Journey (PS3/PS4)

My friend Cory, (who often comes over to watch me play games) said she might come by. I told her I'd be totally engrossed and just to come in if she did. I shut off my lights, turned off my phone, and started my very first Journey.

It took virtually no time for me to get sucked in. I was smoothly sliding through the desert on my own, taking in the surroundings, but I knew why I was there. I was there to find my way to the mountain in front of me, and I set off determinedly on that path. The desert is vast, and the feeling of emptiness and desolation becomes apparent quickly. The cloth is limited, and flight was a luxury, so I walked carefully from point to point until I needed to use my scarf.

I eventually wandered and learned some history along the way, which then opened a path to an area with arches that used to contain a bridge. It was while wandering here that I encountered my first traveller.We sang out and met up, leaping and running from point to point, finding glyphs floating in the air, singing to each other, and assisting each other in flying recklessly across the landscape and making our scarves longer. After several minutes of exploring, my companion sat on the ground, and I walked up to them waiting, assuming that their player had to attend to something. Except that they slowly turned to sand and blew away.

I was stunned, frightened, and suddenly very much aware of being alone. Mistimed flight meant walking to the nearest floating cloth and singing to it, begging for help. The pitch of my voice not met with the slightly different call of a partner suddenly seemed very small. I wandered slowly rebuilding a bridge of cloth, when I heard a new call off in the distance. It drew my attention and we hurried over to each other.

We sang and leapt and flew together. If one of us missed a glyph, the other would stand and sing in patterns to attract the other's curiosity and help them get to it. We subconsciously chose sides, me taking the left and them taking the right. We hurried along together, supporting each other and desperately curious for Glyphs and what else lay ahead. We were helped briefly by little kites, but payed most attention to one another. Whenever one of us became separated, the other slowed and called out. If we didn't see the other one flying to catch up, we'd run back to sing flight back into their scarf. At some point here, my friend Cory wandered in and sat down to watch.

We slid down hills and played, continuing to call out attention and ensure that they never missed a glyph that the other found. We called out more cautiously in the underground, slowly progressing through the darkness. The giant cycloptic statues awoke, and we avoided them safely. My companion stayed ahead, being more bold than I. We stayed safe for a while, until one of them spotted my companion, and ripped them into the air, tearing their scarf. I flew to assist them, and then it became a desperate run to the end. I fell behind, and watched the lights blaze red, and they locked in on my companion, ignoring me. I tried to catch up, but at the last moment, they turned back, and we made it to a safe haven.

From there, we wandered up through a sea of light and glyphs, having some time to play again, though slightly more reserved than we had been before. We climbed and flew, finally reaching the summit of the tower, where I was presented with a vision of my Journey thus far, and a vision of the road ahead. I wondered if my companion had seen it as well.

We trekked into the snow, and I noticed that when I strayed from my companion, my unlit scarf began to freeze and wither. I tried to stay close, knowing my companion was focused on forging ahead. We made our way slowly, ignoring the re-freezing cloth, and making our way steadily upwards through the wind and passageways, waiting and following. Then we came to small hideaways from the Stone Serpents. Several times we strayed too far, and they smashed away our barrier, throwing us off into the snow, and tearing what remained of our scarves. Soon neither one of us had any left. We walked desperately upwards, striving to reach the summit. I tried to share in warmth of closeness, but the pace slowed... and then they fell down, motionless.... and so did I...

I saw the white figures, and I was regenerated from the frost. I arrived in a bright, flowing mountainside, and set to fly up the summit amongst cloth rays and whales, singing out to the nature around me. My scarf was long, and life was brimming, but I was aware that I was alone. As I rode on a whale, listened to it's strong call, and wondered if we all arrive alone into this strange paradise, and pondered if we had both died on that mountain, or if my companion had awoken and found a way without me. While I wondered, I flew higher into the heavens as an enlightened being brimming with light, finally reaching my destination, and walking alone, softly into the light.

As I watched my glyph fly off of the mountaintop and back through the world, I wondered what it all meant. Why the story that I'd had happened how it did, and was I really alone in the end. I moved and sat next to my friend Cory, suddenly very glad not to still be alone, and I was glad that it was dark, so my emotions didn't show in my eyes - which were brimming with tears (and are again while writing about it).

My emotions of this Journey are, "Departure, Finite, Loss, Wonder, Confusion, Loneliness" If I could think of a term to describe this all wrapped into one word, that is what it would be named, but I don't need to, because I can envision the shape of my first Glyph, and that symbol represents this Journey.

I thought over my experiences here for almost a full week before I decided to begin my second Journey.

The Companions I met along the way were: KiteShinji, TheSadStork, HouseOfSuffering.

After wrestling with the idea of attempting an entire Journey while playing offline. I wanted to know if that feeling of caution would have the experience that I was looking for next. I looked over the trophy list, and decided that with an extra incentive and objective to accomplish in different locations, I could find ways to expand my Journey while still remaining online, and see what the interactions brought me. I decided that I was just going to attempt a new Journey and let what happened happen.

I wandered off on my own for a bit, and made my way to the arches where I ran into a companion briefly, who disappeared. I noticed that their cloak was covered in gold symbols, but this didn't mean anything to me at the time. Soon, another companion came out of the desert. We greeted each other from a distance, and leapt about, We attempted to cross the archways without cloth, but couldn't fly far enough. We set about finding the Glyphs, and they lead me to one of the hidden walls that I'd never seen before. I could tell that they had been here before due to the familiarity of their movements, and how they jumped about, and that we were attempting to achieve a Trophy-specific objective. We made our way across, but after the vision, my companion sat down. I stood by them, but I didn't rest. They faded into sand. I wandered about, the area, attempting things, and finally discovering that I could sit to meditate by pressing Select. I continued on on my own, quite content.

I wandered and rescued the Kite-rays, listening to them calling, letting them lead me, and just following them from place to place. I realized that I had missed the vastness of this little desert scape in my initial wanderings and eagerness to reach the darkened tower. I wandered to and fro, but never found a companion, and remained quite content in my wanderings, especially when I knew that I'd let all of the Kite-rays free when I finally departed the desert.

I raced down hill through archways, soon meeting with another companion. We leapt and called and played, collecting what Glyphs we could, and I was drawn by their enthusiasm. I worked carefully to protect them underground, calling out in a quick, successive pattern, when they initially inspected the glowing face of a half-charged Cyclo-serpent's face in the darkness. It was then that I first realized that I had been freeing the Kite-rays from within the fallen chassis of the Cyclo-serpents.

We wandered in the vast darkness, climbing carefully up onto vantage points, and watching them patrol. There was little fear, as my companion payed close attention to my movements, and our curiosity entirely overwhelmed our fear. We snuck around and sang to one another, ensuring that our long scarves were always full, and when we reached the final descent, we both flew down, safely out of harm's way. Swimming along the long seaweed-like cloth, and again during the glyph waters, I had a companion vanish too far up or away, and another arrive a while later. I continued, climbing and finding lighted glyphs, slowly moving back up to the foreshadowing prophesy.

We scaled the mountain in tandem. We reached the safe locations from the wind and the searching eyes. When we arrived, I would let out a long call. Then we waited next to each other, until I called out again. signalling the move forward. We made it perfectly, without a single interruption. We strived up the hill, each desperately pushing forward to where we fell together.

Upon my arrival, I saw something above me fly forwards. I was surprised and slightly bewildered, as it flew ahead of me. As I looked to where it had gone, I fell off the path, having to wander back to find my way. I was completely ignorant of the environment around myself, because that one moment had cast my previous experience in doubt. I looked, and slowly reached the end. Alone again, but despite falling by the wayside, I had a strange feeling of hope that was entirely different from before, because the Journey was not what I had thought I had known it to be.


My emotions of this Journey are, "Learning, Discovery, Caution, Purity, Desperation, Bewilderment."

The Companions I met along the way were: KungPing, Letter13, MCC-1099, SentryXI, and four others whose names I sadly didn't manage to write before the screen faded away.

I started again, but this time, I noticed that I had changed.

My Glyph was no longer the same on all four corners like my previous two. It was small to the left, and larger to the right. Also, I noticed that the hem of my cloak had grown. I suddenly realized that I has seen a traveller like this before, and that this meant that we grew from our Journeys, and it showed in our appearance, and not just in our actions. I was no longer just new, I was an experienced traveller, but one who still had things to discover. I now knew that my soul had flown from the Summit back down, leaving me different starting out than my previous Journeys, but intrinsically, I was one being.

I hurried out, and met a traveller. They had a single hemmed line. I called out to them, and showed them where to walk, and lead them to Glyphs, and the secrets that I had been shown by others. We ran through the desert, and they eagerly pushed forward. I called them away from the dark tower, and they followed me back up the hill. I lead them across the desert to different Kite-rays where they sang loudly when we set them free. We descended back and forth cross cut in front of each other while racing down the sands. Like my first companion, we each had a side, and I took the left, and them the right.

We became separated at one point, and I wandered the Serpentine caverns alone. Without a companion to guide me, I was forced to risk the descent without enough power to fly. I was caught in two of their gaze, and when I finally reached the base, I saw the glyphs of light surround the meditation area, protecting me. In following other companions or flying, I had never noticed that there was a protective knowledge to the glyphs that was more than just the lighted air and starlight. I met a new, companion who hurried along, without me, but after a while, I met another scaling the inner tower. Another single band at the hem, they eagerly flew and sang to keep our scarves rejuvenated.

We eagerly began the climb up the mountain, staying close together, and ensuring that our scarves remained replenished. We sang to all of the frozen cloth to start, until my companion slowly realized that it all remained frozen here. As we wandered further, I took him over and sang to allow a Kite-ray to fly from one hiding place to another. It seemed to have a profound effect, as we sang at other cloth again for a time, always keeping together and crossing back and forth. We wandered down a cliff and back up stairs, and on a ledge near a cloth bridge, my companion sat down, the wind slowly pushing them towards the ledge. I sat right next to them, determined not to let the cold freeze their scarf, or let them be blow off alone. After our mutual meditation, they rose up again before falling, and we pressed onward. As if foreshadowed, farther alone the ledge, my follower was blown off of a ledge during the winds. I looked and called, and dove after them. They had hurried to find me, and waited at the top for me to reach them, and we sang together, since the cold alone in the fall had cost our scarves significant length.

We continued upwards, calling out, and moving carefully, but we each got caught by one of the Cyclo-Serpents, the other rushing to where their companion had fallen, and called hurriedly. As we reached the final summit, my companion made sure to cross back with me, never letting the glow fade for more than a second. We called out to each other, even as our voices died, choosing to stop our walk and nod our heads to let the other know we were still there... neither of us was alone... we stayed close as we fell...


We reached the land of flight and waterfalls together, We flew off, and tried to keep together, but lost track of one another as we flew. We found each other again as we descended skating across each other's path, and made our way up the waterfalls, only to lose each other again in the light. Then I landed at the summit. I stood looking forward... wondering if they had been lost or if I had fallen back for too long looking... and they sailed over the top and landed beside me. We sang together and crossed, slowly passing through the narrow gap, almost becoming a single silhouette, and then splitting again as we walked together into the light.


My emotions of this Journey are, "Metamorphosis, Guidance, Learning, Nervousness, Awe, Companionship"

The Companions I met along the way were: Aceroman35, Gatonejo, Shadoweye28.

I came.