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.