From Wharf to Wilds

On this blog, I've been trying to focus on analysing art games, games made for the purpose of telling the player a great story while telling it in a great way through the advantages that the medium of video games have. But most of the games that have been created either do not use it's advantages for story telling very well or they do not have a good story, as they were made for entertainment purposes only. It is why I've been trying to avoid Video games that are made for entertainment purposes. Because I wanted show to any non-gamers that you don't have to be hardcore or any good at video games to enjoy them.

The Game that I'll be talking about today is an action role-playing game that offers both entertainment and a great story that uses its game mechanics to help further develop it. This is developed by an indie team of only seven people who go by the name of Supergiant Games. This game is special to this team as it is their first game they've made. A game called Bastion.

Supergiant games team 

The Story:

opening

The story begins with the main character, who is referred to by the narrator as "The Kid" who has woken up to a world destroyed by what is known as The Calamity. The Calamity has left the city of Caelondia Into floating pieces of rubble and broken up land. In case of any emergency that occurred in Caelondia, the people had to go to a place meant to help and save them from situations like The Calamity. This place is called the Bastion. as you set off towards the Bastion, pieces of the floating land form from underneath your feet thanks to a piece of the Bastion the you carry on your back.

Bastion Cog

Once the Kid reaches the Bastion, he finds only an old man named Rucks. Rucks is a Mancer, who are the leaders as well as the scientists of Caelondia. Mancers are one of the many jobs in Caelondia since they operate under a guild system. The Kid being a Mason who are builders and defenders of the city.

The Bastion

After meeting Rucks the Kid finds out that the bastion isn't working since it's doesn't have enough power. Rucks tells the Kid that the Bastion requires cores to get it back up and running again. But the only other cores that still work were the ones that used to power Caelondia. Seeing as how the city doesn't need it any more, the Kid ventures towards each of them to obtain their cores. To reach these locations in a place where the land is a bunch of floating pieces is through the use of skyways. Skyways launch the Kid into the air in order to help the Kid fly to the core locations. The more cores you collect for the Bastion, the further the skyway can launch you to more cores.

Skyway map

During your adventure you find two more survivors of the Calamity. Zulf who is an ambassador of the Ura people and Zia who is also an Uran, but was raised in Caelondia. Before the Calamity, The Ura and Caelondian's were at war with each other.

(left to right) The Kid, Zulf, Zia and Rucks

After the Kid, Rucks, Zia and Zulf spend more time with each other, Zulf reads the Journal that Zia had which belonged to her father Venn who like Rucks is a Caelondian Mancer. He finds out through Venn's journal that the Mancers had developed a weapon that was meant to destroy the Ura during the war, this weapon had worked, but it worked too well, as it had destroyed Caelondia and is what caused the Calamity. In Zulfs anger he sabotages the Bastion and escapes back to Ura territory. Upon the Kid's return to the Bastion with the last core, he finds only Rucks and Zia in a damaged Bastion. Rucks instructs you to then retrieve Shards to repair the Bastion.

Zulf's Wrath

Now that Zulf has become an enemy of both you and Rucks, you encounter Ura warriors while retrieving the shards. Instead of the harsh Fauna of Caelondia that you dealt with when retrieving the cores.

When you return to the bastion with the second to last shard. you find that the Bastion being attacked by Ura warriors. After defeating the Ura attackers you only find Rucks remaining as some of the Ura had kidnapped Zia. Rucks then explains to you about the whole Mancer's doomsday weapon.
The mancers had initially made this weapon not to directly kill the Ura but to use it to prevent another war from happening between them and the Ura again. It was Venn who had triggerd it in an effort to destroy the Ura, but it backfired on Caelondia. Zulf however was unaware of this part of the story.

In an effort to end what Rucks and the Mancers had started. The Kid travels to the Ura's homeland to save Zia, obtain the last shard and solve the conflict between the Caelondians and the Ura. Once you rescue Zia she explains that she had voluntarily left with the Ura when the Bastion was attacked to find out more about their intentions. As you fight deeper into Ura territory. The Ura warriors turn on Zulf as they see that it was him who brought The Kid's destruction to their home territory. After saving Zulf from the angered Uran warriors you have the choice of either helping Zulf get out or leaving him there to rot.

 By leaving him, you then have to fight you way out with the last shard. Whereas if you decide to save Zulf you give up the only weapon you were carrying to carry Zulf's injured body through Uran Warriors. You are then set at a slow walking pace by Zulfs injured body, having the song "Mother, I'm Here (Zulf's Theme)" playing in the background as the Kid walks through a barrage of Uran arrows without slowing down. After a while the Ura see that the Kid isn't fighting back and stop firing at him, allowing the Kid to leave with Zulf. Even though saving Zulf doesn't effect the rest of the game very much, it does make for huge Video Game Caring Potential

Saving Zulf

Upon returning to the Bastion, the Kid struggles to regain his strength as he was weakened by the fight with the Ura. But once you start running again, the Kid places the last shard into the monument and finally fixes the Bastion. You are given the last choice between Evacuation or Restoration. Rucks explains that the restoration capabilities of the Bastion can return everything back to normal by bringing you back in time, before the Calamity ever happened. Zia explains that the Evacuation process will of course evacuate the Bastion from Caelondia, therefore allowing those on the Bastion the Start a new life else where. Either choice ends the game each with their own piece of narration and photo to end it.

Evacuation 

Restoration

My Opinions of the game

Unlike the other games that I've talked about, where the focus is on the game's narrative, Bastion excels in all aspects including: soundtrack, game play and narrative. It's able to tell you it's story at a good pace, provide the fun and varied game play to accompany it and while also giving some extra challenges,levels and replayability to the game if you still want more from it.The Balance between game play and story is what makes it one of my favourite video games of all time.

things that I'd like to take about in this game are mainly about the Ending choice, the Rucks' importance to the whole game, the soundtrack and other little bits of information here and there.




Learning The Back Story

Through the story, narration and journals you obtain, the game tells you about the past history of Caelondia and the events that took place before The Calamity occurred. Between the 4 characters in the game they each have a lot of their own back story which connects with each other. The more complex character being Rucks as previously explained.

There are some ways to find out more about the history of the world and the characters of Bastion. One of my favourite ways is through the Kid's mind. In between levels, when you come back to the Bastion there is a pipe, if you interact with this pipe the kid get's knocked out and we enter his mind, which becomes a horde mode. Here is a point where the developers connect the game play and the narrative. After making it past a certain wave of enemies the narrator provides back story about the Kid and if you want to learn more about the Kid, you'll just have to fight through more waves of enemies.



The Back Story

Before the Calamity, there was the Caelondians and the Ura. Caelondia had it's own Americanized culture as they lived in a city with a guild system, whereas the Ura lived in caves and had very traditional culture similar to asia. Between them was the Rippling walls where Masons like the Kid spent most of their time repairing, building and defending the wall.

Both the Kid and Zia never had proper parents. With the Kid, he never knew his father and his mother died the day he first went to the Rippling walls leaving him all alone. Zia on the other hand lost mother as she was giving birth to Zia. At this point Zia was only left with her father, Venn, who later dies in the Calamity. since it was him who triggered it.

In the City of Caelondia were the Mancers who thought that the only way to prevent any further wars with the Ura was to create a weapon to kill off the Ura in the event that they did attack again. Both Rucks and Venn were mancers who worked on this weapon.

There was an unnamed Caelondian man who had a plan to stop the Mancers and the creation of the doomsday weapon. This started with him seducing Zia and convincing her to leave Caelondia with him only to betray her to the authorities in an effort to blackmail her father, Venn, to prevent him from returning to work with the Mancers. Because of his anger towards this unknown person, Venn assumes that he is one of the Ura and decides to use the weapon on them, only to have it backfire and destroy Caelondia.
During the game, Zia feels somewhat guilty about the Calamity because she thinks that in a way, it was her that caused the Calamity.

Zulf's role before the Calamity wasn't to fight against the Caelondians, in fact as the ambassador he planned to travel to Caelondia to improve the relations between the Ura and Caelondia. During the game he turns away from this passive side of his and chooses to continue the conflict between the Ura and Caelondia even after the Calamity. Simply because Rucks hesitates to tell him the whole story about Venn and the Calamity being an accident.

The Back story reveals a lot about one of the themes of the game which is that most conflicts are just a miscommunication between both sides. How Venn assumes that the man blackmailing him is Uran which leads to the Calamity and that the conflict after the Calamity between the Ura and the Kid, Rucks and Zia is all because Zulf didn't get the whole story which is caused by Rucks' hesitation to tell Zulf.

The never ending narrator

Rucks/the narrator is voiced by Logan Cunninham, who acts as the never ending narrator for the duration of the entire game. Narrating from the beginning of the game, Rucks only introduces himself to The Kid in game when you reach the Bastion. He will comment on either what your character does, your current situation and more importantly he will also provide the back story of a character you encounter, as well as that of the world that you're in. the tone of the narrator's voice combined with the great writing prevents the narrator from being boring and annoying and instead makes him awesome and important to the whole story.

Game with Narration

Much like the narrator in The Stanley Parable, Rucks will notice anything that happens in the game and will comment on it. whether is be the weapon combination you have, how well you're doing or even information on a character or enemy.
In one sequence of the game you find ashen statues scattered throughout the level but these ashen statues were once people, who are now the result of the calamity. As you pass by, Rucks tells you each of their names and provides a bit of their back story. 

Rucks acts a bit like an unreliable narrator since everything he comments on is from his point of view. Meaning that the way he talks about some things allows you to dig into his mind. This point of view has a big effect on the choice you have to make at the end. Rucks seems to talk a lot about things from the past, like how beautiful The city of Caelondia was before the calamity hit and how he remembers the names of all the ashen people you come across. Even the ones he didn't like.




The Ending

Other than the choice you have whether to save Zulf or not. The choice given to you in the end is the only other story altering point in the game where the player can choose where the story goes next. Even though this this the only major point that the player has control over, the game is able to make this the player's most difficult choice to make as it has been providing you with information for the whole game, that give you good reasons for both Restoring Caelondia and Evacuating it as well.

When learning about not only Zia but the Kid too. You find out that for most of their lives they've spent alone since they either never knew their parents because they left or died, or in Zia's case where her father was focused more on his work than his daughter.
After this whole adventure Zia tells you how she's felt happier after the Calamity rather than before simply because she had you, Rucks (and maybe Zulf) as her new proper family. This of course pushes you to choose the Evacuation protocol of the Bastion.

Whereas after learning about Rucks' nostalgia for the past and how he's told you about it for the whole game, it can make the choice at the end difficult, as Rucks' narration pushes you to choose the Restoration protocol to see the Caelondia that Rucks has been talking about the entire time. Interestingly, there are some indications that the Bastion's restoration function has been tried many times before with lines from Rucks such as "Seems like this story has been told a thousand times" at the start of new game +.

Knowing that the restoration protocol has been used before and that it has had the same outcome all the time. It shows that the Calamity is unavoidable and that Rucks should let go of the past and start a new life with Zia and the Kid and Zulf depending on your previous choice.

In reality either choice you make between Evacuation and Restoration only results in a photo and some dialogue, but because of all the information given to you during the game. The player feels under a lot of pressure for this one point in the game.

The soundtrack

The man responsible for composing the soundtrack is Darren Korb, even with such a small team Darren was still able to make a total of 22 tracks for the game. Out of the 22 tracks, 5 had vocals that featured both Darren Korb and Logan Cunningham as well as Ashley Barrett. The rest of the soundtrack being I instrumental. Much like the rest of the game the soundtrack had the western steam-punk fantasy style to it where each track was different and focused on a particular emotion whether it be the moving percussive beat of intensity and urgency with stings in "Percy's Escape", the slow bad-ass, western acoustic guitar in "Slinger's Song" or even the distant guitar playing in "In Case of Trouble". Even outside of the game, no matter how you feel, at least one of the songs in this soundtrack could match that feeling.

1. Get Used to It
2. A proper Story
3. In Case of Trouble
4. Bynn the Breaker
5. The Sole Regret
6. Twisted Streets
7. Terminal March
8. Percy's Escape
9. Faith of The Jevel
10. Mine, Windbag, Mine
11. Slinger's song
12. Build That Wall (Zia's theme)
13. Spike in a Rail
14. What's Left Undone
15. Brusher Patrol
16. The Mancer's Dilemma
17. Mother, I'm Here (Zulf's Theme)
18. Pale Watchers
19. The Bottom Feeders
20. From Wharf to Wilds
21. Setting Sail, Coming Home (End Theme)
22. The Pantheon (Ain't Gonna Catch You)


I could go on talking about other small aspects that this game has like the item and weapon variety or how the floating land that form from underneath your feet is a metaphor for the Kid trying to piece his life back together, but this blog post is long enough.
Luckily Me and other fans will be excited to know that Supergiant games has planned to release their second game called Transistor.

"I'll see you in the next one..."

                                          -Rucks

A Tale of Two Thumbsticks

With technology growing more and more advanced as time goes by, video games will be able to be experienced in more advanced ways. From the start video game peripherals have just started to move from the conventional handheld controller to things like Motion control and even Virtual reality. As I've said many times before the ability to interact and have a choice is what separates video games from other arts and this is because of the controller. But normally the controller is simply seen as a way to control the game, a barrier between you and the game, as opposed to making it a way to connect the player to the game. which is what the gameplay or narrative is usually for.

 

 

This idea of using the controls not merely as an interface,or a barrier to getting your characters to clumsily move around on the screen, but instead uses it as a part of the story telling. This is something that no video game company has done before. But recently a company called Starbreeze studios has made a game that does exactly this. A game called Brothers: a tale of two son's.

Brothers is a fantasy adventure game where you play not as one character like most games, but as two characters. In this case you play as both little brother and big brother.

Summary of the game:

(SPOILERS)

The Game starts off with the little brother kneeling in front of his mothers tombstone, after a quick flashback we learn that she died drowning while the little brother tried to save her. Because of the way she died and how the little brother could save her. He develops a fear of water which affects him over the course of the adventure that awaits him. Not only has he and his big brother lost their mother but they also risk losing their father as he is ill. little brother is called by big brother to help wheel their  father to a doctor. Once you've brought him to the doctor, you are tasked with getting a healing potion which is the water from a tree of life that will help their father. thus beginning their Journey.

 

(View if you want to)

Throughout their journey they come across many varied location such as the village they started in, a mine full of troll slaves, a cliff-side home of an inventor, a giant's castle, as well as other less fortunate locations such as a war torn valley full of the corpses of giants, a spider cave and an abandoned frozen village. In these locations they also come across other characters who they help, such as, freeing a troll and his wife from the mines and other more serious situations like where they prevent a man from hanging him self.

 first encounter of a troll

 

 Mines
 

 Flying towards the giants castle with one of the inventors contraptions

 

War-torn valley of Giants

During their journey they end up saving a woman from some sort of religious blood cult. after traveling with here both brothers find out that this woman is actually a giant spider.Even though the brothers are able to work together to defeat her. she manages to mortally wound big brother.

Girl captured by the Blood cult

 Fight with the giant spider

 

 Big brother being mortally wounded

Near the end they both reach the tree of life that held the magical water to save their father. Because big brother is wounded the little brother must climb to the top of the tree in order to get the water to save both his brother and his father. But when he  returns to the bottom he finds that his brother has died from his injuries. unable to revive his brother with the water. He then Buries him near the tree of life while being overcome with sadness. after that he is returned back to the starting village by a griffon that both brother had helped before.

(view from 9:00 - 15:00)

Once brought back to a shore line near his home during a rain fall the little brother is finally tasked  with overcoming his fear of water by swimming all by himself  back towards the village where he is able to deliver the healing water to his father.
After the father has fully recovered from his sickness the game ends where you began, in front of your mothers tombstone except now with your big brothers tomb stone next to it.

The end

My Opinions of the game

Within the two hours of gameplay that the game offers it is able to show the player a world of fantasy, war, religion, danger, sadness, happiness and so much more throughout the two brothers' journey. Each Situation evoking it's own different emotion.

Each of these are either caused or effected by each other through the way the game presents itself to the player and isn't told through dialogue. The characters that you play as and those that you meet along the way don't speak any language, but in gibberish. Why? because it's just not needed, it doesn't need to rely on scripts and voice acting to advance you through the game. You can still understand what's going on through their gestures as well as the world around you, Another video game that executes this very well that I've talked about before is Journey.

The variety that this game presents to the player, is there so that no matter what, the player should feel something during the whole game. If you weren't touched when the little brother had to watch his mother sink to the bottom of the sea, then you'll hopefully be touched when you given the task of burying your own dead brother, while you watch the little brother sob and slowly move and push each pile of dirt.

Although this game is set in a fantasy world of trolls and giants it still is able to bring a sense of powerlessness where compared to most other fantasy games where you are either a skilled archer or a powerful wizard. Brothers has the two main characters react to each situation the same way any real person would since the brothers posses no significant power, which shows that  the companionship between the big brother and little brother are a power in itself. Allowing them to make this entire journey with nothing but them selves.

Interactivity

The most important thing that allows the game to connect you to each situation is the way Star breeze has changed the controls.

As I said before this game uses one controller to control two characters at the same time. You may think that the controls will have to be more complex to compensate, but in fact it's been simplified. Where One thumb stick controls one brother and one controls the other, thus allowing you to move them. and it also gives you one button for each brother to allow them to interact with anything. making that a total of 4 buttons to use. 

This control scheme is able to use the player's curiosity to their advantage, because as you  journey through this world you also come across other characters, whom the brothers are able to interact with.
This connects you more to each brother as the player would be curious to see how each brother would react to the situation at hand. One moment is where you come across a bird cage. If the big brother interacts with it, we see that he plays and pets the bird inside, however when the little brother interacts with the cage, he simply opens the cage and let's the bird loose. 

Game director Josef Fares states that "It is extremely important that Brothers is a single player experience.""It is extremely important that you bond and connect with the brothers, with the left hand as big brother and the right hand as little brother."
This control scheme was made on purpose, as it allows the player to connect to each brother and connect to the way they feel during each situation, because if you simplify anything it makes it easier to connect to most people.
The player should not feel like they're an audience to the story but because of the way Brothers uses interactivity, it is able to make you feel as a apart of the story. which is what this Brothers has executed and shown to the world.

This game has been able to Connect you to the characters on a screen no other game ever has.
It shows that the true strength in video game narrative comes in the interactivity of this medium, which is what no other movie, TV show or book can provide that kind of interactivity.











First video from: XCVii007r1
Second from: RabidRetrospectGames

First Person Grace

2010 marked the start of the Indie revolution. With games such as super meat boy by team meat, Fez by Phil fish, Braid by Jonathan Blow and the ever-growing Minecraft by Mojang. These Independent video game developers helped kick start this now prominent movement of video games, now known as Indie games. Because of the success of these indie games,  it has opened this new genre of video games which have shown to gamers, how a game made and financed by one guy can be just as, if not more compelling than a game created by whole teams of developers and cost millions of dollars to make.

 

The reason why indie games are important to a lot of gamers today is the same reason why most triple A games have been boring us for a while now. Because the big game companies are in this industry for the money, they make games that they know will make them money, which means that they will either copy and paste previously successful games or make a sequel/prequel to another game. For the past years in gaming history, these big video game companies have avoided taking risks when making their game in fear of losing money. Which has been causing some games in general to be bland and uninteresting, since these video games might be only slightly varied (not saying they all were).

The call of Duty series for example 

2003-2014

11 years of slight improvements, but still the same game in general 

Indie games have been able to bring in new and innovative games to this industry, which have given us gamers more unique experiences.But with indie game developers taking more risks. It's sparked another debate mainly amongst game reviewers/critics. which is simply about games that people don't think are games.

Whole story behind this debate seemed to have initially come from an indie title named Dear Esther by the Chinese room. Dear Esther is a first person game that takes place on an island, with the help of the narrator and notes scattered throughout the island, you slowly find out the story behind this place.
The reason why "Dear Esther" has brought up this debate is because of this game's experimental approach to a story based game.

But the problem that people have with this game is caused by the fact that it is an experimental game. That Dear Esther is solely focused on storytelling, whereas In terms of Game mechanics, well... there really isn't any, except for moving around but that's about it. This lack of Game mechanics has caused some people to say it's a bad game or not a game at all and other people to say game mechanics should not be that important to a game.

Lacking game mechanics (moving and picking up items only)

normal amount of game mechanics (moving, shooting, jumping, mini-map, health, etc)

This is an important issue for mainly game reviewers and critics because like any other reviewer or critic of the another media, the choice or opinion of the reviewer affects the purchasing choice of the public, which then affects the lives of the creators.
If it is defined as a video game then that give's reviewers and critics the ability to rip into a game like this and basically show how much of a terrible game this is just because it lacks Interaction. The people who do not see it as a game would say that  dear Esther is more of a book rather than a video game because it's as interactive as a book since your interaction is limited to pressing the W key(moving forward), the same way how a book's interaction is limited to turning a page.


Recently two other indie games that I have been able to play have also been affected by this debate because they too have the same experimental first person experience. These games are Gone Home by The Fullbright Company and The Stanley Parable  by Galactic Cafe.

Gone Home is similar to Dear Esther in that you play a girl named Kaitlin Greenbriar who's just come back home from a trip, but no one else is home. The game starts as you explore the house for any clues of where your family is and basically what has happened. 

My opinions of this game

Both its story and story telling are amazing. How it uses the player to tell the story through exploration rather than most other stories where the medium would tell you a story by itself. Without spoiling it too much, the story in gone home focuses on your sister Samantha which addresses a very big topic during the time period of this game as well as an issue that is still apparent today. The game takes advantage of this experimental first person experience because as well as the main story, there are also my sub-plots related to each of Kaitlin's parents and the house's history. These sub-plot's are created through other objects you may find in the house, which exist because the game uses the player as previously stated.

It might seem lazy on my part but I feel that The Stanley parable is best explained by the narrator himself in the game's trailer.

My opinions of this game

As a whole the game doesn't have a traditional linear story, there is the explanation that your a guy named Stanley who works at computer all day, pushing buttons when told to. But even after playing the game several times I've even questioned if that is true or not. Unlike Gone home or Dear Esther, The Stanley parable is not about exploring and uncovering the story of a place. At various points in the game you will have the choice of walking down one path or walking down another, most people would see it as a chose your own story kind of game because it has many branching stories within it. I my opinion, I think that The Stanley parable is the kind of game that requires the player to replay it to get the full experience of all the endings.

From the trailer it is apparent that the game will break the fourth wall a lot. This can be seen a lot between you and the narrator. For example: if you ignore the choices that the narrator recommends Stanley(you) to make, then you will end up in an "unfinished" part of the game that he did not want to show you.

 

 the unfinished portion of the game

Because of how Unique this game is, I've thought that The Stanley Parable is more of a game that plays with you rather than being a game that you play, because as you go through each branching story, instead of answering questions that you may have, they will probably create even MORE questions for the player.
It plays around a lot with the idea of control which is one thing that it has you question a lot. If whether or not the choices we make are significant, If this is a story about Stanley or The narrator or maybe even you (the person controlling Stanley) and If just because we can make a choice does it mean we have the freedom of choice.

Formalism

When I first heard about this debate, I agreed with the people who said that these aren't games because they lack control and the interaction that video games have that other mediums do. not But after finally being able to play games like this like The Stanley Parable or Gone home I realized that a game doesn't need to have a whole bunch of different ways to interact and control in the game to be a game but its how it uses these ways to control and interact to its advantage and to enhance the story. These games restrict controls to just pressing the W key because that is all that is needed for the player to explore a house or island.  Because if these where stories told through a book or movie then it would not be as compelling or emotional because these stories as games bring out the agency and feelings that a player has and uses the player's need for exploration to add to the experience. 


The idea of formalism in video games with games like Gone Home Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable is the same issue as formalism in music when rock/metal bands started to appear and weren't though of as music to most people just because they enjoyed other genre's of music. Whether it be games, books, movies, etc the definitions should not have rules to follow but should be broadening.

 "grace is the substance that formalism can't observe"

                                                                             -Ryan Green

 "Grace is when the two sides of the equation don't match but the thing works anyway"
                                                                                                                             -Jonas Kyratzes
                                                            

Hero's Journey

One game that has really inspired me to start this other blog is a game known as Journey, Created by ThatGameCompany.

 

Now before i talk about this game, Journey is not the type of game that can be watched. Journey (like most other Games by ThatGameCompany) is a game that you experience. One reason for that is to get people to play the game(because it's amazing), but the important reason for that is because of the element of interaction and control that i talked about earlier. Some the pieces of story telling in this game is dependent on the player's choice to do what they do and if you watch somebody else play it, you would think that it was just a coincidence. So now into the game (SPOILERS!).

My start:

Initially, I did not have any way of playing the game, so to sooth the urge to play it, I decided to listen to its soundtrack since the game also had an amazing soundtrack as well. It contained the following songs all composed by Austin Wintory:

	1.	Nascence
	2.	The Call
	3.	First Confluence
	4.	Second Confluence
	5.	Threshold
	6.	Third Confluence
	7.	The Road of Trials
	8.	Fourth Confluence
	9.	Temptations
	10.	Descent
	11.	Fifth Confluence
	12.	Atonement
	13.	Final Confluence
	14.	The Crossing
	15.	Reclamation
	16.	Nadir
	17.	Apotheosis
	18.	I Was Born For This

But after finally being able to play the game and had gone through the story. I felt so stupid to realize that the game's story is based on the hero's journey. I felt this stupidity because of all the obvious clues such as the Game's title  as well as the title of the songs in the soundtrack such as "the call", "Descent" and "Road of trials". But even though the hero's journey is a type of story that a lot of films and books are based on, Journey's version of the Hero's journey is special because of how it does each part of it.

Summary of the game:

In Journey, you start off in the middle of the desert as a lone wanderer in a red robe with an unknown gender and can only communicate with pinging noises. You are shown a distant split peaked mountain. Which becomes the whole goal for the entire game. You are also given a cloth scarf which allows you to fly around. As you venture towards the mountain you may sometimes find another lone wanderer (who are other players), who may help you with your adventure (again the only form of communication are the pinging noises no microphones).

 

The first main part of the game occurs when you first arrive at a city which is now in ruins and flooded with sand.

 Road of Trails (best part at 6:30)

As you play, you will encounter other sign's of life as cloth animals, but they all seemed to be dominated by another form of life which are the large stone creatures known as Guardians. (They seem to only attack and destroy any cloth, as well as you. Making them the only other enemy in the game.)

After surfing through the city you descend under the city where you first encounter The Guardians.

During the adventure you occasionally see a white robed being known as the spirit of the ancestor who shows you a piece of a mural after each chapter in the game. These murals tells us the about the past history of this land.

Once you surface from the dark under ground city, the spirit confronts you again. It shows you that your whole adventure was pre-planned and it shows you that your next and final task will be very difficult.

Skip to 16:20 for this scene

 The Spirit of the ancients

Beginning

From the desert to city ruins

 Ruins

Underground and ascent

  Final destined task

As you go into this final level, it goes from the heated desert to a freezing cold wasteland which has froze all the cloth animals within and whatever is still alive is hunted down by the guardians.

In your final effort, you do all that you can to get to the mountain with thunder crashing in the air, the wind pushing you back and the cold slowing you down. The only thing motivating you to keep on pushing through is the sight of the mountain just in front of you.

But Unfortunately, after making it this far in your journey you die.

Skip to 11:00

But, fortunately the spirit of the ancient's return and this time more than one. To help you complete your journey, they revive you and help you get to the split of the mountain where you are then greeted by the cloth animals above whom help you get to your destination.

Apotheosis

Once you walk into the split of the mountain the game ends and then the credits roll as you are shown the places you've been on your journey.

What makes it so special?

Now there are many things that I could talk about in this game from the back story (civil war that took place which also explains the cloth animals, guardians and the city ruins)and the music itself. But what I will talk about is how this game can show what video games can do as an art, compared to other arts, Why this version of the Hero's Journey is unique compared to other versions and how it immerses the player.

Journey takes around a hour and a half to play through, so why could not this have just been made into a movie?
One thing that help's explain this is the setting.That the creators decided to set the game in a desert. Although the desert sand can be beautiful at times (as seen in the road of trials), it is generally empty and lifeless. If this was like a movie where it was pre-made, it could have been set anywhere else other than a desert. But in this game, the lifeless desert helps make anything else in the player's sight such as a ruined city or a mountain in the distance, pop out more to the player which then play's around with their curiosity the way a video game can but a movie cannot. This curiosity helps tell the story with subtlety without having to force it down the player's throat (much like how a movie or a book would have to). Even though the player has all the control to do whatever they want, the setting of the game helps push the player on the right track.

Some of the components of the hero's Journey in the game is obvious such as the call (sight of the mountain) supernatural aid (the scarf) and the death. But there are two components of the hero's journey that this story as a game takes advantage of. These are the Refusal to call and the return.

The initial reason why I said that "this is one of those games you should experience for yourself" is because this part of the game, the refusal. To some people who played or watched the game, they probably would have missed the refusal to the call in the game.
As I talked about before, Journey's setting play's with the player's curiosity to tell the story. But in the beginning, even though there are things that pop out from the desert for the player to go to. Some player's might walk around the area because of their need to explore (like i did). To the point where they are then blown back by a wind.

Skip to 9:00

Some gamers might've seen this as an invisible wall and continued with the game. These walls are usually used in games to limit the control and choice that the player has, but instead Thatgamecompany uses this invisible wall that all movies do not have to deal with, as a storytelling device to show the refusal to the call and uses it again with subtlety.

The other Component of the hero's Journey that this game pulls off so well is the return. On your first play through you would of course be inexperienced. But during your adventure (if you were playing online), you would've met a companion on your journey who you followed as they guided you through the game. Just like the refusal to call, this component did not seem very obvious at first. But If you decided to go for another play through, instead of being the player to follow your companion as they guided you, you would become the guide to an inexperienced player who was playing for his first time. In most other versions of the hero's journey, the hero would return some treasure or power from their journey. But in the game you return with knowledge which you then pass on to other players. The reason why this return is executed so well is because of how it incorporates re-playability and the game's multiplayer mechanics to make this happen, when any other art would have no way of doing it this way.

 

the embroidery on the player's robe mark's the 

number of times they've beaten the game and therefore their experience

Far Left - Has not beaten game. 

Left - Has beaten the game once. 

Right - Has beaten the game twice. 

Far Right - Has beaten the game three or more times

Another thing that the game does just as amazing as its story telling is the immersion.

One part game that helps the player to be immersed into the world of journey is that your character  as well as your companion's character has no name, no distinguishable gender and wears only a robe with a scarf. The only things that can be different from other players are the length of the scarf, the embroidery and having a red robe or a white robe.

White robe

You are also limited to the things that you can do, which is the ability to move around, the ability to fly and to make pinging noises. The simplistic character design and why you are limited to the things that you can customize on your character, is to help you as a player to create a bond between you and the character and to be the character as opposed to a player who controls the character. This bond can  then grow into an emotional bond which makes parts like the surfing segment happier and enjoyable and other parts like your death much sadder.

The limitations of what your character can do, can make the game more universal much like a painting or song can be. In particular, the form of communication helps with this. When Thatgamecompany was making this game, they were trying to make it a multiplayer game for both those in America and those in Japan, but unfortunately there is a language barrier between them.
Thatgamecompany then decided to use pinging as a form of communication between players. This simple pinging helps make the game universal for everyone. 

As a whole, Thatgamecompany has created a game that can evoke emotion without saying a word.