Journey of a Lifetime (Or: The Beautiful Short Friendship I Had with a Complete Stranger)

I don't hide my love of video games, but once in awhile, I'll find that I catch someone I know off-guard when the subject comes up. ("You're a gamer?! I had no idea!") I've been playing video games since I was little, and though I don't go out of my way to rub that information in anyone's face, I do regularly wear graphic tees showcasing my favorite games. (If you see me walking around in a shirt with an interesting logo you don't recognize, it's not a new underground indie band or some hip new designer label. It's a video game reference, and it's a goal of mine to strike up a conversation with someone astute enough to recognize it for what it is. Most of the time, though, it goes completely unnoticed... and frankly, that's ok too. Who honestly enjoys small talk, anyway?)

To the uninitiated, video games are a waste of time, at best - and straight-up bad for you (and the world as a whole), at worst. I'm here to tell you: it's not true. I've witnessed some of the most amazing art and experienced some of the most poignant moments while playing video games. One such moment came to mind yesterday (while I was brainstorming what on earth I could write about for the next 29 days... haha. 😓).

A lot of gamers stick to a handful of genres or franchises. When I look for a game, I don't really limit myself in that way (although it does help to know that if you enjoyed the last 3 Uncharted games, you'll likely enjoy the 4th one too). Instead, I look for something with spectacle. Does it have a great story? Is it going to shift my perspective? Are the visuals stunning? How's the soundtrack? Is it a unique concept I haven't experienced before? In short: will it blow me away?

One of the games I kept hearing about over and over again was called Journey. It actually came out back in 2012, but I didn't get around to playing it until 2017. (That is how far behind I can get with my backlog of games. 😬)

It's best to go into any game knowing as little as possible. I'd avoided major spoilers, but I knew it was gorgeous, had a beautiful soundtrack, was "artsy" and "short," and had a unique multiplayer twist: you could run into one other player at a time on your "journey" and experience the game together with them, but you would have no idea who they were until the end.

Now, I'm not much for online multiplayer games - I've dabbled a few times in the past (mostly with Destiny), but you won't catch me getting a victory royale in Fortnite in the foreseeable future. Call me old school, but I mostly play single player games, or local couch co-op. Journey had something different to offer, though, and I liked that if I stumbled upon anyone at all (given the game was 5 years old, that was already a pretty big if), I had no way of communicating with them. I couldn't chat with them over headset or message them, and I wouldn't necessarily have to pay them much attention if I didn't want to. The game is short, so we'd be partners for a little while at best, and that would be it. How interesting.

So, I booted up the game.

You start all alone in Journey, as one small, cloaked figure wearing a scarf, trudging through sand dunes toward a mountain. There is no backstory. You don't know how you got there, or where exactly you're going, or why. You can't speak - only "sing" in a sort of unintelligible chirp with the press of a button. There is no narrator. The controls are basic, and what little you need to know is explained visually and melodically as you go. So, you do the only thing it makes sense to do: press forward toward the mountain.

As my character walked, I remember how quiet and lonely it was... but in a beautiful, majestic sort of way, like when you hike alone in nature. The art style of this game was breathtaking. After a short while of walking through the sand, I saw a figure in the distance. Well, it looked like I wasn't going to have a solo Journey after all.

I ran up to the other being. Had he been waiting? He chirped excitedly, little glyphs bouncing above his head, and he jumped and danced in circles. I chirped back - a two-syllable "hello" (but of course there were no words). We continued on together, with him leading the way. Did he know where he was going?

Every so often, he would chirp once or several times, and I would return the conversation. Sometimes he stopped and looked back, waiting. I have no idea what we were talking about, but I tried to interpret the gibberish into the words I imagined were being said:

"Are you still there, friend?" "Yes, I'm here."

"This way, friend!" "Ok!"

"Marco!" "Polo!"

There was no map, and no way to track my companion. At times, he would run off ahead. If we got separated, I found myself starting to worry. I would chirp out a greeting... but hear nothing back. Had I lost him? Did he abandon our game? Was he waiting ahead? Should I wait for him, or proceed? Where did my friend go?

Thankfully, no matter what happened, we always eventually found each other again. Sometimes he was ahead, and sometimes I waited for him. It felt like he knew what he was doing. There was an exasperation in the chirping and jumping at times, when he was trying to indicate what I needed to do. But he was patient, and guided me along.

By the time we reached the end, we had been through a lot together - a "journey," if you will 😏 - and though it was bittersweet, I found the whole experience impactful in so many ways. The visuals and music were just as striking as I had heard, and who knew I'd find a friend along the way? More than that - who knew we'd find a way to communicate with only "singing" and jumping at our disposal?

I know I've played a good game when I'm speechless by the time the credits roll, and that's how I felt at the end of Journey. When it's all over, the game shows you the gamer tag of the person (or people) you played with over the course of your travels. There was just one name listed for me - my friend had stuck by my side til the very end. Even when we had lost each other, he never left.

He sent me a friend request afterward, saying something like, "Wow, I've never played the whole way through with just one person before." Based on his profile, he was clearly from a Spanish-speaking country - so we may not have even been on the same continent together. We never spoke or interacted again, but I cherished my time going on an unknown journey with this complete stranger I'll never meet in real life.

The next day, I started the game up again. This time, I waited in the sand dunes for a cloaked figure walking alone. Now I would be the guide and help someone through their Journey.

Adventures in Quarantine: #coronafails

Today is my last opportunity to write a blog post for the month of April. (Hard to believe it's been that long since the last time I wrote!) There has been a lot of news and lessons in the last month - and although I haven't written on my blog in awhile, I have still been writing through other means here and there. I'm going to keep it light today, and talk about some of my corona failures. If God has been teaching me one thing these last few months, it's that it is ok to fail!

A lot of people have been taking on new hobbies during this quar-ant-ine. (You'll see what I did there, in a minute.) I decided to throw it way back to childhood and start an ant farm! ... Involuntarily. In my kitchen wall. 😒

On the bright side, my kitchen is SO CLEAN right now!

I've also been working on my baking skills! ... Out of a box. (It was still more work than you'd expect - the only effort it saved me was measuring dry ingredients.) I'm not winning The Great British Baking Show anytime soon, but these scones maybe weren't a total failure. I think I nailed it... don't you agree? 😏

 

(Hey, they tasted all right! A win is a win!)

And last but not least, I tried my hand at fixing electronics - the obvious next hobby to try in isolation. (I've done some minor internal maintenance on gaming systems in the past! It wasn't completely outside my realm of possibilities.) Some buttons on my TV got busted in, so I figured it was an easy fix to take the TV apart, find the buttons, and put them where they belonged.

Turns out, tube TVs are a little harder to navigate than a NES. I busted the casing. ... And then not only was unable to fix the original busted buttons, but pushed in another one to boot! Oops.

That was a bummer. But tube TVs aren't too hard to come by these days (I guess no one wants them anymore? 🤷), so I picked one up for the low, low price of free! No VHS/DVD player included, but I can still go hunting whenever I want... so I did.

This is your reminder that life is full of peaks and valleys! You won't appreciate the peaks, if you don't have to go through any valleys first. Success isn't everything. Celebrate your failures too, and see what you can learn from them.

Glad I can keep it real with you! Until next time...

The Glue that Binds Us

I like to consider myself a bit of a video game connoisseur. Wait - don't leave! I know they aren't for everyone, but hear me out! Video games are art as much as any other medium, these days.

I recently finished a game called Detroit: Become Human. It was made by a French developer called Quantic Dream, who are known for creating gorgeous, interactive games that require you to make choices and live with the consequences. I've played a couple of their games before. What they lack in traditional gameplay, they make up for in thoughtfulness. They mostly involve a lot of exploration and QTEs, or quick time events - basically, a test of your reaction time. These kinds of video games tell a narrative in a way that imitates life. If you make a wrong choice or mess up a series of QTEs, characters can DIE. Consequently, you can miss out on whole sections of a story. (Believe me, it's happened! I've never been so disappointed in myself!) It really invests you in the decisions and the characters, because your actions mean life or death, love or hate, success or failure.

This world is set in Detroit, in the future. Androids - robots that look and act exactly like humans - are everywhere. Most homes have one - for housekeeping, for caretaking, for... pleasure (interpreted just like you'd imagine!). Businesses have androids too, and in a realistic twist, it's causing societal issues because androids are taking jobs away from humans. The world is full of so much hatred and discrimination and mistreatment of androids. But that doesn't really matter, right? After all, they're not human - they're just machines following orders.

...Or are they? This game covers so many relevant subjects. (Honestly, it doesn't even feel like sci-fi. It's scarily plausible. Just saw this article the other day! 😳 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/31/human-like-androids-have-entered-the-workplace-and-may-take-your-job.html) If you ever get the chance, you really should experience this game yourself... but let me describe one of my favorite scenes for you. There are three characters you play as throughout the game. This is the start of one character's story:

~

I wake up in a tech store, surrounded by androids waiting to be bought. I am a female android. A disheveled man comes to pick me up - I guess I must have been damaged somehow, and have now been repaired. I can return to my home.

The man isn't very nice. His wife left him, and he lost his job and is struggling to make ends meet. He lives alone with his daughter, who's probably about 9 or 10 years old. The house is a mess, because I haven't been there to take care of it. (I'm a housekeeping android.) I talk to the girl - I guess she named me Kara - but she is hesitant to engage with me. I get the impression that she witnessed something bad happen to me, that resulted in my needing to be fixed... but I was damaged badly enough that I have no memory prior to being repaired.

I clean up the house and make dinner. Meanwhile, however, the man has been abusing drugs and is in a fit of rage. He yells at the girl, and then smacks her. She runs upstairs, crying. He returns to the couch for a few more drags on his pipe. I go to follow the girl, but the man commands me not to move.

DO NOT MOVE, the game tells me. Is the girl ok? The man is still mad... he's likely to hurt her more, in his state. I can't just stand here. I wait briefly, and then go to move. DO NOT MOVE, the game scolds me. But then... it gives me a button prompt. I follow the sequence. I break free of my programming! I don't have to follow orders anymore.

What do I do now? I could try to talk to the man and calm him down... or I could go check on the girl upstairs. I decide the man probably can't be reasoned with. He seems to resent me. Talking to him might just upset him more. I go upstairs. Earlier, when I was cleaning, I noticed that the man keeps a gun in his bedside table. I also noticed the girl's bedroom window wasn't latched. As I hurry, I make a wrong turn and enter the man's room by mistake... so I open his bedside table. Do I take the gun? As I decide, he storms up the stairs and heads straight into the girl's room. Yes... yes, I better take the gun. Just to be safe.

He's ready for round two with the girl, and is already yelling at her some more. She's cowering. If I had been faster, maybe we both could have escaped before he even got to her room. Or maybe if I hadn't grabbed the gun, I could have helped her out the window. But no matter now. I can't change what happened.

I point the gun at the man, and tell him to get away from the girl. "What did you just say?!" he demands incredulously. He can't believe I'm defying his orders. He is aggressive, and my insubordination angers him further. Next thing I know, I'm battling for my life. He is determined to damage me again. In fact, he directly threatens it as he comes after me. I miss a few button prompts, and the gun gets knocked from my hand. We grapple. The girl is witnessing all of this, but doesn't know what to do. I take some damage, the man takes some damage, (the room takes some damage)... I'm not sure who's winning this fight.

BANG. The guns goes off. I'm on the floor, the man on top of me, the girl off to the side of the room. Where is the gun? Did I shoot him? Did he shoot me? Did the girl grab the gun and fire?

I roll the man's body off of mine. There is blood... human blood. The gun is in my hand. I shot the man. I am a deviant android, and I just killed a man. This does not look good. The girl and I exchange a look, and then we get out of that house. We catch a bus and escape to somewhere. Anywhere but here.

~

And that is one short, opening sequence of Detroit: Become Human. I could have talked to the man - would that have made a difference? I could have been faster - could we have escaped before he came up the stairs? I didn't have to grab the gun. Maybe the man didn't have to die... 😔 If I had failed more button prompts... I probably could have died.

But you only get to live life once, and I've only played this sequence the one time. I kind of like being able to choose not to replay it. I can speculate how it might have turned out differently, knowing what I know now. But in my story, for better or worse, I killed a man in self-defense, I became a fugitive, and the girl and I escaped to somewhere safe.

The other androids you play as in the game go through trials that put them in similar situations. They, too, can choose to become deviant and make decisions for themselves. That critical point usually comes as a result of a situation being evaluated as "unfair." That man hit his daughter... I must protect her! But I was commanded not to move. This isn't fair... this is wrong.

The game really understands what it means to be human. Nothing is more human than to feel empathy for another person. We are the most human when we can look at another person, feel what they feel, and give away part of ourselves to try to help.

I believe empathy was hard-wired into our design, though. After all, we have to have a pretty empathetic God, for Him to send His son Jesus to die in our place and cover our sins... wouldn't you say?