Summary: What do you turn to when you’re undergoing a devastating hardship in your life? During my senior year of college my Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. For two and a half years my family and I battled with the illness, which proved to be the most challenging and emotionally draining experience I’ve faced. During this time, a video game called Journey was released. It’s a short game that’s not only beautiful to look at and listen to, but allows you to lose yourself in its world so thoroughly. You might find yourself visualizing your own experiences, joys, and hardships in its abstract narrative. In this episode, I explore Journey’s design and examine how it’s artistic merits allow people to deeply connect with the game in positive ways. SUBSCRIBE You can keep up with The Curious Gamer by subscribing to the YouTube Channel or by subscribing to the Podcast on iTunes. https://www.youtube.com/user/devinpolaski?sub_confirmation=1 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-curious-gamer/id715667998?mt=2MUSIC Most of the music in this episode was used from Austin Wintory’s brilliant soundtrack for Journey, but the original music was composed by me. You can check out some of my music by following me on SoundCloud or by checking out my music store. https://austinwintory.bandcamp.com/album/journey https://soundcloud.com/devin-polaski http://devinpolaski.bandcamp.com/ NEWSLETTER & TWITTER I’m starting up an email newsletter so that, for anyone interested, I can make recommendations for interesting games to play, discuss game culture, and other fun topics in games. Also, you can follow me on Twitter @devinpolaski and Tweet me your gaming stories and thoughts; I’d love to hear them, and maybe even feature them in an episode! http://tinyletter.com/thecuriousgamer https://twitter.com/devinpolaski MY DAD Many people have found stories of my Dad’s courage in battling his cancer to be very inspiring. I’ve written several pieces about this, but here is one of them. https://medium.com/@devinpolaski/life-after-dad-2-years-later-8e2b17efca19#.yvv9hlucu DOWNLOAD MP3 You can download the audio file to this episode at the link below. http://ia801206.us.archive.org/3/items/The_Curious_Gamer_Episode_3_Your_Life_Your_Hardship_Your_Journey/The%20Curious%20Gamer%20Episode%203%20-%20Your%20Life,%20Your%20Hardship,%20Your%20Journey.xml_mixdown.mp3 CREDITS This episode was written, recorded, and produced by me. I do not own the rights to any of the audio clips from games and interviews used in this episode. These audio clips are utilized under the “Fair Use” doctrine, which stipulates that you may use copyrighted material without permission from the creators, provided that it is used for fact-based and research-oriented purposes, which is a format that The Curious Gamer abides by. You can purchase Journey from the Playstation Store. Buying the game allows you to play it on both a Playstation 3 and a Playstation 4, but note the PS4 version of the game features superior visuals. https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-us/games/journey/cid=UP9000-NPUA80275_00-JOURNEYYYPRIVATE?utm_medium=ps&utm_campaign=Titles&utm_source=Google&utm_term=ps-ga-5-85880&utm_content=Brand&emcid=ps-ga-5-85880 All footage from Journey was gathered from the Playstation 4 version of the game using an Elgato HD60 capture card. Here are the games featured in the additional clips towards the end of the episode. These clips were captured from their official marketing trailers: 11:27 - Monument Valley 11:30 - Gone Home 11:33 - Firewatch 11:40 - Grand Theft Auto 5 11:43 - Madden 2016 11:45 - God of War (E3 Demo, 2016) 11:48 - Doom (2016) Reach out to me if you would like to know more about Journey, the other games I featured, or any other game recommendations. Thanks again for listening, and please share with your fellow gamer and non-gamer friends alike!
