In honor of the ten -year anniversary, since the Journey release from thatgamecompany, we will again plunge into the history of the “Sleep Plaznik” and find out why this game has become one of the most innovative in the industry and how developers manage to turn so competently and sensitively to the emotions and feelings of the player.
In the video game environment there are already established and familiar traditions. For example, a trechact structure of submitting a plot, where there is a “tie”, “confrontation” and “denouement”. Various systems, such as the location of the sight above the hero’s right shoulder or so often used “Coyote Time”, when the developers give the players the “Most Lean” – the opportunity to push away from the platform where the character was, but from the air, in order to protect them from the fall.
Strips of hp, resources, towers, dialogs and murders – it sounds like almost no game can do without all this? This is true. But sometimes individuals come across, who are also difficult to name in the usual understanding.
Today we will talk about such a game. Journey, created by ThatgameCompany specifically for PlayStation 3 and subsequently ported to other platforms.
Today (March 13, 2022) a ten -year anniversary has been celebrated since the game was released. In honor of this, I decided to consider how the story of the “Plaznik of the Desert” became one of the most innovative games; How developers were able to force people unfamiliar to each other without the use of human communication familiar to us and why this game can bring you to tears.
Monomif in Japanese
Despite the fact that the game during its period of creation was able to survive what they would now call “production hell”, including stretching the development period from one year to three, an increase in the staff of employees and even the temporary bankruptcy of the company, the project was still able to withstand the onslaught of Sony Computer Entertainment, and the authors managed to make the final product so that the emotions caused by them were really touching, as originally and expected.
Since 2009, when work began on the project, the developers led by the director and creative director of Jenov Chen represented “Jorney” or “Journey” as something that goes beyond the “typical mentality of defeat/murder/winning” of most video games. First, the team created a prototype called “Dragon”, in which the players tried to distract a large monster from other players, but ultimately abandoned this idea, since the players were too easy to ignore other people in the sake of achieving their own goals.
Inspired by the aesthetics and philosophy of Japanese gardens, the authors tried to remove all the extra and preventing the elements that interfere with emotional perception, so that only those feelings that they themselves wanted to arouse appear. A similar mood also finds expression in the visual component of the game, as if developers used the most common metaphors of elements of Japanese gardens.
The ancient large stones, as well as a mountain from the final of the game, have become a kind of personification of the Holy Mountain Pomer, which is considered in Hinduism and Buddhism as the center of all material universes, or “Yang”. At the same time, the sand surrounding all this, in comparison with large stones, plays the role of a soft, fluid river, that is, "Yin". Well, the bridges, so often found on the path of the player, symbolized immortality and the path itself or the “journey” to paradise.
The story arch of the game is built according to the classical system of the monomifa Joseph Campbell. According to Campbell, the hero from myth to myth structurally goes the same path, with the same trials, before the myth reaches his climax, and the hero becomes a hero in the full sense of the word.
The first or “separation” stage, the stage of parting is symbolized by the departure, flight and wanderings of the protagonist, to which someone or something calls him.
The second, “limal” stage, is represented by crossing borders, staying in an unusual intermediate state. This stage also correlates, firstly, with the torn of the hero from the real world, and secondly, followed by the degeneration of this very hero.
Well, the end of https://luckykongcasino.co.uk/ any myth or mythical history is the hero’s return to “Axis Mundi” – to the center of all material. The end of the myth is also often presented as the death of the hero, or the rebirth of the whole world.
Among other things, the chosen desert setting is largely based on the Middle East and includes Arab culture, art and architecture. Jenova Chen and Art Director Matt Nava did not want to fall into extremes, giving the game too western or too eastern flavor, so the Middle East is the most compromise option.
“The plan was to create a game in which people would feel that they are connected with each other in order to show them the positive side of humanity”.
Altruism and songs
In the modern world, players are often inclined not to hide on their saboens, but on resources, especially if these resources make his character stronger. When developing a model of the Journey cooperative, the authors faced a difficult task: how to design the dynamics that will make the player feel rewarded for cooperation, without a standard set of rewards (experience, treasures, improvement of weapons, etc. D.) for which games usually rely on. It is very difficult for players unfamiliar to each other to cooperate, guided only by one desire, and not to force the game itself, for example, when she puts a threat against them in the form of monsters, traps and other conventions.
The Journey cooperative was conceived so as to focus on the element of communication and social interaction in video games, and not on specific purposes, because it was assumed that the player could play both with other people and alone. Therefore, in order not to distort the perception of any of these types of passage, I had to go to some tricks.
So the interaction system has appeared, based on sound signals and visual effects that everyone could interpret in their own way, but without harming their own prejudices, as it happens, for example, in the presence of text or direct voice communication. The singer’s character is more like the sounds made by birds. In total, 4 types of vocal signals were created, each of which depends on how the player makes only one button. And when another player is nearby, then such singing merges into a single choir. Thanks to these elements, the players had to build a social connection, with the help of their actions mutually helping each other. Or leaving, if such is their decision and their path.
Technical revolution
Sand in Journey, in fact, acts as a separate character and it was he who became the same breakthrough, from a graphic point of view, an element.
One of the most unusual aspects of the gameplay is the ability of "surfing" in sand dunes. Thatgamecompany wanted the sand to be felt more like a solid body, but like a liquid. For this, a strong reflection was used, which can often be found in shadeers of water (special programs for the demonstration and drawing of the game elements).
But if you have ever been to the desert, you probably noticed how much sand is, in fact, brilliant, because each grain of sand can potentially reflect the light in a random direction.
Thanks to the very nature of the random numbers, part of these reflected rays during video shooting will fall into the camera. Because of this, individual sand points will seem very bright. This shine is very sensitive to movement, since the slightest shift can interfere with reflected rays.
To recreate this effect and give realism, the environment developed a new system of the “anatomy” of sand and reflection of light, which was so highly appreciated by critics and programmers.
But now I will not delve into the technical part very much, since it is not to tell you briefly and simple words. In return, I will leave a link to the performance of one of the developers, where everything is described in great detail.
Warning: Video in English
Music like a travel companion
Properly selected musical and sound accompaniment, which could sufferly emphasize the emotionality of the moment, in my opinion, is one of the key factors in the creation of a “masterpiece”, both in the cinema and video games.
Music in "Journey " Was written by the compromising of Austin Wintori, whom you can also know as the author of the musical accompaniment of the games of the series “The Banner Saga” and, for example, “Assassin’s Creed Syndicate". He also previously worked with Thatgamecompany on the soundtrack to their project "Flow ". While the artistic style of the game is based on several different cultures, Wintori tried to remove any obvious cultural influences from music to make it “as universal and less cultural as possible”.
One of the most important aspects of creating music was the need for its dynamic binding to the player’s actions and surrounding sound effects, so that the feeling was created that all events are unfolding in real time ”. According to the authors, short musical fragments that are hung up without reacting to the player would be a “lost opportunity”, while they wanted to create music that would change, but at the same time preserved the composed “emotional arc”.
Soundsine includes considerable work and with the environment of the player. For example, the player’s scarf and cloak loops constantly read several variable elements of the game, including the speed of the character and the wind surrounding the landscape, as well as the length of the fabric of clothing itself. Each of the loops of the scarf always reproduces one of 64 specific arrangements. The sound from small strips of fabric also works in the same way that they accompany the player in his adventure. For each of these pieces there is always a separate calculated sound effect. Well, the sounds coming from the fabric of fabric appearing later, reminiscent of something like slopes and whales, directly depend on the player’s actions, so that there is a feeling of living communication with them, allowing you to feel notes of appealing to help, questioning, muttering, laughter … or sad groans ..
Unlike most games that are familiar to us with their own musical topics for individual zones, characters and time, in Journey there is a musical theme is a single, which develops throughout the game. It is the scores inscribed in it that become a reflection of the characters, which is expressed in the use of individual musical instruments. Thus, the viscous solo cello represents the player himself, and whenever the main character meets another character, the party is dynamically complemented by the harp and alt.
Austin Wintori himself described the music as “a big concert for the cello, where you are a soloist, and all other tools represent the world around you”. The cello begins the game as “immersed in the sea of electronic sound” before appearing on its own, and then merge into a full orchestra, reflecting the player’s journey to Great Grand.
Apotheosis and tears
Work on the soundtrack was extremely fruitful from the very beginning. For example, after the first meeting of Jenov Chen with Austin Wintori at the beginning of the development of the game, Wintori left the discussion and created the basis of the title topic before he got to his car, and later composed and recorded the whole main party for the cello.
However, in the final the author had difficulties with the final composition called "Apotheuss". Then the developers still did not know how to finish the player’s journey – they planned a large, dramatic conclusion, but at one moment, at the concert, Winteri forced the orchestra to stop, “disappear” at the end of the work to demonstrate the solo of the famous cellist Tina Guo, whose work you can also hear, for example, in the game “Cyberpunk 2077”.
Such a finale inspired the team to finish “Apotheuss” and the game is the same – when the game world disappeared, leaving only one player ..
In the same way, the player’s reaction also influenced the game. By the end of the second year of production, when the final was not yet sufficiently worked out and polished, the hero of one of the testers, shaken by the winds on a snowy mountain, with his last strength, breaking through through all the obstacles, stopped in the middle of an endless snowy slope.
As it turned out, his character stuck his feet in grief and simply could not move. Seeing the player crying from the surging feelings, who really considered that this was the end and the hero will remain on this grief, noticeable by the winds and snow, the developers decided to review their views on the final of history. To make the last emotional wave – from depth to climax – more touching.
As a result, as Jenova Chen himself said, three of the 25 testers of the final version cried at the end of the game. But later a small, seemingly project, was able to catch the feelings of millions of people in this way.
A colorful feed that leaves the scope for its own thoughts; The worked out world, vividly responding to the actions of the player, and amazing music, which becomes the invisible thread that connects all this together. Both a player with the game itself, and with other not lonely wanderers of the desert world "Journey".