The other night I finally finished playing Journey. It’s fantastic. It’s an emotion evoking adventure, I’m calling it that instead of a game because its so different from video games that I’ve played.
I’ve always had a hard time relating to the game characters. I’ve never looked at Mario, Link, Donkey Kong and thought “that is me.” I’ve never felt like that person or thing on the screen is me, right there, I’m getting through this level, I’m getting through this castle. That’s me throwing the barrels, this is weird.
It was different in Journey and I’m not exactly sure why. I felt like I was the on learning this new world, I was learning how to jump and fly and slide. It was me figuring things out.
The part that made it so good for me though is what happened this last time. I got to a point in the game where I ran into another player, I had heard that there were other players that could play through your game. Most of the time when something like that happened, I would let them play through and not interact. I don’t like playing with strangers because I don’t know what I am doing.
This time I interacted a bit, we learned from each other and I started thinking this other player must be an NPC because he or she was incredibly patient and waited for me. I played through to the end of the game and only after I had finished and was talking to people about it did I know that it was actually another person, a stranger, out there playing with me. I was just really touched at the fact that the other person stayed with me through the rest of the game, even though I didn’t catch on as quickly or was a little slow. That’s what made it so good for me.