Pixel Pilgrim

I awake in the molten sands of a desert. Rising, grains of it fall from my scarlet robe, I know I am on a journey, the title has told me that much, and it is all I need to know. As the sand moves under my feet I set off on my pilgrimage, into the unknown of the undulating dunes.

Journey is the latest game from ThatGameCompany who brought the world such varied experiences as Flow and Flower. If you ever plan to play this game then please stop reading, refrain from seeing or hearing any more on it, as the more that surprises you about this game the stronger the experience is.

Whats new about Journey is not the methods by which it leads the player along its path but the way it evokes feelings whilst doing so, one reviewer commented on the elements inspired by other games, and there is evidence of drawing from other game's strengths. The iconic landscapes of Shadow of the Colossus strewn with crumbling viaducts and bridges features in one section, while the constant goal of the lit peak on the horizon is quite reminiscent of the ever present singularity tower in Half Life 2: Ep.2, always reminding the player of the importance of certain narrative points.

Jenova Chen, co-founder of TheGameCompany, is often reluctant to talk on the artistic intent of his games, but in an interview he did reveal one of the themes for Journey whilst designing its gameplay mechanics. When walking down a street in a crowded city people rarely greet each other, the interaction between people is not cherished as it would be on a moutain hike where to see another person is a rare occurance. Maybe you walk with them and talk a while before separating ways again. This is the experience, and the emotions of companionship and shared memory that go with it, that they strove to create.

In the online gaming community of sports, shooters, and MMOs: identity is paramount. You must connect to your avatar  because  then you will invest time into developing your character's skills and appearance in order to differentiate yourself from you team mates or competitors. This culture of individualism would have destroyed the experience Journey aims for as it is very important you don't have this separation of identity when you meet a companion. For your companions are in fact other pilgrims, on other consoles, travelling with you through bandwidth, and sand.

Journey creates commonalities between players to help foster that kinship of two travelers. Mechanically you have a common destination, the very act of walking beside someone, whether you're leading or following creates literally a shared direction. Visually you have a common appearance, you are clearly here for same reason. Your red robe and dark face mean that you have no reason to discriminate or even differentiate between yourself and your companion, you belong together. Aurally you speak the same language, an alphabet of woodwind words, flute-like in timbre. This simple method of speech allows primitive expression that can connote fear or excitement with some rapid toots, a call or farewell with a louder sustained note, but none of this is taught to the player or written in a manual it merely exists as a system of expression between players to further unify them.

Yet for all this common ground between players it is still essential that players are strangers to begin with. As strangers the evolution of your acquaintance with each other parallels the evolution of the journey you take together, you discover a new place whilst simultaneously discovering a new person. Another of the game's metaphorical systems of play is the attainment of scraps of cloth to add to your scarf. Mechanically this allows the player to spend longer in the air as they expend the magic symbols inscribed along the length of their scarf. It also gives the player a sense of history, like each scrap is a memory collected and stored, and who has the most memories? The well traveled, the experienced: the elderly.

When I met a companion with a scarf significantly shorter than my own, I had subconsciously understood the game's systemic analogy for age and automatically felt a sense of responsibility that I couldn't place without the hindsight I now have. My relationship to this companion took on the role of teacher and disciple, the veteran pilgrim leading a traveler on their transition into adulthood, though I had never completed the journey myself, I took the lead followed by my companion, when I waited so did my companion. I developed a connection to the point where I gasped when my companion was attacked by a leviathan of a creature that resided in the cave we were passing through, I feared my disciple was gone, permanently. I felt responsible. I had not been the protection I should have been. This consistent 'tight coupling' of mechanics and themes is something that I spent 9,000 words advocating in my dissertation, so to see it in a game the day before hand in was just a complete joy.

There are other anecdotes of abandonment, euphoria, and relief at not being alone at the end. And this is only one person's experiences with a game that offers such an emotional range I imagine there are thousands of emergent stories being told by players, all variants on the template which ThatGameCompany created. Journey is just one of those very rare games that manifests its vision so completely, so elegantly.

"This move (to abstraction) underscores ThatGameCompany's sophistication: in a medium where interpretation is scorned as indulgent and pretentious, Journey gives no ground: the player must bring something to the table." (Bogost, 2012).

After its all over you are presented with a screen of PSN ID's, the online identities that you spent your journey with. So if you did value your time with you fellow traveler, maybe you actually did find a like minded person who you now have the opportunity to contact, now you have the opportunity to extend that relationship beyond the boundaries of Journey. But the screen fades before too long and I got into the digital equivalent of that situation where you lost the contact details of someone you met on holiday, so if my companion debellatoro1 (or similar, because that PSN ID didn't work) ever reads this, send Olninyo a message.

I'm glad I was not alone, on my journey to the end.

Relevant Reading

IGN's behind the scenes interview with Jenova Chen

Ian Bogost's retrospective on ThatGameCompany's game's and their progression from the theory of flow to Journey.

A behind the scene documentary with the designers talking on the game and what it means to them.

Bernard

I have now moved into my new falmouth accommodation. Its pretty nasty. But I wont bore you with the lengthy list of problems we've had to address in order to make the place habitable. I occupy the very top of 14 Tregenver Road, aptly named the "attic room". So I'm blogging from my supior vantage point, on stolen wifi, not sure which neighbour is facilitating this. Our own broadband should be arriving on the 27th. And now for the main event:

 Recently Bernard, my Playstation 3, died. It suffered from overheating, this melted the "heat sync" pads that monitor the respective temperatures of the RSX graphics chip and Cell processor...I think. This is known as the yellow light of death, or to be more precise, red blinking light of pure evil. After the initial despair and checking out my various repair options I decided I had nothing to lose in attempting to repair it myself. I mean it was completely broken. What could possible be worse? This was my reasoning anyway.

So I turned down Sony's offer of a £120 repair where I wouldn't even get my own system back and opted to buy around £35 worth of tools and materials myself and perform some mechanical surgery of my own.

I could not have done it without this guy who uploaded a series of videos to youtube detailing the complex process of "re-flowing" the PS3. So I set to work, armed with a heat gun, some flux organic solder, cleaning alcohol (99%), a range of screw drivers (precision and standard), and a tube of Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound. Me and my flatmate Liam stripped away layer after layer of the PS3's. There was such a shit tonne of screws I decided to draw out a piece a diagram stating how many there were of each screw as we removed them, how long it was, and where it went for when we reassembled it. Hardcore right?

Right at the centre of the PS3 lives the motherboard. It was dusty as hell, and there was melted thermal compound covering the chip covers and heat sync pads. So after cleaning all this off it was time to do the actual fixing part, this consists of strategically heating the motherboard and resoldering some of the SPU's with the flux at varying heats and for different amounts of time with the heat gun. Now my heat gun was a cheap thing of amazon which has heats 0,1 and 2. According to the manual this means off 300 and 600 degrees. Whilst following the instructional video I got caught up in the heat of the moment (hahaha haha ha...ha?) and didnt hear the temperature given in fahrenheit, not centigrade. So on my second pass of the heat gun I nearly melted one of the SPU covers into a tar like puddle, fortunately it mearly resembles a slightly shinier and more rubber like version of its original self.

Once that was done, and I was convinced I had screwed up the most crucial and risky stage of the operation; I applied a fresh coat of thermal compound to the heat sync pads and proceeded to reassemble. Incredibly, despite far from flawless craftsmanship, Bernard breathed once more. I felt cautious about using him at first, he still seemed fragile in my mind, so I limited him to 40 minutes of Batman: Arkham Asylum every night just to ease him back to full health, or as close as he'd ever be.

Probably not the most fascinating of blog posts but I thought I'd share this little ancedote as an insight into the ways I fuel my passion for gaming. Meanwhile here's an incredible gameplay demo for Bioshock: Infinite. Prepare to catch your jaw in your lap.

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