How does ‘Journey’ make meaning for players?
Games in general are very important in today’s world. In this essay I
will discuss my research into ‘Meaningful play’ in ‘the rules of play’ by Katie
Salen and Eric Zimmerman [2004] and relate it to my game of choice, ‘Journey’.
In this document they describe what is meant by ‘meaningful play’. Before we
get into that, what defines ‘play’? Well it is defined as: ‘engaging in an
activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical
purpose.’ In terms of playing games this isn’t
too farfetched as games are almost entirely there for entertainment purposes.
Zimmerman says ‘play doesn’t just come from the game itself, but from the way
that players interact with the game in order to play it’. Does this give a game meaning? If so, what is
‘meaningful play’? In this book they define it as ‘meaningful play emerges from
the relationship between player action and system outcome’ and furthermore
‘creating meaningful play is the goal of a successful game design’. Essentially
what they are saying is that a game only has meaning if there is a sense of
interaction. Furthermore, the more choices, events and changes you can make to
a game story through sophisticated interaction, the more meaning the game will
have. But surely meaning is more than just interaction? Well, let’s look at
game content itself. There are many things that make up a game, for example
aesthetics, mechanics, audio and its contextual framework. All of these things add
to the meaning of a game.
So… How does all
of this relate to my game of choice ‘Journey’? Journey is made by ‘That game
company’ in 2012. As an overview of the game, it is very short and very simple
but at the same time it has a lot of meaning. You play as an unnamed cloaked
traveller through a barren arid world, you have one task, and that is to get to
the summit of the shimmering mountain. This game is linear but also offers the
opportunity to explore and enhance your game experience, this is done through
hidden murals and symbols that when lit up tell the story of your ‘journey’.
In terms of Audio
and visuals it won many awards including a nomination for a Grammy in 2013. The
character itself is very different and intriguing. In Tracy
Fullerton’s [2008] ‘Game design workshop’
(page 33) it says ‘players are attracted to pure abstract challenges’. This is
one of the reasons that ‘Journey’ won so many awards for its graphics, purely
because the aesthetics are so conceptual and stylised, the visuals themselves
are based upon a ‘Japanese garden’. Additionally when it come to the audio
within this game the music fits perfectly, but something unique about the game
is that there is no dialogue or text. The only interactional feedback the
player gets from the character is a musical note which you can use in the game
to connect with other features. This therefore creates meaning because the
developers expand and covey the story without the use of dialogue or text. This
is very important when it comes to the developers striving to gain emotion from
the game because they multiplayer aspect is very unique, it is a seamless
interaction with another player from which there are no gamer tags, voice or
text chat, the only form of communication is the small bleeps that the
characters give out. The game uses simple yet captivating
visual imagery and sound to create an emotional connection and meaning for the
players.
Throughout
the game the player collects floating banners that act as resources. By
Interacting with these, the trailing scarf worn by the character grows in
length, allowing you to float and remain airborne for longer. In a simple way,
it is a form of ‘levelling up’, just without the numbers. This further creates
more meaning in the gameplay as the player can gain abilities through acquiring
these resources.
Another valuable
asset you get in games is conflict, although in journey it’s not an action
packed ‘Agon’ game there are still some aspects of conflict at play. For
example instead of PvP, you are constantly fighting the environment. Later as
you progress through the game there is a snowy environment, you have to time
your moves perfectly to stop yourself from being blown away, and this means
that overall as you progress through the game it becomes more and more
challenging. Even though within this game there isn’t very much damage to your
character, there are still consequences. For example the hostile stone
creatures do not kill you but damage your abilities as in the players scarf
will become damaged and shorter, hence you have to try and stay hidden to avoid
them. The other way to think of this is that the lack of ‘conflict’ within this
game detracts itself from the meaningful play, purely because it makes the game
too easy and the lack of punishment for doing something wrong or badly. The
game itself is as a whole quite challenging but without the aspects of having
to start again or restart levels it decreases the meaningfulness of the play.
During the
development of the game they tried to design it like a ‘Japanese garden’. The
minimalism within this is to make the game feel intuitive to the player. It
leaves room for the player’s imagination but also so they can feel a sense of
wonder within the game. Jenova Chen the founder of ‘That game company’ based there entire game around
emotion, and took 2 more years than originally scheduled because they wanted to
get the sentiment within the game perfect. During his D.I.C.E speech, at 35
minutes through he claims ‘using that interactivity, freedom and movement to
emphasize the emotion really worked out and played off at the very end’. He
then supports that be stating that 3 of the 25 testers for the game actually
cried. This further proves that the play is extremely meaningful and makes a
very good connection with the player on an emotional level.
In conclusion
Journey is an extremely well put together game and above that the gameplay does
have a lot of meaning. It achieves meaning in multiple ways, for example the
aesthetics, mechanics, audio, interactivity, multiplayer, atmosphere, conflict
and most importantly the emotions that it gives out. This game generates an
abundance of meaning for the player purely upon these basis and relating back
to ‘The rules of play’ it states ‘the goal of successful game design is the
creation of meaningful play’. From which ‘Journey’ does perfectly though all of
these different factors within the gameplay.
Bibliography
Fullerton, T., Swain, C. and Hoffman, S. (2008). Game
design workshop. Amsterdam: Elsevier Morgan Kaufmann.
Tekinbaş, K. and Zimmerman, E. (2003). Rules of
play. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Jenova Chen "Theories Behind
Journey" - Full Keynote Speech (2013) http://youtu.be/S684RQHzmGA
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