Tree on hill? Check!"
	[graveyard]

"Small things move fast. Now you see me. Now you don't."
	[graveyard]

"Another masterpiece. Signed Ginger."
	[after using spraypaint to make some graffiti]

"If I get rid of the flowers, nobody can hide here
anymore. My all-seeing eye will see from very far away."
	[field of flowers]

"I can probably fake some crop circles just by running 
around as fast as I can."
	[field of flowers]
-----------------------------

Ginger is the tomboy of the family, evidenced by her 
interest in things like fire and bullets and wanting 
to "get rid of" all the flowers.
She's more interested in making crop circles. 

---------------------------------------
	WOLF & GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
---------------------------------------

Ginger's Wolf is interesting because she resembles 
the Forest Girl. The Red Girl has a red dress, boots,
pale skin, and pigtails. The Forest Girl has a white 
dress that otherwise is exactly the same, backless 
with crisscrossing straps, boots, short hair, and 
dark skin (which may be to further differentiate 
the two). 

Both are noteworthy for their apparent playful 
demeanor, prancing around in the field or in the 
forest; though their roles in the game are quite 
different. Ginger seems to just want a playmate; 
someone to help her fake some crop circles. After 
romping around the field a bit, we see them lying 
on the grass talking, then the screen fades to black. 

-------------------------
Ginger's Grandmother's house:
-------------------------
SUCCESS ENDING:
-Wall painting: on wall. Another painting in living room.
-Fridge: open (cans inside, and maybe a turkey?)
-Table: has knife on it
-Doors: are made of fencing
Extra rooms: 2 beds, toys on floor.
-End room: blue feathers, metal and barbed wire

-----------------------------
	GINGER'S RAVAGING
-----------------------------

Some have suggested that nothing bad even happens to her,
but I can't bring myself to believe this because I think
all the endings are traumatic to the girls in some way,
or they wouldn't be their wolf endings. It is noteworthy
that Ginger, the tomboy of the family, has a wolf that is
very feminine looking. The website says she is reluctant
to grow up. Some have even suggested that her wolf
experience is actually menstruation, which I initially
balked at but now I can almost accept that possibility, 
when I consider her age (13), her reluctance to grow up
and accept womanhood, the stereotypical boy-toys under
her bed and on her floor (dinosaurs, army men, etc.),
even the color of her wolf's dress: red. 

How does any of this fit in with the barbed wire imagery?
I don't know, unless perhaps the Wolf in the Red Dress 
with the barbed wire is only symbolically cutting her with
it. If we accept her traumatic experience as womanhood
itself, then the Wolf is menstruation and the cutting isn't
actual cutting, but rather, symbolically associated with
blood, and the toys in her room represent the childhood
that she clings to. The way the camera moves under the bed
as though the viewer is very small could also be associated 
with growing up, or being overwhelmed with the idea of
growing up. We see a fence and a basketball court, her room
has army men toys and dinosaurs, she likes to play out in 
the woods and is very imaginative. She seems to view adulthood
as something undesirable, having to give up her playfulness
and toys for all sorts of things she doesn't want. 

Suggestion from Anthony: That due to the toys and so on, her
ravinging could be betrayal by friends.

#############################
7.	CARMEN
#############################
-----------------------------
	ITEMS
-----------------------------
-Beer can [campsite]
-crates
-hat
-record
-bathtub
-fire
-----------------------------
	DIALOGUES
-----------------------------
"Let's get the party started! I have the music. 
Where's the beer?"
	[after picking up record]

"A little bit of soap. And a lot of warm and wet. 
Never alone anymore."
	[in bathtub]

"The tent is closed. The shack is closed. Yet the 
beer seems fresh. And the fire is still warm."
	[campsite]

"Fresh and warm in. Spinning head and bubbling blood."
	[campsite]

"The warm glow caresses my skin. Peels me layer by 
layer. Until I am pure. For you."
	[at fire]

"Ah, finally, the sun! If I were a plant, I think I 
would have been a flower. Except there would be only one."
	[near field]

---------------------------------------
	WOLF & GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
---------------------------------------

According the website, Carmen is 17 years old and very much
enjoys all the attention she now gets from men. She especially
is interested in older men, whose strength "borders on violence."
It also notes that she gives them a flip of the hip or a wink, 
and "nothing more," suggesting that she is not sexually 
experienced; she just likes to flirt. Like the other girls, she
doesn't realize any inherent dangers in her actions. When we first
arrive at the campsite, we see a guy with an axe. This is normal
enough, sure, maybe he needs some firewood or something; but in 
the context of the game we worry that this guy could be dangerous,
and there is also the fact that this campsite is in the middle 
of the woods and no one is around for miles. Carmen, on the other
hand, has no such such qualms. She flirts with the guy by stealing
his hat. The player is surprised that he looks older; he is 
balding and has bags under his eyes. The guy seems to more or less
ignore her. Carmen then sits on the crates next to the fire and
he sits down next to her. Though there is no dialogue, she appears
to ask him for a beer. He gives her one, and she drinks it. The
scene fades out. 

-------------------------
Carmen's Grandmother's house:
-------------------------

SUCCESS ENDING:
-Ceiling fan: has been replaced with circular saw blade
-Living room table: has 6 urns (?) on it, tv off
-Wall painting: on wall.
-Fridge: open (cans inside, and maybe a turkey?)
-Table: has knife on it
-Doors: Xs on them
-Unlocked rooms: light colored room with 5 mattresses and a
chair on top of it, middle of room is a dropoff and has 5 chairs
like the ones in the kitchen and a tree stump. All of this is
underwater, it's like a pool in the center of the room, but it's
hard to notice that at first until you see water dripping onto
the surface of the pool. Then there are a lot of hallways with
wooden walls and Xs like on the tree the man was cutting down.
Some of the hallways have branched/leaves in them, obscuring your
view a lot. Another room has a sideways chair and maybe another
tree stump and stairs, but it went through that one quickly and back
into more hallways. The hall ends in a dropoff, but first you see two
sets of crosses hachets and a mounted deer head with glowing eyes.
Then an empty room, another sawblade, and the long hallway. The 
floor is made of burning logs.
-End room:  Bed with a colorful quilt, impaled by a large tree. 
-The last bit shows the man with 2 axes, a weird picture of Carmen
lying on the ground with her legs twisted oddly, another of her
mouth with blood coming out, a picture of her from above, looking
up, and the man chopping with the axe.

-----------------------------
	CARMEN'S RAVAGING
-----------------------------
What happened? Since the website emphasizes her newfound
sexuality so much, and because she is flirting with an older man
in the middle of the woods, the most obvious possibility is sex.
Somewhere in the files there are a couple of files called something
like "CampsiteSexMoan" or similar, so that points to the creators'
intent here also. 

Again, I don't think there is necessarily one answer and despite the
sexual imagery and the phallic symbolism in the grandmother's house
(tree impaling the bed), there is also the fact that one of the still
photos is of Campsite Guy with two bloody hatchets, so I have to at 
least consider the possibility of him being an axe murderer, though
now I think it's more symbolic of the violent types of men she is
attracted to. Viewing the ending for the first time I figured she 
was killed in a drunken accident involving a fallen tree, there is
so much woodsy imagery in the grandmother's house and all those
sawblades, but again, these could just indicate violence/danger. 
As with Ginger, the blood and the red Xs could symbolise her coming
of age and reaching sexual maturity. Ginger's entering into adulthood
was traumatic because she still clung to her childhood and didn't 
want to be a woman; Carmen's is traumatic because she does want to
be a woman but is not yet emotionally mature and is not ready for
relationships with older men. She is also unrealistic in the types 
of men she is attacted to and takes chances like drinking with 
strangers in the woods. I think her Wolf is some kind of traumatic
experience with sexual relationships. 

I'm starting to think of the ravagings less as actual instances of
something than vulnerabilities of certain characters/personality
types. Carmen is vulnerable to being hurt by men because she flirts
with much older men and has no real experience with men of any age;
it would be easy for a creep to take advantage of her. I think her 
ravaging is more the possibilities inherent in her actions.

#############################
8.	SCARLET
#############################
-----------------------------
	ITEMS
-----------------------------
-mask
-piano
-----------------------------
	DIALOGUES
-----------------------------
"Art is where the nobility of humanity is expressed 
I could not live in a world without it."
	[at theater]

"The panic that consumes you is the fear of order."

"Cold air. Hot water? Is this mist or is it steam?"
	[at the misty lake]

"Chaos awaits order like you await me. Let me
silence this madness and sing for thee."

"Get dirty to be clean. No light without darkness.
A tear and a smile."
	

---------------------------------------
	WOLF & GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
---------------------------------------
Scarlet's dialogue has a lot of contrasting ideas, light
and darkness, clean and dirty, etc. and both her wolf 
scene and the objects she interact with revolve around
the contrast with art and the mundane world. She interacts
with a spiderweb, tearing it down like she might do while
cleaning a room. She interacts with a clothesline, which
further shows her role in the family as the one who does
chores and is responsible, a role she seems to resent,
even if she doesn't always express her resentment. She is
expected to act grown-up and to be responsible, but she seems
to long for other things. 

This is further show by the grandmother's house rooms, where
we see a room full of musical instruments, then another which
appears to be a library, but the books are all stacked on the
floor and the shelves are empty. Her wolf appears as she is 
playing the piano. The living room echoes her comment about
a world without art: the paintings, television, and furniture
are all covered with sheets. Upstairs there are dozens of cups
on the floor arranged in rows, and maybe this represents her
chores and motherly, grown up role in the house, doing dishes
rather than reading books or playing the piano. The cups are 
arranged in an orderly fashion, unlike the musical instruments,
which are chaotic: floating in the air. 

Cobalt suggests another possibility: that her failure as a 
musician caused her to take her own life. It does explain the 
strings and hanging imagery, perhaps, though I'm loathe to 
interpret too many things here as a literal death.

I think Scarlet's ravaging is that she is unable to find goodness
in a lot of things in the world around her. While it's good to 
appreciate art, she really seems to resent everything else. She
is haunted by menial tasks: she encounters a spiderweb and 
impatiently brushes it away, like she might do when cleaning at
home. She sees a line with laundry hanging out to dry. Others may
see her as the older, responsible one, and she does take on more
than her share of responsibility, but she hates it and resents 
it all. Art is her escape and the only thing she seems to hold 
sacred. Her ravaging is less an acute event than just a general
dissatisfaction with the world and her life. She takes care of 
her sisters and does the housework, but she longs for a life of
leisure and luxury, where she doesn't have to cook or clean or
do laundry, and can sit around playing piano and going to the 
theater. While this is fine and good, I think she is unable to
find a balance between art and life, so she is eternally 
disappointed with life. Her obsession with art has ruined
her life.

-------------------------
Scarlet's Grandmother's house:
-------------------------
SUCCESS ENDING:
-Wall painting: on wall
-living room: urns on table, tv on
-Fridge: open
-Table: knife on it
-Doors: plain wooden doors
top of stairs: bird cage with peacock
Extra rooms: a library where all the books are
stacked on the floor and the shelves are empty.
-End room: 

Fail:
-long hall with many mounted deer heads in fail version
-wolf on right in grandmother's room
-Scarlet sits on edge of bed, looking at camera
-----------------------------
	SCARLET'S RAVAGING
-----------------------------
Hyphz on the gamefaqs board posted the possibility
of her having her dreams crushed by being a failed
musician, and I like the idea and it fits better than
anything else. 

Scarlet values art and beauty above all, and her 
comment that she could not live in a world without 
it foreshadows her "success" ending: This time, 
grandmother's house has everything covered by 
sheets and the painting in the kithen is completely 
missing. She is in a world without art. Even the 
television is covered; all the statues, the 
birdcage. The failed musician idea is a possibility, but
I think it may also be that she is unable to indulge in her
creative impulses due to the demands of everyday life, and
she does not find fulfilment in life because she is too busy
with things like chores and taking care of her sisters.

#############################
9.	ROSE
#############################
-----------------------------
	ITEMS
-----------------------------
Wine: "I hope grandmother doesn't drink too much."
Knife: "Better take this knife before anyone gets hurt."
Bullet: "One less bullet means one less death."
Feather: "The poor thing. What evil powers tormented this
creature?"
Mask: "For Halloween I always dress up as an endangered species."
Dead Bird: "The little thing fell out of the nest. Was it trying
to fly? If I had wings, I'd probably try that too."
Treasure: "I'll take this to give to those in need."
Needle: "Somebody is sick. Where are they now? Perhaps they
need their medicine."
Bear: "People love animals so much they make ones just to cuddle."
Boot: "I hope the person who lost this show does not have 
blisters on his foot now."
Record: "Spinning around and around and around. Dizzy high up in
the air."
Flower: "Grandmother will love these flowers."
Balloon: "If this balloon did not have a string, it would simply
float away."
Skull: "Black dress and bitter voice. All you need is a little 
care. And you'll feel better."


-----------------------------
	DIALOGUES
-----------------------------

"The cycle of life and death knows no beginning and no end."
	[cemetery]

"The dead go on in the dirt while their souls fly to the sky."
	[cemetery]

"Hello clouds. Welcome on earth!"
	[Lake]

"Deep inside everybody is a dream."
	[well]

"A piano on a stage. People used to come here and see concerts.
Or theater. I wish I could play for them."

"I am a little bird. Making sweet forest music. Floating on
the waves of sound."
	[piano]

---------------------------------------
	WOLF & GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
---------------------------------------
The Cloudman is sort of wacky, but I'm just going to 
take that along with all the water imagery to mean that 
she just drowned in the lake. She goes to the well, 
a bathtub, it's raining, she's in a boat in the middle 
of the lake. 

When she gets to grandmother's house, it's raining 
inside, and one of the unlocked rooms is a very long 
bathroom. Also, when she buries the skull, she sees a 
bathtub. It's all cloud, water, and lightning. I can't 
think of any real alternative to she got stuck in the 
water in a storm or fell out of the boat and drowned. 
I also am not sure about the poltergeist-type floating 
furniture, but maybe it IS floating. Like in water.

DC Hewitt suggests her experience may be religious in nature, and I've
discussed it with others who have suggested a prolonged illness. It 
is apparent that she has a preoccupation with death and sickness, 
these themes just keep coming up. But her preoccupation is not like 
Ruby's, Rose is not really dark in any way, she just gravitates toward 
spiritual things, perhaps.

Her dialogues also mention a lot of things like being dizzy,
grandmother drinking too much wine, and sick people, blisters on
feet, endagered species. She seems to care and worry a lot about
people and animals. She seems to have  a preoccupation with death,
but more in a spiritual way. She thinks about "the cycle of life
and death" rather than being obsessed with decay or suffering. There
are many mentions of clouds and the sky, things floating away, whether
souls or balloons, and of course all that water everywhere. Rose's 
whole scenario has a very otherworldly feel to it, like she is not
quite of this earth. 

-------------------------
Rose's Grandmother's house:
-------------------------
SUCCESS ENDING:
-Wall painting: on wall
-living room: urns on table, ceiling fan lower, TV off
-raining indoors
-Fridge: open
-Table: knife on it
-Doors:  plain, wooden
top of stairs: bird cage with peacock
-extra rooms: bathroom at top of stairs. Tub, many sinks
and bathroom stalls, like a school bathroom. Another room
with desk, chair, empty birdcage. Another room which is
floded and has many doors, one with a table on the wall
with a crow perched on the edge. Another room like a greenhouse,
with hanging lights and many tables with plants on them.
-End room: furniture floating in the air. Hazy.

Fail:
-long hall with many mounted deer heads in fail version
-wolf on right in grandmother's room
-Rose sits on edge of bed, looking at camera

-----------------------------
	ROSE'S RAVAGING
-----------------------------
Fear of water? More likely the knowledge that there are
dangers inherent in doing a lot of things, such as taking
a boat out alone in the middle of the woods when you are
a little girl. I doubt the Cloudman exists, it is probably
some sort of hallucination or vision she had or just
symbolic of the things that could happen to a little girl
by herself in the middle of the forest. 

#############################
10.	FOREST GIRL
#############################

The Forest Girl is like the Catcher in the Rye, though 
instead of keeping children in the rye from falling off 
a cliff, she attempts to lead the girls to the safety of
the path. She is the only person in the forest who seems 
to bear no ill will toward the girls; she helps them to 
find objects (by hovering near them) and can lead the 
girls back to the path (though otherwise the path disappears 
as soon as you leave it). Her white dress and playful 
demeanor (she plays pat-a-cake with Robin) seem to cast her 
as a likeable and well-intentioned character. 

Also, in the book The Catcher in the Rye, this whole fantasy 
relates to loss of innocence. Holden sees the children 
playing tag as innocent, a sort of vision of perfection 
in his eyes; the cliff represent loss of innocence by way 
of becoming an adult, which Holden sees as depressing, 
so the catcher "saves" the children by not allowing them 
to grow up. They remain in this idealized child state 
forever. Whatever happens to the girls in The Path, 
be it rape, death, or just disappointment, it is a 
disillusionment with their innocent world. The 
children the Catcher catches are completely unaware 
of the dangers of the cliff and don't fear adulthood, 
they probably don't think about it at all, in fact. 
The 6 girls seem completely unaware of the dangers 
that await them in the forest, though the Forest 
Girl seems to try to lead them back to the path and 
therefore to keep them being children. However, the 
game calls this failure. Failure to become an adult? 
For the parallel to work one has to assume the wolf 
encounters are largely metaphorical, and rather than 
being ravaged and/or dead, it is the girls' innocence 
that has been killed or ravaged. I'm not sure if I 
believe this or not, but when I played through, I 
couldn't help but make the comparison. Maybe the relation
between the Girl and the Catcher is a bit tenuous, but
the girls in the Path and the children playing tag in
TCitR are pretty close.
-----------------------------
	Who is Forest Girl really?
-----------------------------
But who is she, really? Why do you play as her in the
epilogue? Thinking more on it, she doesn't exactly lead
you into or out of danger most of the time, she simply
leads you to interesting things, be it an area of interest,
an item to pick up, the path, or a wolf. What's her
motivation? Does she even exist? She seems to have an
aversion to Ruby, also, and I would venture to say it 
might be because Ruby seems the least naive of the six.

--Forest Girl as the granddaughter?
I have to examine this possibility, even though the girls
never mention her and someone would probably mention
having a seventh sister than lives in the woods, because 
not only do you play as her in the epilogue, but she gets 
the same ending as the other girls in their failure endings,
in which she is cast in the role of granddaughter. Photo 
on the wall, sitting next to the bed, etc. But she doesn't 
have a room or a wolf. Maybe she's already grown up and 
doesn't need a wolf, or maybe she's an eternal child and
doesn't need a wolf. In any case, she doesn't quite fit
in with the six girls, so either she is the only grand-
daughter or she is not a granddaughter at all. It has been 
speculated that the six girls don't exist and are actually
all incarnations of the granddmother in her youth, but I 
doubt this, unless the grandmother had a severe case of 
multiple personality disorder. 

--Forest Girl as the Hunter
I mean Hunter in the sense of playing the same role as the
hunter in the original LRRH story. It's possible that she 
could be there to save them, but the more I play, the less
likely I find this.

--Forest Girl as the Wolf
In a larger metaphorical sense, could the Forest Girl be
The Wolf? It would somewhat explain the presence of her
evil twin, Ginger's wolf. Perhaps the Forest Girl just 
represents the forces at work in the forest, whatever 
those might be. Sure, she looks innocent, but in the
story of Red Riding Hood, you will recall that the wolf
disguised itself as the grandmother, so it's not
inconceivable that we might have a "wolf in sheep's 
clothing," even to the point of wearing a white dress,
bringing to mind innocence and purity, making the player
want to like and trust her. She is neither all good nor
all bad: she can lead you back to the path, but she can
also lead you to the wolf. Must the Wolf be evil all 
the time, or is it possible that the Wolf might just
play with you a while for its own amusement?

--Forest Girl is the grandmother:
It's been suggested, but I just am not seeing this. I 
can see the girls as the grandmother in the sense of maybe
the grandmother wasted her life (we don't know that, of course,
but maybe) and is living through the girls, or the girls 
represent certain paths one's life might take, the dangers
that face a young girl who is growing up.

--Why is Forest Girl covered in blood at the end?
That's a tough question. It could be that she is the
same as the hunter in the story: the girls were eaten 
by the wolf and she had to cut them out of its belly.
That would make for a lot of blood, certainly, but I'm
not sure that anyone is actually inside the belly of a
wolf. Did she kill grandmother? That's another possibility,
and leads me back to thinking maybe Forest Girl is
the real wolf. Or it could go back to Ginger's Wolf, who
resembles the Forest Girl, and represent womanhood. 

--Forest Girl as not being a real character at all
More and more, I am wanting to believe she doesn't exist 
or that she is some kind of representation of forces in
the woods or a ghost or something, but not a person at all.
This would explain the absence of a wolf and the troubling
fact of playing as her and her being cast as the grand-
daughter, when nothing before that point suggests that she
could be another granddaughter. She also has no dialogue, and
it is raining when you play as her. There is a strange stone
thing with a cross inside to the side of the path when you
play as her, also, and I'm not sure what that is all about.

--Why does Forest Girl have a tent in the campsite?
I have no idea, though it's interesting that it is a red tent,
just like Ginger's Wolf has a red dress. I don't think the color
red is used without reason, and it could even be a sort of birth
imagery, with her crawling out of the red tent. 

-----------------------------
	ITEMS
-----------------------------
-It is noteworthy that she's one of the only ones that can pick 
the regular flowers in the flower field (where the scarecrow
is), and puts them in her basket. 
-Otherwise, she can go through and pick up the stuff you missed
without having to worry about wolves.
-----------------------------
	DIALOGUES
-----------------------------
-none.

---------------------------------------
	WOLF & GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
---------------------------------------
-She has no wolf
-Since she has no wolf, there is only one possible ending with
her, in which you go through all the other girls' rooms and then
to the grandmother's room. At this point, it looks like the
failure endings of the other girls. Her photo is on the wall
above the bed. She kneels next to the bed. Grandma just lies
there like a dead thing. Stuffed wolf is next to the wall.

##########################################
11.	ANALYSIS
##########################################

THE PATH:

Life. There is an emphasis on death here, and several 
times the girls commenton dying or dying young, but I 
think the whole game is metaphorical so I don't think 
you're seeing the whole life within the time you play 
the game. The largest question is probably "Why do you 
fail if you leave the path?" Little Red Riding Hood was 
tempted off the path by the wolf; the girls here leave 
of their own volition (if they leave it). My initial 
thought on this, though I can't back it up much, is 
that, like in the story, the grandmother is also a 
wolf. The Wolf disguised himself as the grandmother 
in the original, why not here? That would be one 
explanation why finding her equals failure, but my 
only evidence is the story it's based upon and the 
fact that the game isn't optimistic in general. It 
is more likely that staying on the path,i.e., following 
all the rules, represents a wasted life and a lack of 
experience. Going back to my Catcher in the Rye 
analogy, if the girl doesn't leave the path and 
lose her innocence, she never becomes an adult, 
and the game website says this is "a game about 
growing up." How can your character grow up if 
she follows all the rules and runs right to 
grandmother's house? This is another reason why 
I think it's likely that all the implied violence/
murder is completely metaphorical and what really 
happens in this game is the girls grow up. Moreover,
the whole process of growing up is presented in a 
negative way as loss of innocence.

GRANDMOTHER: 

Since I've already suggested she may 
be the Wolf above, I will assume here that she's 
not, just for the sake of argument. When you get 
the Failure ending, you will notice a photo of your 
character (and only your character) above the 
grandmother's bed, suggesting maybe this character 
was the "favorite" or was at least quite close to 
grandmother. While there's nothing wrong with that, 
it also suggests maybe she spent more time there than 
doing other things, for example, growing up. 
Grandmother is sick, but she still represents a 
nurturing sort of character. Grandmother could represent
old age or at least adulthood. She is older, and her house
is at the end of the path (life), so the house could
represent death. I prefer to think of the whole house
vision part as a nightmare and symbolic of the transition
into adulthood, though there are many possible interpretations.

PEACOCKS:

They are everywhere! And I have no explanation
for this. Maybe grandmother just likes them, I 
don't know, but they are on the wallpaper, there
is a painting or two, one (stuffed?) in a cage,
when certain girls pick up certain items, they 
get visions of peacocks in cages or on walls. 
Ginger wears feathers in her hair and her ending
has blue feathers everywhere.

RAIN:

The rain in Rose's ending is probably just more water
imagery to go with the lake, but rain is used a lot in
other parts as well, especially after each girl wakes up
from her "ravaging" in the middle of the road. It is 
raining and she walks slowly to grandmother's house. 
When you get into the forest while playing as the Forest
Girl, it is also raining. I believe this is largely to
contrast with the opening of each part: it is a beautiful
sunny day with clear skies. Bright colors everywhere, 
sunshine, etc., so long as you stay on the path. It is more
to show the contrast between the happiness and innocence of
the girls as they begin the game with the disappointment/
disillusionent of "growing up" in whatever way. As for the
Forest Girl, it may also be to differentiate her from the 
other girls. She isn't one of the sisters, she has no wolf,
etc., so her experience in the forest is also different.

RED:

The color has been used symbolically to denote a lot of things,
many of which could be relevant here, namely: sexuality, blood,
menstruation. Red was not a color little girls would wear in the
time the original story was written. 

MENSTRUATION:

Yeah, I gotta consider this too, as it is a coming of age tale
about girls. There is a lot of imagery that could be interpreted 
this way, but I'm not sure about it. There are full moons, red
is the color of blood, there is a bloody bed, the Forest Girl
is covered in blood after you play as her. If you're going to 
talk about the transition from girlhood to womanhood, menstruation
needs to be mentioned. Going back to the LRRH stories, there is 
also a lot of blood, and apparently needles were worn in the sleeves
of prostitutes and therefore were associated with sexuality in
France at some point. Then there is the thing with young girls 
spending time with the seamstress, which goes back to the path
of needles and the path of pins in older versions of the story.
The needles and pins represents sexuality and/or coming of age as
a woman. The full moon has long been associated with the menstrual
cycle, as well as with werewolves, of course, and we see full
moons all through Robin's ending (even though she is only 9). 

VIRGINITY:

Continuing on with the discussion of the older versions of the story,
red was associated with prostituion/sex/etc, and not a color a young
girl would normally wear. Did this lead the wolf to her? There is a 
strong sexual theme in the story, in which the wolf asks her to take 
off each piece of her clothing and get into bed with him. Virginity
was expected of girls when they got married in the past, and there was 
the tradition of displaying bloodstained sheets after the first night
of marriage to prove the woman's virginal status. Ending up in bed with
the Wolf would have ruined the girl's status in society in the old
days; set in modern times, ending up in bed with the wrong person
could still have a lot of consequences. Two of the girls' (Ruby and Carmen)
wolves are men who also happen to be older and perhaps more experienced,
and while I'm loathe to say anyone was raped in the literal sense, there
is definitely a theme of sexuality and coming of age and discovering sex.
Carmen flirts with the older guy at the campsite and has a beer. Even if
consentual sex took place, it's likely that she experienced it as
traumatic or disappointing in some way, judging from her ending. As an
observer, we are concerned because of the seclusion and possibility of
danger: we first see him with an axe and he gives beer to an underage
girl. There is also a lot of phallic imagery in Carmen's ending. With Ruby,
we know that she is disillusioned and rebellious, and she is also drawn
to the possibility of danger and rebellious types. The theme of danger is 
also present here, when we see he blonde man dragging a rolled up rug, and 
also from the seclusion of the area: anything could happen out there, no
one is around for miles at least. Again, while rape is a possibility, I 
think it more likely she was just drawn to this guy, perhaps trusted him,
and was used (sexually or not) by him and ends up emotionally devastated.

BEDS:

There has been much discussion of beds also, and for good reason: there
are a bunch of them in the game. Sex is definitely one possibility for 
all the bed imagery, and I've discussed the bloody bed as perhaps
representing things such as birth or first sexual experience (by way of
the old custom of presenting "proof of virginity"), as well as the wolf
in the story appearing in bed and then being cut open by the hunter (which
itself is almost a skewed sort of birth imagery). The Wolf in LRRH has the
girl strip and get into bed with him after she unknowingly cannibalises
her grandmother. It is probable that Carmen's and Ruby's wolf encounters
involved sex, which goes toward the sexual maturity theme. Also when one 
reaches sexual maturity, beds now have more than one purpose, they aren't
just for sleeping anymore. The bed can also represent an end: it's where you
go at the end of your day, so it's fitting that they show up at the end of
each girl's segment, representing the end of their childhood. Robin's ending
has both a baby bed and a bloody bed next to a grave (the grave perhaps being
analogous to a bed for a dead person), so it represents birth, maturation,
and death all in one ending, driving it home with the birthday cake and
presents to represent growing up/getting older. 

#############################
12.	GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE
############################# 
GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE: 

It appears as a vision of 
hell custom-designed for each girl, but what is 
it really? If you get a Success ending, there is 
also no grandmother there; not only is the girl 
in her own personal hell, she is alone there. It 
has been suggested that this is hell and the girls 
are dead. This appears fine at first, but I still 
think the death is metaphorical. The girl is dead, 
but the disillusioned young woman she has grown 
into perhaps lives still in the real world, despite 
the visions of hell, which do in fact resemble 
nightmares. There is the fact that the locked 
rooms and sometimes other rooms have beds in them. 
Many have concluded that this refers to rape. That 
could well be, but it could just as easily refer to 
nightmares. If the characters were literally raped, 
it likely did not happen in a bed in the 
grandmother's house anyway; it would've happened 
in the playground or in a tent at the campsite; 
probably not at grandmother's house. It's 
possible they crawled back there to die, but 
I can't bring myself to believe that either. I 
think the visions of hell are nightmares. 
The nightmares take place in grandmother's 
house because that was the destination from 
the outset, and maybe the girls now feel guilty 
for not going there straightaway. It is clearly
not happening in reality, and the layout of the 
house bears no resemblance to the actual house
as viewed from outside. The Rail Shooter type of 
movement in this part is also remniscient of
a nightmare.
 
In general, I think the house represents the end of each
girl's childhood, rather than death. When I have discussed
it as a nightmare above, I mean in the sense that it looks 
nightmarish, and that it is that way because of traumatic
events that happened to the girls. 

#############################
13.	MISCELLANEOUS
#############################

-------------------
Ages of girls
-------------------

Scarlet:19
Carmen: 17
Ruby: 15
Ginger: 13
Rose: 11
Robin: 9

#############################
14.	FAQS
#############################

Q: "I can't get out of 3rd-person view!"

A: There are two possibilities: some sort of installation error 
or incompatibility issue, or you have a pirated version of the game,
in which case you should reinstall or buy a copy if you haven't.

-------------------------

Q. "My game lags! Help!"

A: I had that problem too, even though I never have problems with lagging
on this computer. I switched from full-screen to windowed mode and it solved
the problem. Try this or try changing some of the other display options like 
shadows and resolution until you find something that gives you a decent
framerate. I'm guessing it has something to do with the visual filters eating
up too much RAM. So even if your computer never has troubles like this with
other games, just try lowering the display options anyway.

-------------------------

Qs on the still pics on the endings: 

A;If you don't want to go through the hassle
of getting the ending again and capturing the video and going through frame by
frame to see the still pics, go to my homepage (listed at the top), click
"image gallery" and go to page 2 until you see the gallery for The Path. I
have screencaps of most or all of the endings there.
Q: "I'm lost!"
A: If you don't have the maps unlocked yet, the best way to find things is
probably to either follow the white stuff on the edge of the screen to the
Forest Girl, or to choose a direction and run in that direction, since the 
forest repeats in all directions, you are bound to find what you're looking 
for eventually.

-------------------------

Qs on not being able to get the wolf scene to start: 

Ruby: You need to sit on the bench with the guy and wait.

Ginger: Usually just standing there will make her interact with the Girl,
but otherwise follow her around and press action until you get the scene.

Carmen: First the guy will be at the tree, get his hat, then go over to the
fire. Eventually he will come over in this area, then sit on the crate, and 
he should sit down after a while. Wait.

Robin: Wait until the wolf sort of kneels down and get close and press action. 

Scarlet: Press action at the piano and the wolf should show up shortly after.

Rose: Find the boat on the lake, go to it and press action, then a cutscene
will take over.


######################################################
     Thanks to:
######################################################

cybernet377@gmail.com for screenshots of more Scarlet dialogues.

shachar2like@gmail.com for some thoughts on Ruby.

More will go here soon. I still have the emails 
saved from those who emailed me, and
as soon as I update the relevant parts of the FAQ 
I will add to this.

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