Playstation 3 | 2012 | ThatGameCompany
Everyone has a game that just feels like the right thing to immerse oneself in on a rainy, cold and bleak day; something that will lift your spirit no matter how down in the dumps you are.
For me, that’s Journey. It’s a short game… really short. Like, 2 hours short. However, the immeasurable release of deep emotional catharsis that it invokes every time I play through it, makes me feel like a weight dropping from my shoulders. There is no spoken dialogue throughout the experience, there is only a bell sound that you can produce, named chirping. Along the way you meet fellow travelers on a pilgrimage towards the peak of the mountain, with whom you can choose to travel with for a while. There are no names attached, just a story to live through together.
Each new playthrough of this game is a story in and of its own; a unique experience, where the adventure you partake in is truly yours. It places you in the moment, sometimes alongside kindred spirits, sometimes alone, always towards the mountain looming on the horizon.
Journey was a tough game to capture as a video. I constantly struggled to find the right words to describe what I was thinking or feeling. It’s such an experience to play through yourself and throughout the making of the project I frequently second guessed if the thing that I was trying to get across really worked. I’m still very proud of the end result, though. Enjoy.
TanookiChickenAttack 