Journeys: A Curated Collection of Writing on thatgamecompany’s Journey

by Adam Boffa, Dashiell Daniels, and Kate Welch
Curated by Kyle Carpenter

Journey, the long awaited game from thatgamecompany, has arrived to both critical and commercial success . The latest from the company that made fl0w and Flower, Journey is undeniably an artistic achievement. As Journey is experienced entirely without speech or text, it is notable (though perhaps unsurprising) that it has generated thousands of words on the subject.

What surprises us is how many people are telling the stories of their experience with the game. This is a common theme, culminating in the creation of , a blog that acts as “a space to collect the stories of companionship, sadness, and joy experienced while playing the videogame Journey.” One example of many of what Journey Stories speaks to is a compulsion to tell – to describe this virtual experience, which is at once shared and individual.

Medium Difficulty is pleased to present a selection of writings on Journey which provide different perspectives on this game, a trio of narratives which describe the experiences of their authors. We present them as meditations on the nature of communication and silence in this noteworthy game.

——————————————————-

One common thread in descriptions of this game is its emotional impact –  something of a feat in a game that only takes roughly an hour and a half to complete. What many note as important in the narratives they derive from the game are their experiences with other players; players who they don’t know, who they can’t know (there is a list of user names you’ve encountered when you complete your journey, but there is no indication of who was who: who walked alongside you, who merely passed you en route to the end, et cetera).

MD contributor Kate Welch provides one such story, where she describes a meaningful encounter in a game designed for fleeting moments. She writes about how the limited time of the game lent itself to a powerful experience that neither her nor her unnamed, unvoiced partner wanted to end (full article linked to the following brief excerpt):

At the very end of the game, after you collapse in the snow and enter The Afterlife or Paradise or whatever you want to call it, we goofed around together, expressing what limited exuberance we could to each other. We flew and surfed and played, but never strayed too far, and I found myself looking for his white song bubble to make sure he hadn’t continued on without me. He hadn’t.

What Welch’s story displays most vividly is the desire for communication that the game seems to foster, and how the very process of trying to break the voiceless barrier of the game allowed for a moment of connection. For my part, I wonder if it is this combination of ephemerality and silence that has fostered the mass response of writings, this desire to record, in other words, the experience of the game; as if it is only real when it is written down.

——————————————————-

A second voice who has contributed an article is Adam Boffa, who tells us that he didn’t mean to play the game in its entirety, but ended up doing so anyways. What is clear is that for him a certain responsibility emerges in the course of the game:

At some point, we found ourselves in the depths of some tunnels, maybe underwater. The mood changed, the lights darkened, and a giant sea creature threatened us, but my buddy and I stuck together. We approached an exit and I noticed a glowing symbol off to the side. Without hesitation, I ran after it, only to realize after grabbing it that I had abandoned my partner. I darted in the direction of the exit, screaming out as many notes as my robed figure could produce, hoping my companion would notice that I had fallen behind. It was too late – he was gone.

For Boffa, the silence players experience in Journey becomes a testament to their responsibilities to each other, a space where pleas and thanks are not necessary nor even welcome. And yet, once again, we have someone making sense of his experiences after the fact, describing this story as a moral narrative, filling the silence with a lesson learned.

——————————————————-

Dashiell Daniels offers a different take on Journey in his article “The Journey of Life,” suggesting that in paring down the interactions people can have with the game and other players, they’ve provided a way of reflecting the the person playing back to him/her. He reads this as offering a kind of therapy, a chance for the player to change.

Journey acts, for those willing to listen, as both therapist and patient. Journey creates an atmosphere that lets the player question his or her own actions and motives, an atmosphere that helps the player better understand him or herself, an atmosphere not unlike that of therapist and patient. In therapy, the therapist creates a safe environment for the patient to express his or her emotions and actions without harming himself or herself, or other people. Journey, like therapy, allows you to act in a world without consequence, letting you see yourself and recognize without real world consequence how your actions affect others.

Perhaps another reading is that the game offers itself as a canvas for self-invention; its essential silence is an invitation for expression. The relationship here is not of a player to another player, but rather to the game itself – a choice of how to create oneself in the palette the game provides.

——————————————————-

Journey, like any game, offers a set of possibilities. What is strange, perhaps, is that nearly every story which has emerged out of this game is that they are all describing the same moments, the same choreography; the game is essentially the same for everyone who plays it, and there is surprisingly little variation in the experiences people describe. However, the readings that emerge — and the voices that carry those experiences — are all wildly different. In some ways, the enigmatic “voice” of the robed figures in Journey, the warmly hollow tone and flashing white glyphs, find their parallel in the multitude of voices articulating their notions of this game.

One can speculate as to why all this writing exists: perhaps it is an attempt to fill in the silence. Maybe it is an attempt to join the chorus. And maybe everyone is finding something different in the same game, something that moves them to speech.

In many ways, this is the real measure of thatgamecompany’s success: spurring a discussion without saying a word.