For this week’s Critical Play, I decided to play Journey! The game was developed by Thatgamecompany and initially released for the PlayStation 3 in 2012. Now, it’s available (and still breathtaking) on multiple platforms, such as PCs and PS4s. Even though I had already seen my roommate play it, I had never played it myself, and I must admit that it was an amazing experience. First, I noticed that the target audience for this game seems to be a bit more mature than other games with similar visual identities. Even though I think kids would enjoy it, I also found that the lack of stimulation could deter them from fully immersing themselves in the game.
The game employs a very strong minimalist design in almost all of its aspects (movement, dialogue, story, character design, etc.). I felt that this really allowed me to focus on sensation more than usual as a way to have fun with games. I usually don’t enjoy games due to their aesthetics, but this time, I truly felt pleasure from simply walking around and taking in the vastness of the desert. Also, another fundamental aspect of Journey was how it tackled Fellowship. Its anonymous multiplayer system greatly surprised me, and I felt weirdly connected to a random individual, only making a few noises and walking around/jumping with them around the desert. I found this to be perhaps one of the best examples of how to design games with great friendship and socialization boundaries in mind.
As a walking simulator, experiencing the vast landscape and occasional ruins (and nothing else), really made walking more meaningful. Walking felt almost like meditation: I was simply thinking about what was going on in the game, and slowly uncovering (what I interpreted as) the game’s themes of the passage of time, friendship, and life… It was pretty existential. Also, walking next to someone (without the ability to speak to them) kind of transcends language. I had no clue who I was walking with, but we were walking together (deep).
I didn’t get to finish the game, but walking was perhaps the greatest way in which the story unfolded. Walking gave me the ability to explore the desert, and really was fundamental in setting the pace for the story. For example, there was a point where I had to walk a great distance to get to the next ruin. In any other game, I would expect to be able to run, or get a horse to get there faster. Here, I was stuck with walking. I had to go through that literal passage of time in order to progress through the story!
Honestly, there probably isn’t anything that I think Journey could improve on. However, I did wonder whether or not it would be interesting to offer local/LAN multiplayer options so that people who are already intimate with each other can share this experience while being in the same room as each other!
