Journey's dev-journey a finished journey

By Robert Purchese Published 7 February, 2012

Beautiful PSN exclusive to follow Flower, Flow.

Journey, a very important Actual New Game of 2012, has once and for all been finished, developer ThatGameCompany has revealed.

No more delays, no more wondering why a PSN game has taken three years to build.

"Three years is a long time when you finally finish something and look back [and say], 'What have I done in the past three years?'" tweeted the studio's creative leader, Jenova Chen, knowingly.

"Hope it's worth it."

When quizzed by his Twitter followers, Chen revealed that "Sony's working on [a date]" but that there are "quite a few big releases coming up". "Once Sony figure out the right time, they will announce it. I assume pretty soon," he predicted.

ThatGameCompany preceded Journey with games Flower and Flow - two of PlayStation Network's most innovative, artistic - and as a result iconic - titles.

Journey itself concerns a journey to a mountain across a desert with a stranger - a randomly picked Journey player imported via PSN. The clever part comes from how the game and you deal with that stranger. The beautiful part comes from the wonderfully sparse but sumptuous cartoon presentation.

Journey sounds pretty, too.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 4 months ago

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  • neilka #1 4 months ago

    Don't stop believin'.

  • Kangoo #2 4 months ago

    Hope this lives up to its promise and their previous games.
    Developers trying new things deserve credit, probably one of the best parts of this gen is some of the original stuff on PSN/XBLA

  • hermestrismegistos #3 4 months ago

    There's a strong possibility that I'll die if I don't get that soundtrack wrapped in some pretty digipack. LOVE the sounds!

  • TheEarlOfZinger #4 4 months ago

    At last.

  • CORIANA_SIX #5 4 months ago

    loved flower. really looking forward to this

  • Vanmunt #6 4 months ago

    Had the beta for this... can't really see there being a better psn game this year, really loved it.

  • BeardofZeus #7 4 months ago

    Both this and Fez apparently finished, both my most anticipated games this year, both without release dates.

    The pain of living continues unabated :)

  • ZuluHero #8 4 months ago

    When? When? When?!

    Hurry up Sony!

  • poke50uk Verified Technical Designer, SCEE Team Soho #9 4 months ago

    I hope this actually has some interesting gameplay now.

    I know it is supposed to be a journey of just meeting random instances of people like you - but with no way of communicating with them...

    but....

    Both when I watched my friend, and played myself, there was no identification of what to do, what you could do, how to control the game, and what our aim was. Turns out - the aim is to just wonder and explore an environment.

    I'm sorry, but you do not leave the player lost, I know they are trying something new, but so little of the gaming population will appreciate it and will just give up.

    I wanted to like it - but it's just a games experiment that they have been able to release as they had a three game set deal with PlayStation, and this is the third game. I would love for them to have had to try and get a publishing deal... it just would not have worked.

    It may turn out to be a nice experiment, a popular game, good luck to them.

    ""Three years is a long time when you finally finish something and look back [and say], 'What have I done in the past three years?'" tweeted the studio's creative leader, Jenova Chen, knowingly."

    Yeah... three years work... there needs to be gameplay and an aim by now...

  • BAM! #10 4 months ago

    "I would love for them to have had to try and get a publishing deal.."

    If Sony didn't think it was a viable game they wouldn't have green lit it and thatgamecompany would have been sent back to the drawing board. You make it sound like once they had that three game contract they were free to turn in whatever they liked. I'm sure you realise it doesn't work like that.

  • feistycheese #11 4 months ago

    @poke50uk

    “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end”

    Ursula K. LeGuin

    I dont mind wandering around without an aim, as long as that wandering is an experience that I will enjoy.

    Probably why it takes me 3 hours to get a loaf of bread from the corner shop.

  • sonicyoda #12 4 months ago

    @poke50uk I have a lot of respect for them by simply allowing the player to just get on with it and not firing loads of on-screen prompts at you about what you should be doing and ruining the atmosphere. We're gamers, not idiots.

  • mss99 #13 4 months ago

    Don't you mean SEN and not PSN :)

  • poke50uk Verified Technical Designer, SCEE Team Soho #14 4 months ago

    @feistycheese - you have an aim, to get a loaf of bread. You enjoy the openness of how you did it.

    I enjoy Skyrim, because of it's openness and ability to do practically anything we wish. Ultimately you have been introduced with a story line, given a character and a situation.

    Journey does not even do this, they leave you out in the middle of the desert, with nothing to push you in any direction, nor any reason to discover something.

    You may think "oh hang on, sounds like rather the same gameplay as Minecraft. No - Minecraft you are provided with the premise you will die if you stay out at night and starve if you don't eat. I am telling you, there is no aim.

    In flower, there was aim to just go and collect the petals, you did this - you were rewarded with a new area - there is none of this in journey.

    In the book, A Theory of Fun (http://www.theoryoffun.com/) - a well respected games design book in the industry - it warns of the dangers of lack of learning, too much learning, and no space to explore what you have learnt. Sure enough, Journey I see as a prime example of all these issues.

    As I said, I just hope there is some gameplay now

  • poke50uk Verified Technical Designer, SCEE Team Soho #15 4 months ago

    @sonicyoda I also appreciate the non-spam and self discovery that you had in typically older games. But there are game design tactics that we use to guide the player to feel like they the discovered something by themselves. It's not about on-screen prompts or shove in the face scripted events, it about not having any aim at all, no hints/introduction to slowly build a confidence in your skill, nothing to detect if the player is lost or struggling...

    As I said, I wanted to like it! There's just nothing to do >_>

  • Pacmaninov #16 4 months ago

    @poke50uk



    Well since you've pointed me towards a well respected book in the industry I'm going to disregard my brainium and whole heartedly agree with everything you've said.

    I mean maybe the aim is that there is no aim - what is the point of getting a loaf of bread, to eat to stave off death for another 60 years. Maybe it's nice to have a video game about the present rather than what is going to happen and how I am going to progress. Maybe it's not even about the video game or my character in it. Maybe the progression happens outside of the video game - you come away feeling something. I would say the aim of flower was to enjoy collecting the petals. You don't have to collect them all, but it's more satisfying to - but even in that beautiful game, there was a compulsion to collect all the flowers. Maybe a game with no compulsion, that is purely aesthetically pleasing has worth outside of levelling up and progression. Imagine a piece of music that would alter to a position of a dot that you control on a screen. Is that a video game to you?
    Although I've never played Journey, but doesn't the title suggest, if you think for just one minute, that the focus is not where you want it to be?
    Edited by Pacmaninov at 07/02/12 @ 12:42

  • poke50uk Verified Technical Designer, SCEE Team Soho #17 4 months ago

    @Pacmaninov -
    Yes, probably the point is that there is no aim. I've been along to a few of the design presentations they did at GameCity, it seemed like they wanted to try and stress that. Coming up with lot of reasons to try different feelings. I really hoped to enjoy such a game, but as you can see - I just didn't.

    Sometimes, that openness to an aim can make a great experience, but for a game to be launched as a retail product, the player just cannot feel lost.

    When you feel lost on a game, you get disheartened, you start building up a frustration, and you eventually give up. That is the fundamental feeling that all level designers try and avoid when laying out their designs. It's why recently there has been an over the top reaction in developing games, creating equally frustrating tutorials.

    Having an aim, or at least a guide roughly to allow you to discover what the developers want you to explore, just takes away the lost feeling of "just what is the point of playing?" and "what on earth am I supposed to do here?"

    If it is just a product designed to aesthetically please, then perhaps they may do it, perhaps you do come away with a strange pleasant feeling. But a game for me sets a challenge, provides a world for you to learn, and doesn't create the situation where I give up after 10 minutes of play due to being bored of the "lost" feeling. I always try to develop games with this in mind, and is why I hope there is now much more to the product than when I tried it back in August time. I want to explore these different feelings you get from playing the game, but at the stage I played it - it was too frustrating to do so.

    Good to see starting to actually open up a discussion on the reasons behind the development of the game, rather than being down voted by those who just don't agree - even if they may not have actually played the game. Watching someone effectively guide you through is incredibly different to playing it yourself before watching review and guide videos.

  • Doctor_What #18 4 months ago

    I agree that a sense of purpose is at the core of interaction - part of the reason that I never really got into Nobby Nobby Boy, but every trailer I've seen for Journey seems to have the glowing mountain in the distance and previews have mentioned this too. The name 'Journey' also implies a destination.

    You're right, if there truly is no destination to the journey then that is going to be an issue for the game. Arguably, an interactive experience with no purpose or direction is a toy rather than a game. Whether Journey will be a toy or a game will be revealed soon. Like I say, my impression from the previews does suggest a destination, but you seem to be acting on different information.

  • sonicyoda #19 4 months ago

    @poke50uk I personally enjoy that freedom. One of my favourite games of recent is Noby Noby Boy which is literally a game where someone says "here's some stuff. Go and have fun." If his can offer a similar experience then I'm all for it. Discovering the fun for yourself is a part of that experience.
    Edited by sonicyoda at 07/02/12 @ 13:47

  • Pacmaninov #20 4 months ago

    @poke50uk
    I can see where you're coming from but I think we disagree fundamentally.
    Firstly you are assuming that when there is no aim to something you feel lost. Where you describe being lost - I see a great potential to explore. In a game where you are supposed to be lost, is that not liberating? Does it not open up great potential? I would agree if we were discussing the merits of being lost in portal 2 or gow 3. But games like Journey are trying to hold up a big question mark over whether we are actually having fun right now. Is it really fun trying to get to that next checkpoint/level or whatever. Do people play WOW for fun now, or do they play for the promise of fun later? (when they finally have that [rare item])
    This is where I'd like to pick you up on the sentence "allow you to discover what the developers want you to explore." Is there ANY merit to that at all? You mention that as a designer you want to avoid gamers thinking 'what's the point of all this' while thy play your game, and I agree most design is based around a seamless experience. But as a gamer I am asking you: 'what is the point of all that?' - What is essentially a hand held cast iron experience? I may feel rewarded at the end and progressively throughout, but was shooting/climbing/collecting 1000 flags etc fun at the time? Did I care? Was that worth my time. I don't leave a concert thinking 'that sounded great and all but where the hell did the last 2 hours go? Sh!t.
    It's easy to get quite arty and mystical about the potential of video games, but your terminology: 'product' is all the same a little disconcerting from where I'm sitting. It leads me to believe that you are going to differentiate between small indi experimental games, and what is essentially a larger more mass market proposition. It's ok to experiment if the game is not full retail. But it absolutely must be a linear hand held lost-less experience if it's full retail. I don't really want to put opinions on your keyboard, but do you believe that?
    Returning to my concert analogy. Yes, I understand that video games are essentially a 'time kill' in the majority of cases. But they have the power to be so much more. Journey is just one separate idea in the slurry.
    P.s. tl;dr

  • Pacmaninov #21 4 months ago

    @Doctor_What

    You write 'arguably'

    Please argue it.

    From my point of view you interact with a painting in a purposeless way. You look at it but it has no end goal only to invoke something from the person looking at it. Succinctly: are paintings toys?

    Edit: I'm tired ok!
    Edited by Pacmaninov at 07/02/12 @ 14:03

  • super_monty #22 4 months ago

    Day one purchase for me, looks amazing.

  • Jolly_Armadillo #23 4 months ago

    Yay :)

  • Kaminari #24 4 months ago

    What big Sony release are we talking about?

    Gof of War 4 is, for all intent and purpose, vapour rumour; The Last of Us won't be released before March 2013; as for The last Guardian, should I bother guessing a date?

    Journey is the only certified major release of 2012 from Sony. And we need it fast.