11 votes

How Journey only truly made sense when almost everything had been cut

5 comments

  1. [3]
    Cirrus
    Link
    I've heard many good things about Journey. Too bad it's only on playstation. Extra credits did two videos analyzing how Journey's narrative follows the hero's journey(clue's in the name), and...

    I've heard many good things about Journey. Too bad it's only on playstation.

    Extra credits did two videos analyzing how Journey's narrative follows the hero's journey(clue's in the name), and makes its players live the hero's journey through its mechanics rather than relying on passive story telling.

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      eladnarra
      Link Parent
      It makes me sad that I'll probably never be able to experience that connection with another player if I manage to play it one day, since as the article mentioned it's much rarer to encounter...

      I've heard many good things about Journey. Too bad it's only on playstation.

      It makes me sad that I'll probably never be able to experience that connection with another player if I manage to play it one day, since as the article mentioned it's much rarer to encounter people now that so few play it.

      The fact they stripped away so many features during development is very interesting; it seems that even if they hadn't fully articulated it at the start, they had a particular goal in mind for how it should feel, and that enabled them to do away with things that they initially included as a given.

      3 votes
      1. Cirrus
        Link Parent
        Yeah, it's unfortunate that most players are gone now. However, I think the single player experience will be amazing enough on its own, judging by how good the visuals and music are. If I meet...

        Yeah, it's unfortunate that most players are gone now. However, I think the single player experience will be amazing enough on its own, judging by how good the visuals and music are. If I meet someone, all the better.

        Thatgamecompany has a reputation for making games that focused on emotions. They seem to have a thing for exclusive platforms since their newest game 'Sky' looks to be mobile only :(

        I only hope that their future games will be on PC.

        1 vote
  2. oneforall
    Link
    These quotes really caught my attention regarding how perfect strangers treat each other online: Chen also mentioned that when the tests included 4 players max, the players "create[d] situations"...

    These quotes really caught my attention regarding how perfect strangers treat each other online:

    "...[P]eople started to use thumbs down more often than thumbs up," he continues. "It started to get toxic..."

    There [were] a lot of disturbing experiences coming from the playtest so we knew that this wasn't the emotion we were going after.

    Chen also mentioned that when the tests included 4 players max, the players "create[d] situations" where someone was left behind, causing the one left behind to feel isolated. "Created situations" is the key phrase here for me: it indicates planned action versus an organic separation.

    Though Chen never gives specifics about the 'disturbing' events to which he referred, it still makes me wonder what it is about humanity in general that spurs people on— in a game, no less— to isolate others even when the game itself offers no benefit for doing so.

    One commenter on this article nailed my sentiments exactly on the head:

    The moral of this story seems to be people can be horrible when given freedom and need to have a lot of society stripped away before they can be nice.

    Just think how much of the negative interactions discovered making Journey is applicable to the workplace, the home, the school, the internet. Give people a thumbs up and a thumbs down and they choose the thumbs down, or the insult, or the sarcastic dig. Always complaining how wrong everyone else is.

    3 votes
  3. balooga
    Link
    Thanks for posting this. It’s very timely! I had Journey for PS3 but never played it (my spouse, who is not a hardcore gamer, loved it and completed it in short order). I recently discovered that...

    Thanks for posting this. It’s very timely! I had Journey for PS3 but never played it (my spouse, who is not a hardcore gamer, loved it and completed it in short order). I recently discovered that the PS4 version was available for free to me, presumably because I had already purchased it once. And just tonight, before I saw your post, I started playing it for myself.

    It really is a beautiful, tranquil experience. I have a couple other games from Thatgamecompany — Flower and Flow — and they are equally serene. I haven’t come across many game experiences that elicit a similar feeling. Maybe The Unfinished Swan, that one is also unique in this regard. I haven’t played Abzû yet but it looks very interesting.

    2 votes