Buy The Path of Veins

About This Game

You wake up alone in the same place you always wake up: a small dive bar called Lethe's. Possessed by the vague sense that you need to be somewhere, you begin walking aimlessly.

Why does the inside your mouth taste like burnt plastic?

Why won't she stop crying?

Why is the faint whine of an old television getting louder?

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The Path of Veins is a horror visual novel where the player navigates the narrative through choices. The narrative is conveyed to the player through text, sound, still images and video. The game features a fully scored, unique soundtrack for every scene and an evolving game ambience/soundscape. The currently playable version is approximately one-third of the intended final game and takes approximately 1-2 hours, depending on choices and play style. The game uses a manual save system. Because the focus is on narrative there are no "achievements" or other distractions. Interface during gameplay is kept to a bare minimum to enhance immersion.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

All of the images in this game are generated by neural networks trained on images (aka “AI generated”). If you choose to boycott all AI generated material, please do not buy this game. If you are uncomfortable with the thought but are interested in my game, please read on.

The aesthetic of this game had to come from the strange, uncanny look of AI. There is a heartlessness to the visuals that is intentional. I am not trying to copy the look of other artists. The only tool capable of producing the look I was going for was a malfunctioning AI. Ironically, I have had a number of people tell me that it looks much more realistic than standard AI. I am assuming this is because of how I tried to reproduce the look of old media.

All images, aside from the title screen, credits and some of the video shot on camcorder were generated by AI prompts. It took several days of exploring before I began generating images that fit the aesthetic I was looking for. I have heard AI described as a slot machine, and I think the metaphor is somewhat accurate. I think of this as similar to indeterminacy in music. Using random number generators can produce interesting outputs, but you need to refine and direct the system to do so.

I started my process in Midjourney. My ratio of usable images was around 100 to 1; for every 100 images I generated, I found one usable piece for the game. I created an automated process to transform these images to 16:9 widescreen in Photoshop Beta. Some of these images I touched up manually or regenerated sections of the image. There are some real images and hand painted imagery within the AI elements. Often, I would have to generate the sides of the image multiple times because photoshop didn’t generate what I needed.

To those concerned about not paying artists: I understand this, but I want to be clear that this was not created to replace the work of artists, any more than the synthesized scores to horror films were about replacing orchestras. These are tools that do different things. Rather than some sort of lazy shortcut, the use of AI imagery is essential to the aesthetic and narrative of the Path of Veins.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

The game contains violence, descriptions of drug use, abusive relationships, death, psychological violence, and uncanny, disturbing imagery.