The Critical Path Project (stylized CRITICAL///PATH) is a video archive of interviews with

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

designers and developers.Critical Path /// insights from the greatest minds in videogames
/ref> Launched on July 23, 2012, Critical Path contains over 1,000 videos of interviews with over 100 developers, conducted between 2010 and the present. According to director David Grabias, the project's goals include: *To provide a documentary-based venue for critical discussion about the art of making video games. *To provide developers with a place where they can come for inspiration. *To provide players with insight into their game experience. *To make gamers aware of the great minds behind the great games. *To document the current state of game development for future generations. Topics covered in the interviews include violence in games, methods of

storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing narrative, stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatre, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cul ...

, game mechanics,Cifaldo, Fran
"Have game designers failed when players are cheating?"
Gamasutra.com. July 23, 2012. player interaction, psychology behind playing games, commercialism in the industry, and the future of video games, among others. All clips on the site are available for free viewing online, and there are plans to release a full-length documentary in the future.

Interview Subjects

The site currently features video clips with interviews from the following notable developers, among others: *

Ernest Adams Ernest Adams may refer to: * Ernest Adams (baker) (1892–1976), New Zealand baker, businessman and philanthropist **Ernest Adams, a New Zealand bakery and a brand of Goodman Fielder *Ernest Wilcox Adams, philosopher, brother of William Y. Adams ...

* Brian Allgeier *

Stig Asmussen Stig Asmussen is an American video game developer, best known for his work on the ''God of War'' series for Santa Monica Studio and the '' Star Wars Jedi'' series for Respawn Entertainment. Stig Asmussen founded his own new AAA (video game indus ...

Chris Avellone Chris Avellone (/ˈævəloʊn/) is an American video game designer and comic book writer. He is known for his significant roles on a large number of video games, primarily role-playing video game Role-playing video games, also known as CRP ...

Daniel Benmergui Daniel Benmergui is an independent video game development, independent game designer from Buenos Aires, Argentina known for the creation of art games such as ''Today I Die'', ''I Wish I Were the Moon'', and ''Storyteller (computer game), Storytel ...

Cliff Bleszinski Cliff Bleszinski (; born February 12, 1975), popularly known as CliffyB, is an American video game designer, known for his work on the '' Unreal'' and ''Gears of War'' series while at Epic Games. After leaving Epic in 2012, he co-founded Boss K ...

Ian Bogost Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer, most known for the game '' Cow Clicker''. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences a ...

Nolan Bushnell Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consu ...

* David Cage *

John Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 21, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Do ...

Jenova Chen Xinghan Chen (; born October 8, 1981), known professionally as Jenova Chen, is a Chinese video game designer. He is the designer of the award-winning games '' Cloud'', '' Flow'', ''Flower'', and '' Journey'', co-founder of Thatgamecompany as wel ...

and

Kellee Santiago Kellee Santiago is a Venezuelan American video game designer and producer. She is the co-founder and former president of thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where Santiago played video game ...

* Brendon Chung * Michael Condrey *

N'Gai Croal N'Gai Croal is an American writer and a former video game critic and consultant, previously employed by Newsweek. Croal started out as consumer technology writer at Newsweek, later writing the Newsweek-associated Level Up blog. In 2008, Croal ...

Don Daglow Don Daglow (born circa 1953) is an American video game designer, programmer, and producer. He is best known for being the creator of early games from several different genres, including pioneering simulation game ''Utopia'' for Intellivision i ...

Patrice Désilets Patrice Désilets (born 9 May 1974) is a Canadian game designer best known for creating the ''Assassin's Creed'' series. He served as creative director for ''Assassin's Creed'', '' Assassin's Creed II'', and '' Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood''. He ...

Denis Dyack Denis Dyack (born July 24, 1966) is a Canadian video game developer and the CEO of Apocalypse Studios. He is also the former president of Silicon Knights, and is a video game designer, writer, director and producer. Dyack directed '' Blood Omen: ...

Noah Falstein Noah Falstein (born June 1957) is a game designer and producer who has been in the video game industry since 1980, winning "Game of the Year" titles for multiple games such as '' Battlehawks 1942'' and ''Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis''. ...

Josef Fares Josef Fares (born 19 September 1977) is a Lebanese-Swedish film director and video game designer. His brother is the actor Fares Fares, who has appeared in many of his films, including one of his major hits, ''A Way Out (video game), A Way Out'' ...

* Tracy Fullerton *

Toby Gard Toby Gard (born 8 June 1972) is an English video game designer and consultant. He is the co-creator of Lara Croft, the fictional protagonist of the video game franchise ''Tomb Raider'' (1996–present). Lara Croft was awarded a ''Guinness World ...

Richard Garriott Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux (''né'' Garriott; born 4 July 1961) is a British-born American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut. Garriott, who is the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, was originally a game designer ...

*Steve Gaynor *

Ron Gilbert Ronald David Gilbert is an American video game designer, programmer, and producer. His games are generally focused on interactive story-telling, and he is arguably best known for his work on several LucasArts adventure games, including '' Man ...

* Auriea Harvey *

Trip Hawkins William Murray "Trip" Hawkins III (born December 28, 1953) is an American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company, and Digital Chocolate. Career A fan of the Strat-O-Matic Football pen and paper games, Hawkins started his ...

* Chris Hecker *

David Helgason David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the Kings of Israel and Judah, third king of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stel ...

Richard Hilleman Richard Hilleman is an American computer game and video game producer best known for his work creating the original Madden Football game for video game consoles for Electronic Arts. Apart from ''Madden'', Hilleman was a key figure in building ...

Clint Hocking Clint Hocking (born 18 September 1972) is a Canadian video game designer and director. He has primarily worked at the Canadian divisions of Ubisoft, where he developed three titles, and briefly worked at LucasArts, Valve Corporation, Valve, and ...

Todd Howard Todd Andrew Howard (born 1970) is an American video game designer, Creative director, director, and Video game producer, producer. He serves as director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, where he has led the development of the ...

* Rod Humble *

Robin Hunicke Robin Hunicke (; born March 15, 1973) is an American video game designer and producer. She is a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena. Hunicke began her career at Electronic Arts where she worked on multipl ...

* Kenji Inafune *

Toru Iwatani TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Tōru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan, village in Mardan District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan *Tõru Tõru is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western Es ...

* Marcin Iwinski * Daniel James * David Jones *

Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game designer. Regarded as one of the pioneering auteurs of video games, he developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence, which in turn has had a significant influence on his game ...

Raph Koster Raphael "Raph" Koster (born September 7, 1971) is an American entrepreneur, computer game designer, game designer, and author of ''A Theory of Fun for Game Design''. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of ''Ultima Onlin ...

* Frank Lantz * Ken Levine * Laralyn McWilliams *

Jordan Mechner Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, author, screenwriter, filmmaker, and former video game programmer. A major figure in the development of cinematic video games and a pioneer in video game animation, he began ...

Sid Meier Sidney K. Meier ( ; born February 24, 1954) is an American businessman and computer programmer. A programmer, designer, and producer of many strategy video games and simulation video games, including the ''Civilization'' series, Meier co-found ...

Peter Molyneux Peter Douglas Molyneux (; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games '' Populous'', ''Dungeon Keeper'', and '' Black & White'', as well as ''Theme Park'', the ''Fable'' series, '' Curiosity: Wh ...

Ray Muzyka Raymond Alexander Muzyka is a Canadian investor, entrepreneur and physician. Originally trained as a medical doctor and practicing as an emergency department and family physician after graduation, he is the co-founder of video game developer Bi ...

and Greg Zeschuk *

Frank O'Connor Frank O'Connor (born Michael Francis O'Donovan; 17 September 1903 – 10 March 1966) was an Irish author and translator. He wrote poetry (original and translations from Irish), dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on as ...

* Yoshinori Ono *

Rob Pardo Rob Pardo (born June 9, 1970) is an American video game designer who is the founder of Bonfire Studios. He previously served as Chief Creative Officer of Blizzard Entertainment until resigning in 2014 after almost seventeen years with the compa ...

Randy Pitchford Randall Steward Pitchford II (born April 21, 1971) is an American businessman. He co-founded the video game development studio Gearbox Software in 1999 and was president and CEO of the company until 2021, upon which he became CEO and president ...

Rhianna Pratchett Rhianna Pratchett (born 30 December 1976) is an English video game writer and journalist. She has worked on ''Heavenly Sword'' (2007), ''Overlord (2007 video game), Overlord'' (2007), ''Mirror's Edge'' (2008) and ''Tomb Raider (2013 video game) ...

Zoë Quinn Zoë Tiberius Quinn (born 1987) is an American video game developer, programmer, and writer. Quinn developed the interactive fiction game '' Depression Quest'', which was released in 2013. In 2014, a blog post by their ex-boyfriend sparked the ...

* Amir Rao * Siobhan Reddy *

Warren Robinett Joseph Warren Robinett Jr. (born December 25, 1951) In the A. Merrill interview, Robinett says he was 26 in November 1977. is an American video game designer. He is most notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's ''Adventure'' and as a founder ...

Jason Rohrer Jason Rohrer (born November 14, 1977) is an American computer programmer, writer, musician, and game designer. He publishes most of his software into the public domain (public-domain software) and charges for versions of his games distributed ...

Tim Schafer Timothy John Schafer (born July 26, 1967) is an American video game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in July 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts. Schafer is best known as the designer of critically acclaimed games '' ...

Jesse Schell Jesse N. Schell (born June 13, 1970) is an American video game designer and author, as well as the CEO of Schell Games, and a distinguished professor of the practice of entertainment technology at CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), a ...

Glen Schofield Glen Schofield is an American video game artist, designer, director, and producer. He was formerly the vice president and general manager at Visceral Games, co-founder of Sledgehammer Games, founder and former CEO of Striking Distance Studios, and ...

* Harvey Smith *

Warren Spector Warren Evan Spector (born October 2, 1955) is an American role-playing and video game designer, director, writer, producer and production designer. He is known for creating immersive sim games, which give players a wide variety of choices in how ...

Joseph Staten Joseph Staten is an American writer best known for his work at video game studios Bungie, Microsoft Studios, and 343 Industries. At Bungie, Staten served as director of cinematics for the studio's games, including the ''Halo (series), Halo'' se ...

* Davey Wreden * Will Wright * Brianna Wu * Vince Zampella *

Eric Zimmerman Eric Zimmerman (born 1969) is an American game designer and the co-founder and CEO of Gamelab, a video game developer, computer game development company based in Manhattan. GameLab is known for the game ''Diner Dash''. Each year Zimmerman host ...

Discussion

A few quotes from the site have raised discussions between critics and fans alike. For example,

Metal Gear Solid is a franchise of stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces operative (usually S ...

Director

(famous for his cinematic narrative scenes) mentions that he's "not trying to tell a story."

says he's "failed as a designer" when players use cheats, causing some stir with gamers when they discovered an all-powerful

character in the latest

Firaxis Firaxis Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Sparks, Maryland. The company was founded in May 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds following their departure from MicroProse, Meier's earlier venture. They we ...

release, X-COM: Enemy Unknown. The archive presents a variety of differing opinions from developers. For example,

speaks about creating empowerment fantasies for players, while

condemns the practice.

says that "micromanagement is not fun"Meier, Si
"Is it Work or Fun?"
CRITICAL///PATH Project. and other developers, like Fable's

, Ultima's

, and others attempt to create games that give the player as much freedom and decision-making as possible.

References

External links

* {{Authority control History of video games