Spoiler alert! Please play the thing before reading further.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

As far as I know, the only difference between the full version and the demo is that in the former, the protagonist might die in the cutscene that plays when the player reaches the bench.

And... I'm not too sure how I feel about that. I mean, sure, it might be affecting to some people that grandma dies when she's in the bench, but it only happens in a cutscene, which is incidentaly when I'm most disconected from the experience.

And that's my problem with tale of tales: they make games with no player. The only use of interactivity here is to appreciate how fragile this grandma is and how slow she walks. That's it. You are supposed to walk to a particular bench, sit there while listening to a song, get up and then proceed to walk all the way back. There's no room for anything else: you can't explore any other path than the one dictated by the designer, if you reach the bench the grandma sits automatically and then she'll stand up only after the song has player.

Put in other words: There is no interaction other than movement and even this simple thing is limited to what the designer says you are supposed to do.

It's not like I don't like it, it just rubs me the wrong way.
 

Sounds rather lame.

I mean, if the player can make exactly zero choices, then it's not even a game! Hell, sounds like they shoulda just posted a movie on YouTube; it would have been the exact same experience, right. =P

And they normally charge like, money, for this? Wha....? (O.o)
 

As I've noted before, the money they charge is for the "hardcore" experience with the potential of character permadeath. 'Cause, y'know, dying is COOL, and a true mark of the hardcore gamer.

*sigh*
 

Poetry my ass.

FF7 has more poetry in it's little toe than that.

Pretentious, overhyped waste of time, IMHFO.
 

People, what were you expecting might I ask?

@xenovore: Since when did the use of choice enter the definition of the word "game"?
The graveyard is about fragility and mortality, and so, the player experiences how fragile and slow this woman is by actually controlling her. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a game.

The demo already let you play the whole thing, the only thing that the full version adds is the chance that grandma might die when sitting on the bench.

@Tesh: Where do you get that from? As I see it, the "full version" is for those that decide to pay tale of tales because they want to give them money not because they want much content in return. I mean, sure, depending on your own life experience having the grandma die on you in the middle of the song might be emotionally affecting, but it sure isn't enough incentive for most people to open their wallets.

@Art critic Art:
Is it pretentious? Maybe.
Is it overhyped? Since when this game had hype of any kind? Some people have said it's interesting, that's all.
You don't fin it interesting? Well, maybe that's because you aren't the target audience.

And... yeah: FF7? Are you kidding me?
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against FF7 but comparing a 60 hour japanese RPG with this little game vignette is like trying to compare an orange with a shoe. Sure, the orange has more juice than the shoe... but the comparision is not exactly appropriate

Now, it is kind of pretentious to say that The Graveyard is poetry. But if I remember it correctly, in the song sequence there are some words appearing in the background, so maybe that's what they meant with real-time poetry.
 

Okay, just played the full version, I take back what I said about the words appearing on the screen, apparently I was thinking of The Path.

Yeah, there's no way around it: Tale of Tales said that The Graveyard in and off itself is poetry. Which is the most pretentious thing I've heard them say to be honest.
 

I finally played it myself.

While I applaud experimentation, I can't say I was horribly impressed. But I guess as a stepping stone to making The Path, it was a worthy learning experience for 'em.
 

Diego / Kimari / IndigoStatic: Since when did the use of choice enter the definition of the word "game"?

Erm.. in any reasonable definition?
Sid Meier's "a series of interesting choices" for example.

Anyway, there is one choice in The Graveyard: whether to play. And the correct choice is no.
 

Hey, if an artform doesn't overreach once in a while, then it just isn't trying. I'd argue that TGY falls down on ludism, but, as a statement on mortality, its few minutes has more to say than 60+ hours of any grind-kill-resurrect JRPG. On the other hand, I'd rather play the JRPG, so I wouldn't necessarily call this a successful experiment.

Or, to put it another way, the first step is to have something to say. The second is to say it in a way that has meaning. ToT got halfway.
 

@ Diego: What Brog said.
 

@Brog & xenovore: Yeah, that's the (rather old) definition that Sid Meier proposed, but don't you think it's far too limiting?
I mean, take Final Fantasy 7 for example: You don't play it for the battle system, you play it for the story. And the story is completely linear. The choices that you do have in that game are the most forgetable thing about it.
Is Super Mario Brothers a game? The only choice you have is to jump or not to jump, to run or not to run... that's not a series of interesting choices, but a series of interesting challenges. Even if the game had no enemies at all I'd still call it a game: because it has interactivity.
 

@Diego: Limiting? Yes. Too limiting? No. Definitions should be limiting, because that's what they're for - to refer to something specific. I have no problem with the Graveyard existing; it's not interesting to me, but I think it's a good thing that people are experimenting with this sort of interactive digital art, and something interesting may come of it one day. But there's no need to extend the definition of "game" to include it, because then the word would no longer refer to a restricted class of things and so would be less useful as a piece of language.