Video Games 2011: Journey by TGC

Thatgamecompany aka TGC, the genius behind Flow and Flower video game, proclaimed their 3rd downloadable video game at E3 – Journey: Lost in The Wasteland. This project is demonstrating to be as puzzling and intriguing as their previous attempts.

The inspiration for Journey came up from numerous sources. Creative director Jenova Chen reported a lunch meeting he had several months ago with a real world NASA shuttle pilot. The pilot told him that he had never set foot on the moon (he was piloting in the mission), but he had did travel with others who had. Without exception, he stated, these people returned changed, with a fresh spiritual and emotional view on life conveyed on by the feeling of isolation and vast-ness they felt standing on the surface of the moon.

Chen was enamored by this phenomenon, and determined to explore the idea in his forthcoming game. Chen also talked about how the nature of several modern video games was about the illusion of power, and he was concerned in creating a game that brought up the reverse sensibility - a sense of powerlessness induced by being alone and isolated. Such a game character will hunger for contact with others, in the same manner people in real life look for connections and significance through kinships. Additionally, Chen remarked a personal fascination with the comparative mythology authorships of Joseph Campbell, the very same author George Lucas frequently mentions as an inspiration for Star Wars.

From this brood of ideas, Journey started to take shape. The video game starts as the player awakens on a huge open desert filled with crossing sand dunes and swooshing wind. A beautiful, lonesome cello tune picks up in the soundtrack. The chief character is a strange figure in a long red cloak. He could walk using the left stick, move the camera view using the Six axis tilt, jump, and reveal a keening song using another button. Climbing up to the apex of a nearby dune, the player can spot a remote mountain that oozes out a pillar of light into the sky. Having nowhere else to go, the unknown mountain turns into a definitive destination for the game that succeeds.

When the red-cloaked hero runs across the dunes, the ground reacts like actual sand, tumbling down surrounding his footfalls, and having him skid down steep surfaces. The sand possesses a virtually magical character; it rolls and ascends like sea waves that break up against the dunes. The hero can grab these waves, and surf across them like they were water.

Mysteries are aplenty in the desert. Unusual stone monoliths come into being and bring runes on the hero’s cloak. Pieces of cloth drift free in the air, and can be collected to provide bursts of flight. But no enigma is bigger than the vision of a lone character on a distant dune - another player lost in the barren land.
Journey video game makes an unequaled multiplayer experience. At any point in time, one other player can come out in your game. The two players can’t speak or distinguish each other. They can ignore one another, or work together. Chen desires the experience helps players to search a fresh emotional palette centering on how loneliness pressures us to reach out for companionship. The video game seems like a captivating social experiment, and the combined of visuals, audio, and unique gameplay are truly spellbinding. Only time will reveal if TGC’s strange poetic vision will pull in a curious audience. Journey for PS3 is scheduled for release 2011.