Journey

Journey is a beautiful, meditative game about a nameless desert wanderer who surfs sand dunes and encounters aliens. It's not as weird as it sounds. You wander the ruins of a desert civilization learning its story through murals left behind on the city walls.

This game changed my view of video games. I though they were all variations on the same theme: Have gun, will kill. People, zombies, orcs, monsters, more people. Kill 'em all! That was as appealing as a root canal.

But Journey is the antipathy of that. Playing it requires a sense of curiosity and  an ability to abide with impatience. (At least it did for me.) It's also helpful to have an appreciation for orchestral music that is at times bombastic and foreboding, at times lilting and playful, and at others grandiose and almost religious.

 Learning the controller was challenging. Flying, especially, took a long time to get the hang of. At the beginning of the game, it's more like extended hops. As the game progresses, these jumps turn into an ability to fly. In one of the last chapters you have to get from platform to every higher platform. I soared and twisted and somersaulted completely accidentally. It no doubt looked very impressive to someone just watching. I'd say that I couldn't control it if I tried, because I was really trying. But it was incredibly difficult to get the hang of the small controller movements needed for precision. And for someone unused to the visual language of games, it was nearly impossible to tell where I was in relation to the next platform. How away far it was, where the avatar was in relation to it, and how to aim was a learning curve that's still ongoing. Trying to land was like playing one of those games where you drop a quarter in a tank of water to make it hit a target. It felt like looking through refraction.

Despite those challenges, it was the perfect introduction to video games; it made me want to see what other kinds of storytelling this medium can do. Massive kudos to my husband for choosing well.