Journey Is A Mirror

[Dennis Scimeca]

I appreciate all the positive comments!

I deliberately chose not to read too much about the mechanics in Journey specifically because I didn't want anything to get in the way of the emotional experience. I've since learned that singing long notes might not actually charge your partner's cloak, even though I've played the game again and it sure as hell seems that way.

I've also been told you don't warm anyone up by singing to them. I think, perhaps, that I and my partner were lying on our sing buttons during the cold parts of the game when we were huddled together, and so it *seemed* like the singing was warming us, but in my second playthrough I think I figured out that it's actually proximity to each other, not singing, which warms you. I'm not entirely sure.

I also still have no idea what scarf length signifies. I'm told it's connected to flying. I have no idea. The utter lack of tutorial or manual means the best I can do is report what I think I'm seeing, and unless I'm willing to step outside the boundaries of the experience and research how it works, I'll never know for sure.

The interesting thing for me is, I don't really *care* how the mechanics work. I like Killingworth's analysis because I think he nails the *emotional power* of the cooperative mechanics in Journey, but the specifics of what each button does, or how close you have to be to your fellow traveler, all seem completely irrelevant to me and what I got out of the game.

I think that's a strength, actually.

 

[DestinyCall]

I found Journey to be a fascinating and rather magical experience which seamlessly blends game-play and story elements together into a single narrative. It is another excellent example that I can point at during a "games as art" debate, because it is one of those rare games that has the ability to touch the player on an emotional level.

It's interesting how differently Journey can affect different people or even the same person on different play-throughs. The first time I played Journey, I went in blind. I'd played previous games by the same developer, Flower and Flow, and I'd read a few basic descriptions of the game. But I avoided learning too much, because I wanted to experience the game for myself without preconceptions. Partially because of this, my first play was a little chaotic. I spent more time than necessary on certain parts as I struggled to learn the game mechanics and pickup on things intuitively. I also missed various things along the way - my scarf was quite small by the end of the game and I didn't have many trophies at the end of my first journey. I encountered a lot of people on that first play, but I didn't form any strong bonds. It was a learning experience and fun, but I felt like there was still a lot I could have done better.

I started out on my second journey almost immediately. This time I was more focused. I knew how to move, jump, and sing. I went into my second play wanting to collect all the symbols and gain trophies. In one of the early levels, I met another player and we journeyed through the rest of the game together, helping each other through the rough spots and pointing out collectables. It was a great experience and the most enjoyable of my journeys. I've played the game a few more times since, but I wasn't quite able to recapture that sense of mutual purpose and companionship a second time.

Impressed by this game, I've encouraged other people to try out Journey, gamers and non-gamers alike. I've found that not everyone has the same response to Journey's co-op. For example, my mother is a pretty stereotypical casual gamer. She enjoys simple single player games, like Plants vs Zombies, Zuma, and Puzzle Quest. She doesn't usually play multiplayer games, but she enjoyed Flower, so I recommended Journey to her. In her words, it wasn't "as pretty as Flower" but she did enjoy the jumping and singing.

Then another player ran by. Suddenly, it wasn't just her alone in the world. There was another person there ... running around, doing stuff, watching her. She didn't like it. I tried to explain that it was a co-op game and the other person couldn't do anything except help her. It didn't matter - having another person in her game world ruined the experience. She felt too much pressure - pressure to follow, pressure to respond to the singing, pressure to focus on progressing to the next objective. It just wasn't working for her and sucked all the fun out of the game. She didn't feel like she could fumble around figuring out the puzzles, because the other person would be judging her, laughing at her struggles or impatient to move on. Eventually, she put down the control and walked away, unable to continue until the multiplayer was turned off.

Looking back, I realize that I didn't really enjoy the multiplayer very much until I felt secure in my own abilities. But even so, I felt like it really added something to the game that I would have missed out on if I just played solo. I was disappointed that I couldn't share that experience, but I guess everyone has to make their own journey.

 

[Busard]

I appreciate all the positive comments!

I deliberately chose not to read too much about the mechanics in Journey specifically because I didn't want anything to get in the way of the emotional experience. I've since learned that singing long notes might not actually charge your partner's cloak, even though I've played the game again and it sure as hell seems that way.

I've also been told you don't warm anyone up by singing to them. I think, perhaps, that I and my partner were lying on our sing buttons during the cold parts of the game when we were huddled together, and so it *seemed* like the singing was warming us, but in my second playthrough I think I figured out that it's actually proximity to each other, not singing, which warms you. I'm not entirely sure.

I also still have no idea what scarf length signifies. I'm told it's connected to flying. I have no idea. The utter lack of tutorial or manual means the best I can do is report what I think I'm seeing, and unless I'm willing to step outside the boundaries of the experience and research how it works, I'll never know for sure.

The interesting thing for me is, I don't really *care* how the mechanics work. I like Killingworth's analysis because I think he nails the *emotional power* of the cooperative mechanics in Journey, but the specifics of what each button does, or how close you have to be to your fellow traveler, all seem completely irrelevant to me and what I got out of the game.

I think that's a strength, actually.

The singing to each other does actually help in the mountain level. If you do nothing for too long, your scarf will freeze, lose it's power and gradually disappear (not that it matters since you lose it, but I always do my best to keep my friend's scarf as maximum).

The scarf lenght just signifires the number of sigils you found along the way that lengthens your scarf. The longer it is, the longer you can fly

 

[ThePurpleStuff]

To all those who say they should bring the game over to other platforms since they don't want to buy a ps3 for one game. It's not the developer's fault, they were under contract with sony to make 3 games for their platform, now that they did, I'm sure we can see more from them on other consoles in the future, I hope. Why not buy a ps3 anyway? It's a great console, I have tons and tons of games for it and I love it much more than the xbox which I've gone through two of them and the 3rd one right now is still working. But still the console has disappointed me more than ps3. Sorry, I shouldn't change the subject to that. Still, don't get mad at the development team, I'm sure they would enjoy porting to other consoles, it means more money for them, so blame sony instead.

 

[thanatos388]

I really hope this she was a big burly man he was playing with, just for the irony because one thing I like is that it could be anybody. Also seriously this is one of the best games I have ever played. No game this generation besides maybe Mass Effect have been able to emotionally move me and apparently so many people. The unique incorporation of co-op is so amazing im surprised it wasn't done before. Hopefully thatgamecompany can make more games like this in the future to come since once the servers go down this game will never be the same.