To help distract us from the pre-launch jitters, we recently had a small wrap party, in the same we did for flOw and Flower – by hosting a house party at the home of our former USC game design professor, and now friend, Tracy Fullerton. We like this kind of celebration because it’s just a friendly gathering for friends, family, and of course, Journey.

We then took our own journey out to Big Bear mountain, near Los Angeles (our home base). By coincidence more than actual design, we ended up having a very similar path in our lives as the character in Journey: our first team retreat during the production of Journey was to the Pismo Beach ocean dunes in 2009, and then the whole team ended up on the snowy mountaintop at Big Bear three years later!

But what I’m really here for is to show you a new developer diary video, featuring new footage both of the game and a behind-the-scenes look at the game and our team here at thatgamecompany and Sony Santa Monica. I hope you enjoy it!

I’m really excited to announce that a week from now, at 10 AM PST on Friday March 9, we’ll be participating in a live developer chat on PS.com. You can visit this page to sign up for a reminder so you can join us and pick our brains about Journey.

Be sure to check back here on the blog on Monday for some more big Journey news. We can’t wait to see you all online!

We just hit a major milestone on Journey, and are super excited to take a brief break – when we return it will be pedal to the medal to finish it up and get it out to you! Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive over the last THREE YEARS (our longest project yet!). Your support really does make all the difference, and I can’t say “thank you” enough on behalf of everyone at thatgamecompany.

Because 2011 was such a long and intense year for us, we had a bit of a mellow party to just relax, hang out, and eat some good food.

TGCers gathering around Robin’s dining room table

We gathered with friends at TGC member Robin Hunicke’s house in Venice. A few family members happened to be in town and joined the festivities…..

Jenova Chen and… his mother! Who is visiting from Shanghai.

Although the event was meant to be low-key, I really wanted to give the team something great this year as a gift, in honor of the incredible work they do everyday, which completely humbles me. However, I am terrible at gifts, and have useless hobbies, like playing board games. Thankfully, Robin came to the rescue with an awesome idea, and the mad skills to make it happen. (Side note – when the apocalypse happens I’m making a bee-line for Robin. She’s the kind of person who knows how to PH soil properly to grow crops, how to build her own house, make a battery… I don’t know what I will provide but somehow this all works out great in my mind.)

Robin and our lead artist, Matt Nava, snuck out after work one day to begin the project. They chose the fabrics and paints that would be required to set things in motion. Then, over the course of a few weekends and Robin’s stint with the flu a couple of weeks ago, it all came together…..

You can probably guess where we’re headed now?

Robin sewed together the fabrics and Matt made the stencils for the symbols… which is unique for each person, and all directly from Journey.

They even made matching boxes!

And here are the final results…. of the real-life Journey scarves!

Happy Holidays from thatgamecompany! See you in 2012!

The panel at Comic Con was hosted by independent developer, Nathan Vella of Capybara Games, and featured other indie PSN developers Mike Burns, President of Fuel Entertainment (Sideway), Ulf Anderson, Overkill Software & Co-Creator of Payday, and Vander Caballero, Creative Director of Minority, Inc. (Papo & Yo). I felt like I learned just as much as the audience after our discussion regarding how we each got into game development, and where the inspiration for our games came from. We also got to show some old concept paintings Jenova did years ago before even flOw had begun development, evoking the themes and ideas that would eventually become “Journey.”

Thanks again to everyone who came up to us and said “hi” at the show – we hope to see you again soon!

Hello hello hello! This is Kellee Santiago, and I am honored to fulfill thatgamecompany‘s final wish for 2010 – to show you more Journey. Most of you probably watched Jenova and I on SPIKE’s special pre-VGA show last night – well, I have more for you. Below is our very first trailer to showcase some of the great things to come.

I’m in NYC right now, where we’ve been talking more about the game, and specifically about our approach to creating a unique, intuitive, and accessible online experience. So keep a look out for more info to come!

As you might already know, we have an extremely iterative development process, which means that although we are still building out the game, we like to get feedback from players early so we can incorporate it into the final version. This is a great opportunity to see the game as it progresses, and get a look behind the curtain of game development. Also, we’d love to have folks from this community help us! Here’s the info:

Evening of November 19th, 2010

Requirements to participate are:

• Be between the ages of 18 and 35.
• Be an active PSN game player. We want people who are familiar with PSN games, visit the Store, and download games as a part of their PlayStation life.
• Live in Los Angeles, and have reliable transportation to the playtest in Santa Monica.

In case you missed our E3 announcement, Journey is our latest game we’re working on with SCEA’s Santa Monica Studio, following flOw and Flower for PS3. With Journey we are taking a departure from our previous two games, introducing a human-like playable character, and a narrative that is much more like an adventure. All the while we are aiming to keep the emotion and beauty that our previous projects have become known for.

If you are interested and qualified, please send an email with your name, age, address, PSN ID, and contact number to journeyplaytest@gmail.com. If you are selected, you will receive an email with confirmation and the specific details.

The inspiration for Journey came from Jenova Chen’s feeling that in the modern world where man has so much power, we have lost an integral aspect of the human experience – awe towards the unknown. And we can see this in our video games as well. But don’t take it from me! Here’s Jenova to talk about it more:

In today’s society, man is powerful – We can travel at 60 mph; we can fly; we can connect with just about anyone, anywhere, at anytime. But on the street, people pass by each other ignoring the wonderful existence of other beings. We are overwhelmed by the attention needed to gain and execute our own power – just like we are in most video games. While we are doing that, we can become isolated and insecure deep inside our mind.

On the contrary, when we are hiking in the wild, we become tiny and weak again. These feelings make every other person we encounter much more important and enjoyable. We greet them, giving them genuine and useful help. We might travel together for a period, learn from and rely on each other. Struggling against the dangerous nature together, somehow, makes us warm and powerful inside. (This doesn’t make any rational sense, but somehow that’s how I feel. And I’m sure many of us do.) While most video games offer the sense of empowerment in the online gaming experience, we felt the player will pay more attention to the other players if they are less distracted by the power, and the online gaming experience will be quite unique if it carries the feeling of awe towards the unknown.

In a world where the majority of the players are distracted by technology, evoking a sense of awe and mystery could be very refreshing and powerful.

To realize these goals, we aimed to create a world that feels vast and somewhat unfamiliar. And so the game begins with a character waking up in a desert, with no clues as to what might have happened before or what will happen later. There’s only a tall mountain in the distance, beckoning the player to set out and explore.

As you travel through the world, you may encounter a stranger who is on his or her own journey. But we don’t want to talk too much about the online experience right now. In part, because we really don’t want to inform your own experience of it; also, because we really enjoy seeing what happens when experiences come without explanation. But there’s plenty of time left for us to talk about it in the future…

One thing is for certain: we love getting to talk about a new project! It means that we can’t just navel-gaze about our own work anymore. It’s out there. You’re responding to it! And it also means we’re that much closer to getting the game into your hands. So we’d like to extend a HUGE thanks to everyone who has already expressed words of encouragement – they really do help!

Which turned out to be a good thing because it was pretty hectic and intense there. Did you know going down a red carpet can take an hour?!? I don’t know how seasoned veterans like David Jaffe can do it!

These Mt. Dew-themed drinks helped us get through the pre-show schmooze-fest, though. It was great to be surrounded by almost all of the other Best Indie Game nominees – I definitely felt more grounded. I mean, how do you handle waiting in line for the port-o-potty and encountering Samuel L. Jackson?

(Waiting for the show to begin.)

And then there were the REAL celebrities – Rocksteady, Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward…I was nerding out all over the place. Very unlady-like. But I love any opportunity to straight-up shower love on some of my favorite game makers, because I know how much it has meant to us to get emails and hear from you guys about Flower.

Of course, then it got to our category. Our hearts were in our throats, which I think you could hear when we gave our acceptance speech. As Jenova said, Flower has come a long way since the day he said, “Let’s make a game about flowers and love,” to actually being awarded by Spike TV.

And because I was so nervous, I totally cut off Jenova before he could thank the most important people – you guys. We heard some of you got to be at the viewing party in Hollywood and were cheering right alongside us, and that really means a lot to us. Making experimental games is an emotional and scary process, and we really couldn’t do it without you guys. Thanks so much for all of your support these last three and a half years, and we hope we can continue to entertain you!

I wanted to mention this as a way to introduce to you this developer diary, where SCEA’s Eric Koch and I talk about the ideas behind Flower, and show you how the gameplay works. We hope you enjoy it!

Hi! I am really happy to finally let the internets know the official launch date for Flower. Hooray for releasing games (It’s really my favorite part)!

Flower is a tough game to describe. We like to think of it as a video game version of a poem; an exploration into the tension between urban bustle and natural serenity. Players accumulate flower petals as the onscreen world swings between the pastoral and the chaotic.

But even at E3 this year, a lot of the responses in the press were “it’s tough to describe… you just have to play it.” Because it’s not fair to only ask game journalists to try and describe such a different game, I’ve also asked all the people here at TGC to describe. To keep things even, they could only use 10 words – we’ve had more time to think about the game:

Nick Clark (Game Designer):

A windy journey that lets you flOw in 3D.

Martin Middleton (programmer extraordinaire):

We hope you enjoy our flowers.

Matt Nava:

Flower’s simple concept conceals grander themes that will provoke thought.

Jenova Chen:

An interactive poem exploring the tension between urban & nature.

John (Lead Programmer) [John broke the rule, but earns points for style here]:

Flower, shower, power tower,
First class, string bass, grass en masse,
Sun, fun, nearly done,
Petal, metal, lightning gun?

Once the game is out, maybe I can get you all to submit your 10-word descriptions of the game, and we can see what comes out of it. (Yes, yes, snarky commenter, we know what you’re about to submit.) …I like to think that if we could have expressed it in words, we wouldn’t have made a game about it in the first place.

In honor of the announcement, we’ve got some gameplay footage for you below.

Championed by our lead engineer John Edwards, the 24hr Game Jam was created as a way for us to do something quick, dirty, and fun … and maybe let out a little steam in the process. The goal is always to make a game, from start to finish, on the PS3 in 24hrs. We go from 10am Saturday to 10am Sunday, and then whatever we have, we lock it up. Future Game Jams might have more specific goals, but for this first one, we just wanted to see how much fun we could make in a day. Oh, and our game designer Nick Clark wanted something that was multiplayer that we could enjoy in the office.

So welcome … to Game Jam 0: Gravediggers

Goals:

• To see how much fun we could generate in 24 hours.
• To make something multiplayer we could play in the office.

Premise/Rules:

You are a gravedigger. There can be up to 6 gravediggers competing against one another locally. You move with an analog stick, jump with the “X” button, and shoot with Right Bumper. Oh yeah, you are a gravedigger with a pistol.

You are killing zombies. There are lots of them. More specifically you are collecting zombie heads. When you kill a zombie, their head pops off and you can collect them.

In order to get a point for your head, you must deposit heads into a crypt. There are two crypts on the level, but they can move around in the middle of a game.

You can shoot other players, and collect their heads. Their heads are worth more. In addition, you will be able to collect all of the zombie heads they have gathered so far.

If you are shot by another player or a zombie chomps you to death, your head will pop off and you will become a zombie. (“Rise from your grave….”) You can still chomp other players, but you can’t deposit heads, and you will remain a zombie until you find your head. If another player deposits your head in a crypt, it will pop up somewhere else on the level.

The ground is very soft. If it’s in your way, I suggest shooting a path through it. It’s a lot more fun. Every level is randomly generated.

Along the way, you might pick up special weapons:

• Uzi (fast pistol)
• mines (explode on impact)
• satchel charges (detonated on command)
• the uber-weapon, the shotgun.

If you pick one up, it will automatically become your new default weapon.

The first player to deposit 50 heads wins. Below is a play-through with five players.

And there you have it! The product of 24hrs straight work on the PS3. I’m not sure if it plays well on video, but I gotta tell you the game is large amounts of ridiculous fun for us to play. Maybe you have to be there. At any rate, I’m looking forward to reporting back from our next Game Jam, and I hope you all got a kick out of this one!