We are just a few weeks away from launch and I’m here to unveil the Trophies that you can look forward to collecting during your Journey. In a few short weeks, you will be able to earn all 14 trophies, a few of which fans of thatgamecompany games will be sure to recognize. Be warned: the Trophy list below could contain spoilers!

As we venture closer to the game’s release on March 13th, we’ll be bringing more news and updates, as well as sharing the insights thatgamecompany had in creation this one-of-a-kind interactive experience. We hope you are as excited about the upcoming release as we are, and I look forward to seeing you online!

Journey: The Trophies

Threshold: Cross the broken bridge without completely rebuilding it.
Mirage: Find the hidden desert flower.
Explore: Discover all cloth creatures in the desert.
Adventure: Pass through 15 gates while surfing through the sunken city.
Trials: Sneak through the underground passage without tearing your scarf.
Ancestors: Find a mysterious creature hidden in the temple.
History: Uncover all 10 ancient glyphs.
Crossing: Reach the summit with a companion and return to the beginning.
Rebirth: Finish the game and return to the beginning.
Companion: Finish the game with the same partner for the majority of the journey and return to the beginning.
Reflection: Sit and meditate with another player for more than 20 seconds
Wonder: Meet 10 or more unique travelers.
Return: Start the journey again after a week long break.
Transcendence: Collect all unique glowing symbols across one or more journeys.

Robin Hunicke and Kellee Santiago went to Germany to speak at GDC Europe and Gamescom and to present Journey to the European press and fans.  At Gamescom, Kellee spoke about the next ten years of gaming on a panel with Sony executives and other famous developers and Robin spoke about the history of Journey.

One of the highlights of the trip was the TGC Community Meetup held during Gamescom.  With just a few days’ notice of the event, about a dozen people came to the event.  You can see most of the attendees in the picture above.

Click the “More” button to check out some links from the week:

Gamasutra | Gamescom: Sony Panel Charts The Next 10 Years In Games
“Following its press conference at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany this week, Sony hosted a panel discussion between its execs and developers such as Kellee Santiago and Mark Cerny to peer into their visions of the next 10 years of gaming. “ [Overview of the Panel]

Develop | PlayStation: The next ten years
“Distinguished Sony panel discusses wild technologies, once unimaginable possibilities, and oncoming obstacles” [Full Transcript of the Panel]

IGN | Gamescom: Journey — From Flash to Finale
“On February 12, 2009 the team at thatgamecompany released the critically acclaimed PS3 downloadable game Flower. After sitting back and watching the positive reviews pour in, it was time think about their next game.” [Robin's Panel on Journey]

Desconsolados | “The journey of Journey” – sobre el desarrollo y emociones de Journey
“El desierto. El viento sopla con fuerza levantando arena en las dunas. Tras una estructura que vivió tiempos mejores, una figura envuelta en tela se refugia ante el azote de los elementos. “

Videogame.it | Il viaggio verso Journey Una presentazione un po’ speciale per un gioco molto speciale.
“L’appuntamento legato a Journey alla Gamescom 2011 si è rivelato un evento molto particolare, in cui si respirava aria da Game Developers Conference. Il team thatgamecompany, nel corso dell’ultimo anno e mezzo, ha mostrato più e più volte il gioco, facendolo anche provare all’E3 2011 e a questa stessa Gamescom, e ha comprensibilmente deciso che non c’era altro da mostrare senza rischiare di svelare troppo.”

We’ll have another Community Meetup in Seattle this Saturday during PAX, so stay tuned to our Facebook, Twitter, and Forums for more information on that in the coming days.

Bryan Singh:  I’m a technical game designer here at thatgamecompany and what that means is I do a lot of mechanics design and implementation, level design and implementation, and programming and engineering. I’m part of that bridge between the engineering and design disciplines.

Bryan: I’ve worked here for almost two years now. I started here June of 2009, at the beginning of Journey.

Bryan:  I’ve actually asked myself this a lot of times. I like doing a lot of stuff and I don’t know if I do consider myself restricted to games. Growing up, games have always been around and they’ve had an impact on me, so that’s what I’ve grabbed onto.

I think thatgamecompany chose games because we’re one of the first generations to have grown up with digital games and we are seeing how much they can affect people. We want to help make games that affect people in the right way.

Bryan:  Everyone has the same hours.  Our core hours are about 10:30-7. We start a little bit late – that’s kind of the norm for the games industry.   As far as pushing nonstop until it’s done, we try very consciously not to do that. We really strongly believe that if something’s not done on time, killing yourself to try to get it done just won’t produce quality work.

Bryan:  We do use a few things to start ourselves off. We’re using PhyreEngine, which is a Sony provided framework for rendering. Journey, uses some back end systems that were developed on Flower just for maintaining our asset pipeline, which has been expanded on. But as far as the gameplay and the elements specific to journey – the game parts – that’s really from scratch.  We want to make the game that we’re trying to make, and we don’t want the limitations imposed by outside libraries.

Bryan: This question is making the assumption that we know exactly what we’re doing, or at least Jenova knows exactly what’s happening from the get-go. Our development process is actually very iterative and very experimental. We don’t have a complete picture of what the game’s going to be to begin with. Jenova will come up with what the objective is, what we’re trying to achieve from the game, what the emotional goals are, and generally what the experience is. All of us are constantly contributing to what we think will make the game better, what we think will more effectively get to our emotional goal.

Jenova is sort of like the curator. He has the last say, but usually the collaborative settlement is what we use.

You shouldn’t try to be like us… Well, To some extent maybe you should. One of the things that I admire from the founders of this team as well as the rest of my coworkers is they saw something that matters to them, and they worked on that. Aspiring game designers should really find what motivates them and what they’re genuinely interested about. Be true to yourself, and really just think about why you are creating things and who you are creating them for.

I play all sorts of games. I’m a gamer. Lately I’ve been playing some Kirby’s Epic Yarn; but I do a lot of stuff. I don’t just play games. Lately I’ve been making games a lot. I program, and draw. Playing games isn’t my primary passtime.

When I was eight years old, I was completely convinced that I was going to be a puppeteer. That ended up changing somehow into being a cartoonist, and I had even less of an idea of what that actually meant.  And then I think that changed into, “I want to be an animator.”  Around middle school or high school, that’s when I started programming and making games.

So, I think… uh… Fire truck. [Sound of a fire truck racing in the background.] The first thing I remember was probably Marble Madness or Super Mario Bros. on the NES.  I recall always having my brothers around playing games, and old NES games were the first ones, but the first one that was really impactful was Mario RPG on the Super Nintendo.

I had been making games since middle school, just for fun. In 2001 or 2002, I was really getting into the Newgrounds scene. I was really inspired by Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin, the guys who started The Behemoth and made Castle Crashers. Those guys have just been amazing inspirations for me. It seems like one of the things I really learned from them is to be yourself, just be awesome, and just do things you think are cool.
In high school I was making flash games on Newgrounds, and when I was graduating high school I ended up going to Digipen.
Coming out of school, I was just lucky enough to get a job at thatgamecompany. I just straight up sent in an application and wrote them an e-mail, really, and then did a couple of interviews and got a job here. So I didn’t really do anything spectacular; I just made games. If you wanna make games, just do it. There’s nothing stopping you.

I like cake, but I don’t like cake with a lot of frosting in it. I think frosting is the worst part of the cake. Well, that’s not true; it depends on who made the frosting. In general, cake that’s either not frosted or not too frosted.

That makes me really excited. To me that shows that we’re penetrating multiple markets or multiple fan bases. Not only are we appealing to casual gamers, but actual hardcore gamers. Traditional gamers are getting something from our games as well. In some way I see this as validation.
It’s fun that people can play our games and play-hearted way and joke around about them, and also appreciate them.

Stay tuned for more interviews of thatgamecompany members!
And if you have any more questions for us, just comment in this blog with your question (please leave a Twitter, Facebook, or website for us to link to) and if your question makes the cut, you’ll see it here soon!

Michael Samyn of Tale of Tales (The Path, The Graveyard, The Endless Forest) wrote an article last month for Escapist Magazine about video games as art.  He presents his view on why video game developers have strayed away from advancing video games as an art form.  In essence, everyone is looking at how to create video games the wrong way.  When most game ideas are created, the developers look for ways to use the technology in new ways or to make something that is fun.  Art, Michael says, is derived from wanting to explore a certain theme or convey a message that cannot be said in any other way.

“We’re not looking for a spot in the museum; we’re looking for a place in the heart of the public at large. And for that we will need to work as artists.”

At thatgamecompany, ideas for video games essentially come from a want to convey an emotion or message, which is probably why we, as well as Tale of Tales, are so understood and misunderstood at the same time.

All other entertainment industries give overwhelming artistic control over their projects to a couple people, though the people giving the money still have a large amount of say for what the final product ends up being.  Michael finishes the article by stating how the search for efficiency has, in effect, destroyed the chances for the industry to, en masse, move towards creating art.  That is, unless they give full creative control to the creator of the idea.

“Almost Art by Michael Samyn at The Escapist”

But there’s a little backstory – around the offices at TGC we have been loving this new web comic, Axe Cop. Written by 5-year-old Malachai Nicolle and illustrated by his brother (and Eisner award nominee) 29-year-old Ethan Nicolle, Axe Cop is just the most awesomest awesome that ever awesomed.

Knowing that we felt this way, Nathan tracked down the Nicolles in San Diego, and got Ethan to draw our Journey character pairing up with Axe Cop to explore new worlds and fight crime:

Thanks to the Nicolles, for this really special shout-out!

The Independent Games Festival, held annually at the Games Developer Conference in San Franicisco, is now taking submissions for their 2010 showcase.

It’s a great opportunity for any up-and-coming developer, or an established developer looking to strike out in a totally new direction.  Before even getting to the GDC, the submissions are showcased on the IGF website for the world to see (and play, if you want them to!). If you are one of the finalists, you get to show your game at a kiosk on the floor of the GDC, and are eligible for awards in the IGF Awards Ceremony, held alongside the GDC Awards.  ”Cloud” was in the student showcase in 2006, and we owe a lot to the organizers. Not only did it get us enough attention to get noticed by Sony, we also got connected to a great community of game developers that have provided an invaluable amount of help ever since.

Submit your game(s) today!

Stuart Brown, a physician and director of the National Institute for Play, says that pleasurable, purposeless activity prevents violence and promotes trust, empathy, and adaptability to life’s complication.  Play games – they’re good for you!

Listen to the radio program here.

IndieCade Call for Submissions:

IndieCade invites independent game artists and designers from around the world to submit interactive media of all types – from art to commercial, ARG to abstract, mind-bending to mobile, serious to shooter, as well as academic and student projects – for consideration. Work-in-progress is encouraged.

A diverse jury of creative and academic leaders will select entries for top prizes at the IndieCade 2009 Festival. All entries for the Festival will also receive consideration for presentation at all 2009 IndieCade international exhibitions including:

Submissions Deadline: April 30, 2009 at Midnight PST.

For more information and to enter: www.IndieCade.com.