For this critical play, I played Journey, which is a game developed by thatgamecompany and published by Annapurna Interactive for all ages.
Starting the game:
Starting the game drops you into the world without any explanation. No narration, no lengthy preluding cut scene and no tutorial levels that tell you the controls. However, since the world is so minimal (a vast desert), the game doesn’t need to prescribe heavy guidance because you’ll naturally explore the only notable features in the wide expanse. In fact, the lack of tutorial (only pop up images of the button you should press) leads to a dynamic where learning the controls feels exploratory itself, leading to an aesthetic of discovery. I spent a great deal of time in the beginning simply chiming at everything to test the mechanic’s function. These controls and physics of the game are very smooth, so there is also a great sensory aspect. This sense of curiosity created by the minimal design and the pleasure of the movement aids the main exploration of the game since you will keep trying to test the core mechanics against every new thing you encounter.
The Actual Exploration and how it tells the Story:
The core of Journey lies in simply walking around and interacting with moving flags to gain movement, which will eventually unlock cut scenes between “levels”–all without any dialogue or words. Your effect on the world is noticeable and rewarding since there is a sense that you’re restoring freedom to these flags and creatures. However, in the unlocked cut scenes, they are telling a past story that you are only now witnessing its after effects–an embedded narrative which gradually unfolds during your exploration. Although you are not enacting the story, your walking is directly tied to unlocking these cut scenes since navigating to activate them requires exploration of the world. I argue that this exploration is vital to the narrative since you gain more agency and attachment to the world through interacting with it than if Journey was told solely through its cut scenes. For instance, I became immediately more invested in the jellyfish-like creatures since I freed them myself and got to ride upon them. Since mechanics are so limited and directly tied to the story, the gameplay truly exists to serve the story by connecting the player to it. Every little thing becomes noticed. For instance, when first freeing the flags from the statue, a new sound effect with a slight mechanical tone plays. This immediately put me on edge about the history of this desert and made me more curious to see the next cut scene. Every thing about the game is intentional to drive your desire to continue walking: to continue learning about this world.
Comparison to Other Games:
You cannot enact violence or die in this game. The creatures you interact with seem to have a positive or neutral relationship to you. This choice of no violence or death lends Journey a very meditative atmosphere since the stakes are more so about engaging with the world and your feeling about it rather than conquest or threat. It also makes this atmosphere very accessible across all skill levels. I am squarely in the socializer quadrant of the gaming archetype chart, so I rarely play games to grind skills. In the violent games I have played, like Smash Bros, I primarily play to mess with my friends who are better than me rather than to win, which is definitely not its core goal. In other words, violent games mostly function on a parameter of dominance and implicit competition. This is not antithetical to narrative games, but it definitely does not lend itself well to an meditative game like Journey.
Conclusions:
In Journey, there is an embedded narrative about the lore of the world you are dropped in, which you only have three controls to uncover and no other goal. In other words, since the scope is so limited, the only focus is the story itself and you begin to fully appreciate how each aspect of the game aids this story from the smooth movement physics to the sound design to convey connection and the story’s past. It is truly a meditation on the story driven solely by the desire to explore it.
