It’s been a busy few weeks for us, traveling around with Journey. Our most recent stop was PAX Prime, held in lovely downtown Seattle. While in town, I met with press, fans and fellow indies, and Chris participated in a panel at PAX Dev.

Being a fan-focused event, PAX was the perfect place for our second official meetup. After enjoying lunch with these delightful folks, and chatting about all things TGC, fellow indie Kevin and I headed to the conference center, to see about handing out a few Journey t-shirts.

My first stop was to check out Warp and FEZ, who had a slick stand-up booth on the 2nd floor, just outside the main halls. Great to see kids and parents enjoying these fun puzzle games, together. Venturing further into the main hall, a quick peek inside confirmed that The Bohemoth’s booth (and everything nearby) was jammed with fans, so after a quick t-shirt drop, I jetted up to the 6th floor indie area.

Upstairs was definitely hopping! In addition to visiting with Alexander Bruce (developer of Anti-Chamber) and other teams of the Pax 10, I had the chance to stop and stop in at the booths for Retro/Grade, Monaco, Minecraft and Skulls of the Shogun. Hooray, t-shirt swaps! Even bumped in to Amir Rao of SuperGiant Games, and congratulated him on shipping their very first title, Bastion – featured in last year’s PAX 10.

With so many great people and games to see, the day really flew by. But it was great to get out and remember just how vibrant and exciting the game community is these days. It’s probably our last trip for a while… but we’ll keep you posted on future meetups and Journey events, including my upcoming trip to Game City in Nottingham this fall.  Till then!  - r

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:

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Here’s our latest Ask TGC interview, this time with Aaron Jessie:

What do you do on a day-to-day basis for thatgamecompany?

I’m one of the Environment Artists here at thatgamecompany, so I make everything outside of characters: the rocks, the dirt, the ground, the trees, the sky, just about everything off in the distance, and on and off the beaten path of the player.

How long have you worked for TGC?

I’ve been here for about eight months. Prior to this, I was working on God of War III at Santa Monica Studios.

Samantha Vick: What is your favorite part of game development?

I liked this idea of collaboration and I have always loved video games.  That’s kind of the icing on the cake, getting to work on things you’ve always loved as a kid. To me, the greatest part in development is getting to be a part of something that is really exciting and you hope that people will love.

Alex P.: What is the process you follow to create emotional engaging experiences?

Before anything we start off with a general mood scale that we want throughout the game. Whether it’s curious, excited, struggling, etc. Once that’s established we get the level blocked out and establish the mood as visual artists through lighting, fog (atmosphere), scale of the world, faster or slower animations along with music and sound to back it up. Because emotion is so strong at this studio most of our time is spent getting all these elements to feel cohesive and make sense on top of being fun to play.

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The Golden State Pops Orchestra played an arrangement of Journey’s music called “Woven Variations.” Journey composer Austin Wintory wrote the piece specifically for the concert.  Tina Guo, the cellist for the game, is also featured in the orchestra rocking the cello.  This was the first ever live performance of music from Journey, and it couldn’t have been any better!  Four different camera angles of the orchestra make up this video, and it has amazing audio, so we hope you’ll like it!

Sound Byte, the music blog over at GameSpot.com, has the video exclusively, together with a brand new interview of Austin Wintory about composing for Journey and the specific arrangement made for the Golden State Pops Orchestra performance.

Click on the image to read the interview and watch the video, or click this link:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6326086/sound-byte-journey

The Golden State Pops Orchestra’s website

Tina Guo’s website

Keep checking on our blog, Facebook page, Forums, and Twitter account for more info on Journey in the future!

Well folks, it’s hard to believe a month has passed since E3!

We had a lot of fun at the show speaking with fans,  game developers and journalists about Journey.  It was a busy week, packed with many great interviews. We really enjoyed getting the game into people’s hands, and were truly amazed by the overall response.

In addition to many nominations, here are the awards Journey won at E3 2011:

• GameTrailers: Best Downloadable Game  (Video)
• G4TV/X-Play: Best Downloadable Game (Article)
• Machinima: Best Downlodable Game (Article)
• Examiner: Living Art (Article)
• VGChartz: Best Downloadable Game (Article)
• GameSpy: Downloadable Game of Show (Article)
• IncGamers: Best New IP; Best Game (of E3); Best Downloadable Game: (Article)
• 1UP: Best Downloadable Game (Article)
• Blistered Thumbs: Best Adventure Game (Article)
• PlayStation: The Official Magazine: Most Valuable Game
• Boy’s Life: Best Downloadable Game

Thanks to everyone who came out to support us at E3!