Bill Viola Studio and the USC Game Innovation Lab have launched The Night Journey on Itch.io!

Winner of the “Most Sublime Experience” at the 2007 IndieCade Festival, The Night Journey is one of the earliest experimental art games made. It uses both game and video technologies to tell the universal story of an individual’s journey towards enlightenment.

For the past decade, The Night Journey has been exhibited around the world as a work in progress, in venues including: The Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, New York; Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul, Korea; ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; and Museum of Design, Atlanta, Georgia. This launch marks its first time home players have been able to experience the game.

Visual inspiration for the game is derived from the works of Bill Viola, which provide reference for the vast, open world of the game, while source material for in-game “reflections” is drawn from the extensive archive of Viola’s video footage. Artist Viola worked in collaboration with a team at the USC Game Innovation Lab including award-winning game designers Tracy Fullerton and Todd Furmanski.