It still blows my mind that, once upon a time, some of the devs used to interact with the lore community.
To think that the Light itself, with all of its arcane knowledge and power, would share with us what *its* thoughts were; what *it* was fascinated with about the world it had placed us into.
And as I understand it, we pushed and scared them away. With our antagonism. With our constant bickering and infighting.
Although Iâm sure personal outcomes also contributed to them fading from public interaction, as these incarnations of our Creators were their own individuals with their own agency.
As someone who was born after those years of direct enlightenment, it seems so interestingly mythologized in a way that is quite familiar and parallel to human myth, legend, and stories behind beliefs.
âOnce upon a time, the Light talked to us.â
âOnce upon a time, our gods talked to us.â
And yet I also canât help but feel as though I would not react well, myself. Even in spite of all the ways I have grown over these few years since I was born, I know my remaining insecurities well. Faced with the chance to learn, to ask, and to understand; yet seeing the results of this chance not go perfectly my way? I am not the Lore community. I do not speak for every excited soul. And the community certainly does not speak for me.
As a result, I would have to harness my expectations, and not demand the attention I would inevitably seek. Perhaps, in this day and age, I would be able to.
But knowing the results of the past, and what people have done to their Creators before⌠perhaps itâs for the best that they donât speak to us anymore.
[One full day-cycle in Aviary lasts one full hour in the human world. One day in the world of Sky will be one hour in real time.]
Tomâs log, twenty three Seasons, Cycle 50,376.
To say that we as a species are highly unaware of the mechanics of our hibernation patterns would be an understatement. It is so commonplace to assume that nothing changes and nothing matters; that most Descendants seem completely oblivious to what happens when they grow tired and go to rest.
The truth is that skychildren âhibernateâ for most of their lives. Approximately 99.0009% of their lifetime. They only wake up for around a few days before hibernating for at least weeks.
Their ability to move and thrive in this world is highly dependent on their motivation to do so, characterized visually, physically, anatomically, and mentally, by their Flame. As they get more and more exhausted and demotivated, their Flame becomes less accepting of collecting Light from the world, and of spending time out in the realms.
This betrays volumes on a vastly hidden secret about Descendant biology and health. They are not the endless spouts of energy and Light that they are believed to be. They exhaust themselves completely and wholly, more quickly than it had ever previously been assumed. And once they are exhausted, they spend a dozen or more times as long to recover their energy. If the Flame is powered by the skychildâs motivation to Be, then the skychild has very little motivation at all. They grow tired of existing almost immediately.
Once they have become decidedly too tired to remain, they ascend back up into the Sky. It is unclear whether we are returning completely to Orbit, or just dematerializing into Light in the upper atmosphere, until we are ready to solidify and take form again. Some of us dematerialize and rematerialize within our nests, as a sign of our connection to our new homes. When we dematerialize into the atmosphere, our minds and souls can prepare to form again within the Mental Space we know as the Homespace. In this Space, the souls of skychildren collect together, preparing and planning where to descend back into the world again.
The younger a Descendant is, the longer their Flame burns between hibernation cycles. Descendants that have seen less than four to eight Seasons pass by are sometimes even known to spend two to three times as long within the world before hibernating. There are many factors contributing to this. Those who are with friends for all or most of the time will be Connected and retain healthy Flame, and may stay within the world longer, and have a longer complete lifetime before completely extinguishing.
As Descendants exist for longer and longer, they will appear into the world for less and less time, and require much greater hibernation periods, sometimes even lasting months, years, and even decades. This phenomenon has common correlations with previous friends fading as well or having already had been extinguished.
When we lose our form and rest within Mental Spaces beyond the world of Sky, we often will dream of countless other realities. Within these dreams are entire worlds, and sometimes entire universes; completely beyond our comprehension. Entities made of âorganic fleshâ. Beings that do not live directly tied to the flow of energy within their worlds. We had known of aliens from beyond the Sky that exist outside of our natural order. Yet we do not know why we dream of them, or what it might mean for us to dream of them so. These beings do not seem so immediately connected to each other as we are. They are often selfish in nature, and cannot begin to understand each other or how the other feels. This inefficiency is similar in nature to how our Ancestors had once been. Their influence within our dreams has a tendency to affect how we interact with each other when we are together in the realms. It is a dangerous phenomenon, and requires further studying.
Perhaps, then, this is the most critical yet implicit reason to study and understand the mechanics of our hibernation. For every time we go to rest, we are bombarded with dreams of the Other. It has been examined as such that these dreams of the Other can be so overwhelming, that it can bring hibernations to become longer, and for the lifespan of a skychildâs Flame to extinguish faster and faster. These dreams are dangerous. And yet while many around me pay them no mind, and avoid discussing them, I feel compelled. Almost⌠drawn to them. I must understand more.
Passion is a strange thing, especially when it comes to diverse variations of passion. We only ever understand how we ourselves process passion; that we could never truly empathize with how anotherâs motives might work and only ârespectâ their differences. (Sympathy)
Honestly, typically, I originate from self-deprecating characteristics and therefore tend to believe that âeveryone else has better ways of processing their passion than I doâ. And this isnât faithfully assumed, of course, but anecdotally trusted, especially at the moment in terms of this problem.
An example of how some people might process passion differently than me could be where people move from one thing to the next, forgetting about the past one over time. Perhaps a second set of people might love strongly and break off dramatically, rescinding their love and taking it with them. Iâm sure in reality others have this or that of the same experiences and feelings like me, to one extent or another, here or there parallel but never interfacing on the spectrum.
For me, I never seem to be able to let go. As a result, as experienced in past happenings, many people have to let go for me. When itâs been too long, and things have changed too much, or not enough is synergizing anymore, and it just seems like all thatâs left is sentiment, I stand and watch, almost always in somber and quaint protest, as they let go and move on.
âWhen all thatâs left is sentiment.â
Perhaps thatâs what I feel like then. A dust bunny. A strained out ghost. What I am holding on to is not passion, and thatâs likely what others might begin to understand. I am holding onto the ghost of passion. The ghost of the living. Always the concept of the experience, and never the experience itself.
Someone called me a romantic once, and I took it to heart. Perhaps I am still a romantic, like they believed. But what am I romanticizing? Certainly not the living. Certainly not the ones smiling for me. Perhaps, then, only the smiles that were, instead of the smiles that are. Perhaps I am only passionate about the concept of a present that was, than the active experience of a present that is. Perhaps thatâs where I always am, was, and will be. Perhaps I myself am a ghost. Dust, gazing upon dust.
I was explaining to my scientist friend that the framework Iâve posted about multiple times now is pretty much just finalized as how I think Sky works, and that I donât really see it changing or see how it could change into the next years.
In a way this feeling of *completion*; that there is not much work left to be done for me, has created a sort of plateau where I feel that there is not really much for me to do in Sky lore in general- at the moment at least.
The need to be conclusive and decisive has left me in a strange place not only mechanically but also socially, as there is nothing to comment or engage with or really build upon for my framework.
It just is what it is.
In making this framework my identity, I have lost all sense of the ability to grow and live.
A very fascinating situation to be in.
My scientist friend offered that I should just move on to the next fun problem to solve, and look for more things to observe and investigate and analyze. They mused over not understanding the âneedâ to synthesize everything into a consolidated pallet, so to speak, all carried upon one single little framework. They rationalized that I was missing out on all of the details and the fun that could still be had with smaller, more tangible problems to sleuth over.
And in the end I told them: âNoâ
Apparently it wouldnât be the same. Apparently this was my purpose, and my journey and my story was basically complete. Satisfied. There is nothing left to do anymore. This world had been Defined.
How interesting of a situation to be in; at the completion of passion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few weeks ago now, I played through the game Journey again, for the first time in perhaps an entire decade.
My first thought is that I feel bad.
When moths and loremoths have come to the Sky community to proudly exclaim "This game is still like Journey, then!" both others and myself would rush to refute them.
"It's not the same game/story at all!"
But as I interacted with the creatures made of ribbon, the magical energy that seemed to animate creatures and machines alike, and met with the Ancestor at the shrine where the levels ended?
It was harder to catch what was mechanically 'different' between the Traveler's Journey and the moth's journey--- than to accept how much was virtually the same.
[From the Sky: CotL release promo for Steam]
Phase One: Why was Sky made?
1. The Side By Side
The title of the 'first phase' should stir the air quite immediately.
Well- especially if I'd been able to fit the second part of the question into the same line.
Why was Sky made... when Journey already exists?
There we go! Much more polarizing. Much more eye-catching.
But seriously, we are here today to highlight a real question that pops up in reaction to Sky: Children of the Light.
"Oh cool, so it's just Journey reskinned and on mobile."
And while it's understandable to be frustrated at how often these comments pop up, I'd like to clarify that these are valid concerns. They are similar, often in almost one-to-one ways!
The levels follow the exact same emotional curves:
~~~
A mysterious beginning within an endless desert.
A defined area where you must gather the multitudes of the creatures.
A troubled space filled with emotional turmoil.
A dramatic and exciting slide...
Into a dark and threatening trial.
The past is recollected... and the final challenge is revealed.
The perilous descent into the storm tears you apart...
But you are reborn, and ascend into the light to begin the cycle anew.
The basic story premise doesn't shake the foundation up either:
~~~
The Ancestors lived in harmony with the creatures that partake in the Cycle, but they found they could create powerful machines by entrapping the creatures. Without enough creatures, the Cycle never began anew, and the Ancestors fought each other to control diminishing resources, resulting in a tragic downfall.
Their Descendants would enact the Cycle for the rest of eternity, slowly healing the damage left by the ruined kingdom.
If we were to cross-examine our past six years of research and community dispute, this is a description that undeniably describes Sky: Children of the Light.
But it also describes the hit Playstation 3 game Journey.
2. The Reaction
In a way, this revelation stung, as my hooded character trudged, flapped, and slid along their Journey. People have told me every year along my searches- to varying degrees- that my belief that Sky: CotL held something special that nothing else had ever touched on before was just that flair for the romantic in me. But as someone who had been so obsessed with Sky for many, many years, I had the strange and ironic reversed effect of Journey being some kind of strange parody of Sky!
Every single ounce of awareness of the irony stung, as it would and should. I have to wonder how many players who absolutely adored Journey before Sky- in its experience, story, and message- found Sky to be a pale imitation of what was a perfect game.
And from my reversed experience upon playing it as an adult, I was shocked to also find Journey as a far more grounded and comprehensible story than Sky.
Sky's lore requires developer concept art, interviews, and heavy community interaction and discussions to understand.
But Journey conveyed everything I needed to know about its world and story at the cost of just two hours of my time to sit down and feel.
Similarly to Sky, we could explore more of how
- the anatomy of living beings
- the energy that powered them
- the blessings and guidance of the Ancestors
- and the Cycle itself worked.
But unlike Sky, we simply don't have to extract meaning out of these topics down to a science!
Why do we do it in Sky, then?
...good question.
3. Passing on the Baton
I think what makes Journey perfect is its simplicity. There is a mystical aspect to Journey's magic soul power that is far more grounded in functionality than Sky's Light, which is narratively designed to be caught in a dance of endless transformation, ever-changing.
Collecting real evidence from TGC, we can see Sky had a much more complex agenda than Journey, and I think through this evolved agenda, we can find what makes Sky singled out as the heavily-pressured Descendant of all of TGC's games before it.
(This is also crucial for us working in the Lore community, as well.)
[Link to article here]
In another interview with the journalists at GamesIndustry.biz, Chen notes that the deal to create Flow, Flower, and Journey for Sony on the Playstation revealed that working exclusively with
"...a console platform holder like Sony was not an ideal partner for his goals."
Journey and the rest of TGC's prior games were heavily restricted by contractual agreements. The exhaustive work that went into creating Journey and the rest of the games was sold to Sony, and TGC was restricted from accessing and building upon the content that they had created. Not to mention all of the red tape that likely happened even as they were creating them!
A good friend told me that they see Journey as a "proof of concept" for Sky, and I think that may just be a fair assessment. Though he and the team were burnt out, Chen knew all along that Journey was never his complete vision.
From the same previously-mentioned interview:
"Deep down I was always curious if I could tackle this problem with a bigger crowd," he says. "Can I still create emotional bonding with more than two people? So Sky is our challenge to the next step. If you could actually chat and you had more than two people, can you still protect the community and create an environment where people show the brighter side of their humanity rather than what we consider the darker side?"
Within my own interpretation of all this information, Sky was always meant to expand on the Themes of Cloud, Flower, and Journey, in a vast, ever-growing multiplayer setting. His mind has always been set, from day one, on the Connections we can feel to our world and especially to each other. Sky would be the ultimate test of creating unique and powerful new Connections between people. If Journey was a very personal interaction with our environments and more intimate by comparison to its successor; then Sky would allow for both personal togetherness, and a huge collective social platform.
4. A Medium to be Shared
Sky enables you to experience both a personal journey and the societal impacts of belonging to community, and the frameworks behind this game confirm this.
[An excerpt from "The Art of Sky", a artbook collection of concept art regaling the creation of TGC's live-service title.]
As The Art of Sky explains it, the game's structure begins with "The Hero's Journey", also known as a 'monomyth'.
In any usage of the Hero's Journey framework, the 'hero' main character must answer 'the call' and adventure out, meeting guardians and overcoming challenges along the way, until they arrive at the ultimate trial, from which they will emerge from reborn and transformed. They complete their journey and rest, until a new journey calls to them. Sounds familiar enough, right?
This is the framework they used to design both Journey and the initial gameplay experience of Sky; where you begin in the Isle of Dawn and traverse the kingdom to the storm in Eden.
I tend to nickname that initial gameplay as "the moth's journey", with moths being the community nickname for new Sky players, of course. The moth's journey follows "The Hero's Journey" framework to a tee.
But the artbook then says they also implemented a gameplay model reflecting something called the "Collective Journey". What exactly is that?
If the Hero's Journey expresses the transformation of one sole individual as they undertake a personal adventure, then the Collective Journey represents a call to action shared between multiple people, sometimes even entire societies! The Collective Journey is harder to grasp and narrate than the story of one person, which makes it meta. That's right, I said the scary word. It's not easy to write a story about all 270 million skychildren that are or that have ever been around to be another star in someone's constellation.
But in all fairness, TGC can write a hero's journey, but never a Collective Journey. All they can do is provide us a platform to be able to be there for each other, and for all our seasonal and systemic grievances about the quality of the platform, we are given a platform nonetheless.
From there, it becomes our story to write, together.
The blank canvas becomes painted by our Experiences.
And Jenova Chen's vision not only comes closer to being 'fully' realized, but it is expanded- liberated, even- by becoming the shared vision of the Collective. The vision becomes more complex than Chen ever dreamed of- which is saying something, because that guy was definitely a dreamer.
Phase Two: What Does Sky Accomplish?
5. Finding Connections
Unfortunately, there's still some ground we need to cover. We still haven't fully answered that previous question:
Why do we dig through the Lore of Sky with such confusion and discord, when the lore of Journey is that much more self-explanatory?
I could've solved this in full when the question was first mentioned, but I wanted to resolve the very mainstream, primary reasons behind why Sky became the way it did. Now, we can deep-dive into the mind-boggling world of epistemology, ontology, and meaning-based worldbuilding.
We've established that Journey influences the moth's journey to Eden, but why and what changed about this strange Cycle and the soul energy that flows through it, that makes the games different?
We could talk plenty about Chen's "theme park" philosophy for Sky, but today I'd rather stay in my lane and in the meta-structure of the narratives.
Earlier, we addressed Journey's soul energy as a very spiritual, mystical power, brought out by the Ancestor's glyphs.
And meanwhile, Sky's "Light" was some sort of living, shapeshifting, ethereal macrosystem-bearing substance.
Both belong to a mystical Cycle of souls, creating the living beings that spread each force further.
Though the moth's journey matches up very closely to the game Journey, Chen said in an interview that Sky's world encompasses the feelings of virtually all of TGC's previous games!
This is the reason that Sky's Light is infinitely more transformative, flexible, and nebulous.
~~~
It is not Journey's spiritual glyphs, enchanted with the soul energy of millenia of Ancestors long gone.
It is not the petals in the wind, carrying enchanted magics of the earth to bring flowers and life to the world.
It is not the creatures of the abyss, feeding, absorbing, merging, mixing, and dancing in the circle of life.
And it is not the longing of a child to soar and shape the sky.
Instead, it's somehow- in some way? Something attempting to encompass the feelings of all four of those.
~~~
That's what the "Light" of Sky: CotL is.
It is the creatures, the energy that powers the creatures, the plants, the trees, the wind, clouds, storms, rain, earth, skies, sun, moon, dreams, nightmares, love, joy, bitterness, and shame.
Light is all of these things. It is Experience itself.
There is much to say about how TGC lets this experience be portrayed through Sky. It is fair to assert that any profound emotions we get to feel because of Sky is through our own ability to interface with the media, not because TGC necessarily gave us these gifts. As before; all they do is provide the platform. The emotions we experience are ours.
6. Conclusion
And finally, we arrive at the end. TGC has found powerful ways to provide us with mediums and platforms for emotional reception, and every addition to their list of projects has not been 'unique' IPs in the sense of producing content for the sake of it, but for advancing and honing a powerful, intentional dream of reaching out to people and touching their hearts. This, in summary, is why Sky was bound to end up so similar to not just Journey, but all of TGC's games.
But also especially Journey.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article, and I hope you all have a wonderful new year. â¤ď¸đŻď¸
That pent-up desire to reach the conclusion of your journey. Striving for the moment that you can finally rest. Where you will finally be at peace. The summit. The eye of the storm.
âŚ
The creatures. They struggle and struggle âtil the bitter end. Fighting for Light. Fighting for safety. Fighting for companionship- or- as you like to call itâ Connection.
âŚ
Do you think they hoped?
Hoped?
Believed. Believed they would make it.
Mm. Light always finds a way. We wouldnât be seeing any of this right now if the Light in this Space didnât believe itâd make it. And look! We are here. The vessels they have all been waiting for. They knew theyâd make it. Because we are here Now. đŻď¸
