That’s Ok, because there’s always someone else that the game’s server will match you to. I have actually made a couple of new friends over PSN thanks to the game, people who I might never have met...but I recognised their symbols in the post-game acknowledgement screen and sent them a thank you message across the PSN message system – something that I always feel strongly about if I have managed to have a great Journey with someone.

You travel through this wonderland with your companion, you undergo trials and forge a bond of friendship that can lead to unexpected secrets in the game world for both of you, especially if you manage to find a mentor in an experienced white cloak, a person who has learned the location of all the secret power glyph symbols that allow your scarf to flourish. I guess I should explain that as you find them, the banner that your character has grows and grows, becoming longer and more ornate ... allowing you to fly higher and soar into the heavens.

There is something quite magical about taking flight with a new friend, chirping and singing your way through the desert, or the underground areas of the game. Something that really does lift your heart and truly makes you smile or at least it did for me. It’s odd to be able to credit a game with helping you recover from your mother’s death; I know I won’t ever be the same again, but like my little red cloak in Journey from the first Journey to my tenth so far, I have changed and I feel it’s for the better.

I can understand people in pain far more and I can fully sympathise with my wife and friends who have lost people close to them. It’s a learning experience and whilst I wouldn’t wish it on anyone to go through that pain, it’s a pain that does mellow eventually; I can now look on my mom’s photo again and smile at the good times we had, rather than see the pain in everything to do with her.

Journey has helped me in more ways than I can imagine, and from the beautiful art style, stylistic animation and uplifting music it paints a tapestry that is hard to ignore – it also represents a very interesting cycle of life and rebirth in a way, especially once you understand a lot of the meanings behind the various acts of the game, and how the whole thing comes full circle. I won’t detail that suffice it to say that the final act is one of the most uplifting things I have seen in a game for a long time and it really made me glad I was able to reach the end with a friend, even though we didn’t travel together the whole way...

Journey is something that I won’t ever forget and that’s something to say about a video game...I can tell you.