Scarf

Main articles: Objects, Wayfarers, Symbols

The Scarf is a piece of cloth worn by the Wayfarers.

Alternative Names

Tail, Tassel

Scarf basics

• It appears on the back of the Robe attached at neck level.
  • The color of the Scarf matches the color of the Robe a Wayfarer is wearing.
• The symbols on the Scarf are like the fuel in your tank or stamina left.
  • This is often called "fly power".
• Its length is dependent on player actions and events.
  • The Scarf grows as you progress through the game by picking up collectible Symbols.
  • Be careful with War Machines as they like to munch on your scarf, tearing it in half !
  • The Length indicates the maximum flying power.
  • The length of your scarf resets once you finish the game (during the next journey, gather the Symbols again to fly further and longer).
    

Getting and extending the Scarf

The first collectible Symbol in Journey.

You get the Scarf when you pick up the very first symbol in the title sequence of the game (if you skip that symbol, then any other Symbol that you pick first).

Picking up the collectible Symbols extends the scarf (to a certain length, see Scarf theory).

After your first Journey, you can choose "Chapter Select" in the menu. Doing so brings you to the middle of the circle of buildings in the first level.

You will have the Scarf from the first Symbol, so you do not have to walk back to collect it. Get the two Symbols around the big ruin in the middle and then choose a level.

If you do not pick any Symbol in Chapter Select and go to a level, the game adds a little scarf. This also happens if you lose all the scarf in the Underground level and enter the Tower.

Using the Scarf

If you use your fly power wisely, you can reach places...

• Symbols/pattern embroidered on your Scarf indicate how much "fly power" you have (like a fuel tank).

• Pressing the corresponding "fly" button on your controller, mouse, keyboard or screen will make you fly up, see Controls. Use movement buttons/sticks to fly in a certain direction.
• No symbols/an empty scarf means you cannot fly and if you are mid-flight you will fall/glide until you hit the ground.
• Use your fly power wisely. It's often better to not keep the button pressed down, as it rapidly consumes your flying energy.
  • You get to fly longer by "pumping", i.e. pressing the button every second or two, rather than holding it down.
• You lose vertical velocity if you hit an obstacle.
  • Rather than bashing your head with a fly button (and losing power rapidly), go around the object and then resume flying.
• Moving the camera will not only help to see where you go.
  • Moving your camera to the "down" position (toward the ground) when flying is helpful, see Dive Boost (DB).

Gaining fly power

In some levels Carpets will actively come to you and charge the Scarf. It's also helpful to aim for them.

Also called (re)charging the Scarf.

There are many expressions used to say "get symbols on your scarf, so you can fly".

Depending on Scarf length, it can take some seconds until an empty Scarf is completely filled with Symbols again. In most cases, it's a good idea to charge your Scarf fully.

The Goo / mist / fog in theTower will keep you charged constantly.

Scarf recharges:

• Upon contact with cloth objects/wildlife, see Entities like Flyer, Carpet, Banner.
  • Every cloth object or "animal" will charge your scarf, except for Gary and Larry who are too small to give you energy.
• Companions: The Chirp of, or bodily contact with your Companion will recharge your Scarf.
  • Tandem Flying only works though, if both chirp regularly or try to touch each other while flying.
• A White Robe's scarf will recharge upon landing on a solid surface, giving the White Robe significantly more mobility than a Red Robe has.

• on recharging:
  • When picking up a white glowing symbol, your scarf is recharged for the duration of the pickup animation.
  • For efficient flying, start flying away from the Symbol during the pickup animation toward your next target.
  • Avoiding an empty scarf: while in mid-air aim immediately at the next scarf-recharging thing.
  • Chirping at flyers from a certain distance makes them fly towards you so that you can keep on flying without having to land.
    • Chirp repeatedly at flyers while flying up or away, and they will come and charge you again.

Flying alone and with a Companion

Charging each others fly power through Chirp is called Tandem Flying.

Chirping helps both players to stay afloat and fly over long distances. This is called Tandem Flying.

Chirping helps both players to stay together and fly over long distances. It's extremely important to "chirp the scarf" when you are with a Red Cloak Companion and even more in the Snow level, where a Red Cloak's scarf-energy just fades away.

Trivia

• As a White Robe, assuming you don't skip any symbols, the last one you need to collect for full length is in the Kelp room of the Underground level.
• As a Red Robe, full scarf length is reached upon collecting the first two symbols in the Tower level (again, assuming no skips and no losses).
• The scarf length in Paradise is always set to maximum.

If you collect Symbols in Chapter Select whilst wearing a White Robe and then change to a Red Robe, you'll change back to a 4 units long scarf. Since you maybe already picked the Symbols, you won't be able to extend it in Chapter Select. In that case, go to the menu and choose Chapter Select again, the glowing symbols will reappear. Pick the two Symbols and you will be able to proceed to Broken Bridge better equipped !

Scarf theory

Longest Scarf possible

• Journey defines the player's scarf length as a number between 0 (no scarf) and 30 (maximum length), for both white robe or red robe wayfarers. Visually in the game a full length scarf will only display 28 embroidery patterns however, and the true length will be scaled accordingly as the scarf grows.
• The Red robe player starts with a scarf length of 4, whereas a White robe player starts with a scarf length of 10 after teleporting to CS. (Or when collecting the first CS glowing symbol if you watched the intro cutscene: this first symbol around the broken statue doesn't add any scarf length if you teleported to CS directly, which is why it also is not collected in All Symbols speedrun categories).

• Each glowing symbol collected gives 1 or 2 more scarf units:
  • The order of +1 or +2 glowing symbols alternates constantly. If the first symbol you collect gives you 2 more scarf units, then the next one would give +1, and the third one would give +2 again, and so on...
  • Even the first glowing symbol collected in a playthrough can give 1 or 2 scarf units, depending on the last symbol collected since launching the game.
  • In case you just launched the game, it will read the save file that gets overwritten at every level transition (not considering the CS portals to teleport to levels other than BB): this means in a situation where you collected a +2 symbol last in Broken Bridge, entered Pink Desert and collected a +1 symbol there before exiting the game, the last info stored in the save file will be that +2 symbol from BB ! So after relaunching the game the first symbol collected will be a +1.
  • The longer scarf you get by starting with a +2 symbol first can only give a slight advantage when having an odd number of glowing symbols collected (see scarf chart below)
• A jump always consumes 4 scarf units, except when wearing the white robe and jumping from the ground without sliding, which will consume only 3 units ! Having only 1 unit of charge left in the scarf can still be used for a regular jump.
• As a Red Robe, if you walk back in the entrance gate of Snow level immediately at the end of the cutscene, you will lose 3 scarf charges before warming up again (which is better than jumping back in and losing 4 charges with the jump + only 2 more due to frost). Keep that in mind if you plan on going OOB on your own using a Charge Boost/Dropshoot + Dry Boost point combo (quite hard to pull off).

The bold numbers represent a bonus jump for Red Robe wayfarers. Info about the "quick reddie" glitch below.

Is this a +1 or +2 symbol ?

We don't recommend casual players to worry about any of that. This question is mostly relevant to speedrunners willing to optimize their performance best they can !

That said, as a red robe you can have a quick look at your scarf after collecting your first symbol: if you count 4.5 full embroidery patterns on it, it was a +2 symbol. If only 3.5 patterns are visible, it was a +1 symbol.

As a white robe, rather than counting the embroidery on a longer scarf, you can attempt to jump 4 times from the ground after collecting the first symbol: if you can, it was a +2 symbol (10 base scarf length and a +2 symbol = 12 total scarf length. The first jump on the ground uses 3 units, then 4 units for the second and 3rd jumps, and finally the last scarf unit available for the 4th jump).

It is also possible to determine if any symbol is a +1 or +2 by watching the end of the scarf while collecting the symbol: the extremity of the scarf will shine very shortly for +1 symbols, and only for as long as the wayfarer is also glowing. For +2 symbols the scarf shine is quite more significant and lasts longer, even a little while after the wayfarer stops glowing ! Technically you could probably also just observe how much the scarf grows, but it may be hard to notice.

Picture showing how the scarf shines after collecting a +2 symbol

Scarf tricks and glitches

• On PC only, if you enter Broken Bridge level with an empty scarf as a red robe, the game will give you back 1 scarf charge for free !
  • Additionally, if you have the game saved in a certain level as a red robe and go to the main menu, then wait for the screen to flash black before pressing "continue", the game will give you back the scarf charge you had when first entering the level plus this 1 bonus charge ! Pressing "continue" faster makes you re-enter the level with the charge you should normally have.
• "Quick reddie" glitch from the chart above: If you collect two symbols extremely quickly (touching the 2nd one before the charge from the first symbol gets delivered in your scarf), it is possible to transform the scarf value of the first symbol ! This is possible only in Chapter Select level by doing a dive with a slightly flat camera angle (level boost). This results in collecting two +1 or two +2 symbols in a row, and it can be very useful for Red Robe Glitched speedrunners ! Make sure the last symbol collected was a +2 before attempting this trick, to have two +2 symbols in a row. It is recommended to start diving just before collecting the first symbol, otherwise you won't be fast enough.
• On PC if you chirp flyers, touch any cloth creature or take a glowing symbol, and then extremely quickly go to main menu and press continue, you can recharge most of your scarf as a red robe when re-entering the level ! (assuming it was empty or almost when first entering said level). The faster you are with the menuing, the more it will recharge your scarf ! Here is a speedrun example completely abusing of this mechanic between several level transitions. It wasn't accepted officially on the speedrun leaderboard due to altering the scarf management spirit of red robe runs, clashing with Playstation possibilities, and breaking the order of levels by teleporting back to CS multiple times mid-run. Note taking a symbol rather than chirping at flyers when doing this glitch can be used to also swap the order of +1 or +2 symbols, like done in this run between BB and PD ! This results in collecting two +2 symbols in row once again, on top of the CS glitch originally performed at the start of the run by being a "quick reddie".

Chapter Select scarf

"CS scarf" is a community term for a short Scarf. The Companion is assuming that someone used one of the buildings in Chapter Select (CS) to meet them. They didn't pick up the symbols in the levels before.

Other reasons for a CS scarf:

• Scarf got eaten by War Machines (WM) in Underground (UG)
• Player does not want or need a long scarf
• In the Snow level its length decreases through "freezing off"/wind.

Invisible Scarf glitch

Main article: Invisible scarf

The Scarf of the Wayfarer will become invisible.

It seems that both is possible: you can not see your Scarf or your Companion's one.

Textures

• 

  Wayfarer scarf in game files.

• 

  Glowing version from game files.

Quotes

“	We greeted each other with the typical chirp fest, and I noticed right off the bat that their scarf was a CS scarf.	„
	~ Zerathine

“	So my scarf's main tendency is to provide "Identity Protection" for me and my companions randomly when we travel. It just covers our faces during certain close ups...like anyone can tell us apart? Haha. But this time, it also decided to activate the "Indecency Censure Mode" here... Protect thy Companion's derrière!! Lol.	„
	~ SharifaSeshat