Critical play: Walking Simulators
Journey is a walking simulator game co-developed by Thatgamecompany and Santa Monica Studio, available on mobile and playstation. The game places the character — a mysterious robed figure — in a desert landscape, beautiful in its simplicity. Their main quest is to explore the ruins of an ancient civilization, overcome obstacles along the way to collect artifacts, and reach the mountain top.
Journey’s main type of fun is discovery. Throughout the game, the character trudges around, discovers new clothes and trinkets, and they reveal clues about what to do next.
The main mechanics of Journey are simple. You can move around in all 360 angles, change the camera perspective to get a more expansive or detailed view of the landscape, and pick up articles that you find on the ground. These blend in to create the aesthetic of exploration. The game is very relaxing because of its soundtrack. There is an element of fantasy involved with the exploration of unexplored landscapes. As a gamer, you might experience submission to the character’s journey of mindlessly roaming around in ancient ruins. A crucial aspect of journey is the emotional underplay it creates. In the game, you might meet new hooded characters like you who might have their own quests and journeys. You have to choose whether you want to embark on their journeys or carry on independently. Like life, you must make choices and some of those will have troubling or tragic consequences.
An interesting design choice of the game is to not have explicit, text-rich instruction modals throughout the game. Instead, game designers decided to give hints to the player by the change in atmosphere in the game. If you stray to an off beaten path, wind will blow more strongly. Collectibles are distinct in their aesthetic and color scheme among the ruins — they either shine through or remain protruding out from the ruins — as if to call the explorer to pick them up. Much of the landscape is that of a desert but there are layers of an oasis or green skies near the mountain top.
There is no preset narrative in the game but with each motion of the user, the narrative weaves into the gameplay. It is largely clear what the goal for the user is – explore, collect, and reach the mountain top but there is mystery within the local scope of the game. It is unclear until you move around and explore what specifically you must do to overcome the most immediate challenge. In fact, it is unclear what the next challenge will be. This might be a nice change for people who prefer the sensation of discovery as the gameplay will surprise the user into new narrative arcs.
