A space to collect the stories of companionship, sadness, and joy experienced while playing the videogame Journey, created by thatgamecompany and avaliable on the PS3.

Please submit your experiences to this blog.

Fanworks, images, and music will also appear here as a complement to the tales told.

WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS!
I highly recommend that readers play through the game for themselves at least once before reading about the experience.

Transcendence — not the trophy, but of language barriers 

I consider myself to be semi-experienced player. Most of my journeys are spent on the main well-traveled route through the game, sometimes showing less experienced players where symbols, glyphs, and interesting things are, and sometimes just following behind and experiencing it with my companion. I’ve had many good experiences, a few great ones, but never one I would call amazing — until tonight. 

I’d never messed with the glitch areas because I never really felt the need to. I was shown tonight by another white cloak what I was missing. We connected at the beginning of the Descent. When we reached the Mountain, my companion started flying up one of the mountains very near the beginning. This was the entrance to the glitch area. It took a bit of work, but soon, we were navigating our way through the area. I struggled to keep up in many places, but my companion was very patient. Over plains and hills, we eventually came to a seemingly endless expanse of nothing but snow, with a moon hovering only a bit above the horizon as the only landmark. As we trudged forward I recognized that this was the final part of the Mountain. We had skipped the entire level. I was in awe.

We reached the Summit and flew around randomly, sitting (or face-planting, in my companion’s case) atop mountains and working our way through the final level at a leisurely pace. The arrival at the snowy platform before the final walk together into the light was filled with excited chirps and doodles in the snow — a heart from myself, a flower and some writing from my companion. We finished the game together. 

I enjoyed this journey more than almost any other I’ve had. I learned things and discovered things and experienced things that reawakened my fondness and wonder towards this game…

… which is why I felt it was completely necessary to spend nearly half an hour figuring out a way to send a thank you message to my amazing Japanese companion. The simple thank you, written in both Japanese and English, that I received back was the final touch that cemented this journey as my favorite so far.