I made a simplified view of how I see a game and stripped apart our inspirations to the bare core. This is to understand how they work.
I see a game like this triangle. You have three main components working together. It's gameplay (what you can do in the game and how you interact with the environment), the story, and the presentation (how the story is told and the aesthetic of the game. This includes visuals and audio).
Previously I went over a little bit on the presentation part of Bastion, Limbo, and Journey. I'll talk briefly about the triangle.
As you can see, the artwork in Bastion is very lush and detailed. In fact, the visuals are hand-painted, which I find amazing and makes me appreciate the work a lot more. It reflects the way the story is told by the narrator too, because the style of storytelling is also very detailed and multi-layered. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing as well. It's dramatic and reflects the mood of what's happening. It's quite detailed. Below is in my opinion the best soundtrack from the game (Outphase52, 2011):
This is the ending song. It has two sets of lyrics and it's sung in a duet that doesn't actually fit together like a regular duet. This is in the sense that they don't sing to each other, but separately if you get what I mean. The tune definitely fits together, but the character of the song is portrayed in a way they're they're not singing together. It's like two people who are really actually the same talking at the same time with different opinions. Absolutely beautiful and the lyrics reflect one of the themes that the game is about. In Bastion, there's this theme of war and relationships between races, their differences and how their conflicts ultimately destroy each other. In Zia's lyrics it appears that she is singing in the Ura's point of view (she is an Ura). Which is ironic because she doesn't identify with the Ura's desire for revenge in the game. The Cael's built this massive wall as protection against the Ura, she sing's about this and implies how those walls would fall some day because the Ura will "be here before too long." But there is this one line that I think is specific to Zia, "One day your bird is gonna fly". I think this is referring to how Ura refuges are allowed to stay in Caelondia, but only if they never return to the Tazal Terminals. This is the case of Zia, but with the Calamity destroying everything including the wall she was finally free.
The second part is sung by Zulf, another Ura. He sings in the viewpoint of a Cael, which is also ironic because after he found out that the Calamity was originally made by the Caels to wipe out the Ura for good, he wanted revenge. He traveled to Caelondia before the Calamity because he believed that there could be peace between the Ura and the Caels, he thought of Caelondia as his second home. The Caels he loved and trusted, tried to make peace with, betrayed him. He had a Cael for a fiancee, but the Calamity killed her too, which I imagine would enrage him even more. This is reflected in his lyrics where he refers to "Mother" who is Mycia, the goddess who watches over Caelondia and how her glowing heart is guiding him home to Caelondia. There's a verse that seems to refer to his fiancee as well "I take your hand, now you'll never be lonely. Not when I'm home, sweet home".
There's one verse that links both songs together: "Lie on my back, clouds are making way for me. I'm coming home, sweet home."
It implies that both the Ura and the Caels just want to go home, now that the Calamity has ruined everything. It makes both the Ura and the Caels sound more human despite their hate for each other. It takes pain, death, and destruction to break them and make them remember the more important things that the home embodies: peace, love, and, family.
In terms of gameplay the controls are in classic RPG style. You've got your movement keys and other things you can do is use melee weapons, use ranged weapons with aiming feature, defending, take potions, activating triggers, and special skills. So the controls are geared mainly towards fighting and attacking. There are also various threats in the game. A large variety of monsters that attack you in different ways. The difficulty of the is unique as well. You activate different idols at the temple, which strengthen the threats in different ways. For example, for one idol your enemies would become faster and strike harder, while another would make them regenerate health constantly.
Here's a bit of gameply for Bastion, you can see here the narrator talking over your actions as well and giving bits of info (SealedSun, 2011):
Journey is absolutely gorgeous. The sceneries and the characters may not be photorealistic, but it really impresses you with how beautiful it is. It's simple, but stylistic.
The music is very beautiful. It's actually relaxing and really pure in my opinion. The dominant instruments are the strings, they sound very pure because they're not overpowered by other instruments. The tones are pure and you can hear a distinct voice that soars above the rest. Even though it's not as complex as Bastion's the purity of sound and score here move and undulate in an emotive way. In my favourite soundtrack for Journey, above (Journey Soundtrack, 2012), we have the opening by the strings, specifically the cello cushioned by soft, shimmering bells. The violins arrive and the wave soars and gives way to these almost meditative bells with a golden ribbon of sound by a flute weaving through it. It sounds really spiritual when the bells come in and this is fitting because at the tower you learn more about your people from the glyphs. The "ocean" that comes when you activate a glyph could be a metaphor for the sea of consciousness. When you finish the tower area in a way you have reached a higher understanding and is ready to ascend towards the mountain for your final trial.
The controls are very simple for Journey. Aside from movement the only things you can do are either sit down, fly or call. The only threat you'll ever meet is a huge stone creature that destroys your scarf (the scarf determines how long you can fly). Here's a trailer of Journey that shows a bit of gameplay (CNETTV, 2012):
Limbo's visual style is also unique. It plays with depth of field and silhouettes. There's a bit of grain in the image as well so it's like you're watching a decent black and white TV. It looks raw, simple, but attractive. People see this game and they always ask what I'm playing and whether they can get the game off me as well. The sounds are mostly ambient sounds like footsteps, water, flies, traps, and so on. Things naturally in the environment.
The controls are pretty simple. You can push/pull, jump, and activate triggers other than movement. Your threats are a bit varied though for example, stabby spiders, murderous children, traps, saws, brain worms, electricity, and so on. So you gotta think fast and smart to move on.
Here's a bit of gameplay for it (Level7nu, 2010):
We took the feed back from yesterday about cornering ourselves with a world without fire and really thought about how it could work. We decided that the Child (the main character) would wake up in a mysterious world, where there is no fire. The place is cold and wintry. Won't write about what exactly is in the story here because it would give too much away. This way things are more ambiguous, and you'll get different interpretations of what's happening. We still don't have a set of chronological events set out yet though.
Also, Daniel gave us some feedback. He notices that we're not 100% certain with how we're going to approach doing this yet. I think we can work through this and I believe as we go along the approach would become clear.
I've noticed that when one of our louder members is here nobody actually says anything even if they disagree. I'm guilty of that to be honest, and it bothers me. I don't say much because I feel that member is a better speaker than I am, but sometimes I don't agree with what he says. Also, when we actually need to talk about our ideas to tutors and during presentations he tends to say everything and doesn't leave a lot of room for anyone else to fit in what they want to say. We usually decide beforehand who's going to say what but it never really happens that way, then I end up with nothing of significance to say. I'm more angry at myself for being such a horrible speaker and not talking when someone else talks. It's rude to do that but when you don't, you end up with nothing. NOTHING. I feel subdued, shoved aside, and I feel like my opinions don't matter.
From now on no more of this. I'm sick and tired of it. I know I CAN talk, because when Maggie and Daniel talked to us I was totally fine explaining everything. And this makes me even more angry. If I can talk why don't I show this fact more often? No more. From now on I don't care whether an extrovert is around or not, I don't care if you're in the middle of a sentence. I'm talking and you will listen to me.
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References:
CNETTV. (2012, March 13). Game trailer: Journey [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWhS6tXtN7U
Journey Soundtrack. (2012, April 10). Journey Soundtrack (Austin Wintory) - 12. Atonement [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAtYPnCsWzo
Level7nu. (2010, July 16). Limbo Gameplay First 10 Minutes Achievements [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZC1vlGmjs
Outphase52. (2011, July 22). Bastion Soundtrack - Setting Sail, Coming Home (End Theme) [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDflVhOpS4E
SealedSun. (2011, August 16). Bastion Gameplay (PC, 1080p) [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRXKPdIAAqw
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