GDC China: Journey's Jenova Chen Follows His Passions

GDC China's 2011 Indie Games Summit saw a Chinese-language talk from Journey and Flower co-creator Jenova Chen, discussing his frustration with conventional views on gaming and how his work is hopefully helping to solve that. Chen noted of his small Los Angeles-based developer Thatgamecompany, founded largely using staff from Independent Games Festival student finalists: "We have great passion for games, and we have a very different vision from other companies." His wide-ranging talk discussed how the Flower creators and Chen believe that many obvious console games bring basic emotions of excitement, adrenaline and so on. In particular, Chen said that he was disillusioned with the current crop of titles, saying: "The more I played, the less interest I had in games." In particular, he feels like the more sophisticated a game gets, in terms of graphical realism, the less he cares about them. The formative Thatgamecompany broke through with Cloud, a 2006 IGF finalist, which practices what Chen preaches: the game is focused around creating subtler emotions, rather than being built solely around traditional game mechanics. This blueprint is one that Chen and his colleagues have followed throughout their career to date, building games around feelings, rather than hard, humorless product bulletpoints ('60 levels') beloved by AAA titles. The Flash and then PSN title Flow was intended to be a flexible, emotional experience, a "slow relaxed game" which appeals to the more hardcore but also allows more casual players to wander in its organic levels. And Flower went a step further in twinning accessibility and new emotions, with inspirations from idyllic American meadows and marks of human civilization. A twinning of 'back to nature' with harmony found at home led to the game, of which Chen noted that 'hard fun' can be your enemy. Flower is a deliberately ambient experience, with a downbeat middle accentuating the upbeat end to the title. Chen discussed his company's upcoming PSN exclusive Journey as a twinning of social emotions and online games, drawing on inspirations from magical feelings akin to viewing the Earth from the surface of the moon. With no network lobbies, account names, or even text and voice chat in Journey, and ambient discovery of other players who might help you, a very different emotional result is intended. The designer concluded by challenging the attendees with a simple question: "What's your responsibility? What do you want to say to your audience?" As game developers, he considers we all have a duty to stretch our audience's boundaries, a laudable concept.