[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.]
Tom’s 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 ‘hibernate’ 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 skychild’s 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 “organic flesh”. 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 skychild’s 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.
At first glance it would appear almost like skychildren are dreaming more often lately. But the evidence suggests that isn’t the case.
Descendants have reported feeling anxious and stressed about dreams that occur when they return to the Sky since, well, as far back as any of us can remember. In fact, I have found multiple instances of recorded reports about the dreams back to the very first days that the first generations fell down into the world! I’m sure you all know by now what happens when we rest. Our bodies turn into vague particles of Light substance, which either rise up into the Sky or float over wherever we consider Home. But the Light that we become is still us. And that starlight that we are? It still dreams.
Many strange worlds have been reported to us here in the research bureaus; worlds that would make up these dreams. Often times the dreams would feel episodic to the subject. Often times skychildren would report having similar, or even identical dreams. Some dreams would tell stories. Adventures. Dramas. Some dreams would be simple lives of unknown lifeforms. A new form of dream has been garbling up the dreams of many of our contacts who would report in their findings. A new *genre, that we call… “rot”. The rot would be similar to other dreams of the episodic category, except in the rot, dreams would swap faster and faster between multiple stories. The chaos and aggressive changing of bright colors and loud noises has left many many skychildren suffering from various headaches and psychological disorders, which is certainly a problem as it happens quite a lot to an increasingly worrying amount of the Descendant population. While some shared dreams are talked about excitedly amongst those they affect, the rot seems to distance skychildren, often isolating them from one another.
All dreams in general result in significant complications to our rest, wellbeing, and Connection with the Light. Perhaps would be better if we simply didn’t have these dreams, but as skychildren rest for longer and longer up in the Sky these days, we must remain aware of the affects of our dreams on the community. And no dream is more potent and consuming… than the dream of the “Other”.
Descendants have a collective name for the Other; a name which comes straight from what the “Other” calls itself.
“Human”.
These Human dreams are ‘shared’… by everyone. All of us have dreams of the Other. This occurs so completely to the point that we have created versions of the Other in our world in the way our Mental Spaces form. There are some dreams that have become so popular and beloved, that the Elders have allowed them to manifest as entire Mental Space incarnations of Light, or projections in the Story Space, as I’m sure you’re all very aware of. We dream of various scales of the Other. We dream of their world, and the diverse lifeforms within it. We dream of their society, of their wars and communities and factions. And we dream of individual lives. Each of us dream of different individuals, although sometimes we have found reports that some skychildren share an individual Human. Yet when we dream of the Other, the evidence is near irrefutable that almost all of these “Humans” that we each dream of all exist in the same world; a world where the passing of time is aligned with ours, albeit on a slower spectrum.
Because we dream of our “Other” more than we ever dream about anything else, the experiences and mental health of the Other appear to be directly tied to our own. Their experiences can affect how we view our own world, our friends around us, and even ourselves. Some skychildren attempt to stay awake as long as possible in order to avoid having to ‘live’ the life of the Other. But other skychildren accept the Other as ‘the true reality’, and see it as more important than returning from the stars.
This is, in fact, strongly correlated with how many and most skychildren’s Flame become extinguished. They simply… submit to the reality of the Other; as more dominant and important than ours. From here everything becomes more difficult.
An argument I have heard quite a lot now is that we should “let them be”. If some of us see their ‘Other’ as more important, than who are we to stop them? Why should we control the lives of our fellow brethren? Should they not be allowed to choose their own path? And I am in no place to rebuttal.
I have long since struggled with Control, and long since fought to Let Go. I cannot tell anyone how to live. I can only listen, and help others to feel heard. And I will continue to do my best to learn how I can hear everyone. A colleague of mine suggests that a healthy balance of respecting, appreciating, and aligning with the strange connection we have with the Other is the best way to live. It is difficult to gather objective evidence towards what is “healthy” when many skychildren who don’t follow such a lifestyle may exist for so long with no correlation. But for my own personal growth, and reckoning with Being here, I am grateful as ever for their insight, and I understand. Whatever the Other is to each of us, we cannot hate it. We cannot exist in spite of it. We must learn to love ourselves, and that which is connected to us.
That struggle to understand Love, and what must be done to gently allow us to Be? That struggle is why my research, and my studies, will continue.
“Why can’t I look away? Why can’t I break free? Am I the phone? Is the phone me? My hand, my disgusting hand, reaching, yearning, poised perfectly to cradle it. My eyes, pained when not washed in its harmful light. My neck, tilted just enough to look down at the screen. My thumb, positioned and powerful, stretching across the interface desperate to tap away. I am not broken. Eye of the beholder. This is exactly what was intended for me. This is what they want to happen. I am to drown in its light, begging endlessly for the next hit. I am to always reach for my device, ready to check, just in case. I am alone, and nobody is as here for me as my cellphone. I am never alone, because the information and the colors and the SCREEN. The screen will never leave me. I will never leave the screen. I am my screen. I am my phone. I am the information. I am data. I am sold. Complacent. Compliant. Numb. Numb. Numb. Numb. Numb.”
“We bear a similar memory to the Ancestors, but the Light we are created from is different. The Connections we have made may be forgotten, but no amount of love and care is ever wasted, no matter how small. If any of you have ever laughed with others. Greeted another. Smiled. Looked at another in passing. If you have ever stood in the presence of others?
You have changed another’s life forever.
There are names I don’t remember. Faces that I’ve forgotten. People that have made me feel happier, stronger, or seen; even if only in the smallest ways; that I have no recollection of.
And yet they have impacted my life nonetheless.
Personal experience and memory may be temporal, and fade, but the Light? Light will always remember you. And the universe will never be the same. Because you were my friend. Once.”
The ants marched along the valleys between the cobblestone fields, but one ant strayed from the path, and wandered atop one of the rocks. As it did, a giant arrived, standing over the fields. Behind it dragged a large container. It opened a plug in the bottom of the container, and from the opening gushed out a surge of water. The water crashed into the cobblestone fields, seeping and flooding between the stones, killing all of the marching ants instantly. The ant on the rock began to panic. They moved to the other side of the rock seeking escape but found only rushing water. They went back to the first side of the rock and found themself on an island, surrounded by the floods. The ant was suddenly alone, with the sputtering and drowning cries of the dozens of other ants calling out in the distance. The giant stood in silence, as the water poured and poured out of the container. Until the water slowed, and then stopped coming out. Then the giant silently pulled away. The ant looked on in horror. In an instant, nothing would ever be the same for it, ever again.
And then I woke up.
I was not the ant. I was not the giant. I was not the stones. I was not the waters.
I was alone in my Nest. The marching of the parade and festive celebrations sounding through the window, from the town below. Distant fireworks from the town’s outskirts. There were no cries of the drowning. There was no thundering crashes of giant footfalls and roaring floods. There was cheer and laughter outside my window on the street below.
I got out of bed, and prepared to meet my friends in the cafe as I had planned.
Much has happened since I began my recent journeys. There is much knowledge that I have gained… and yet there is much pain and hurt given that I cannot take back. While the Spirits are often simple and single-minded… they are still Here. They do not deserve interrogation. They do not deserve harassment. They are filled with memories, and memories and trust are a sacred precious thing. In some cases, I have learned this far too late. People, even those who are so different than us, are not just puzzles for us to solve.
Despite my mistakes, and my transgressions, I have still learned new things. Many of the more thoughtful Spirits love to discuss hypotheticals. Philosophical questions. Psychology of soul formation and development.
And then, with all of the Spirits, we can learn much from how they say they feel. Some of them are terrified of the Darkness, while some of them seem to have found peace with its presence, or even acceptance of it as a crucial part of our world!
But yet: sometimes their feelings and opinions of certain topics is strange. The Spirits… don’t seem to ever *hate* each other. There is no conflict too jarring; no disagreement too large. The skychildren, plagued by Indifference and Disconnection due to the influence of the Void, quarrel and fight and shun and outcast each other endlessly. I have been on the receiving end… and been the one to hurt others. This happens due to a process the Vault Spirits call “psychology”. Our identities form and grow rapidly from the moment we are born into the world, and we never stop growing our born-into identity or new social identities, for all of the time we are here and Present. This identity that I grow is synonymous to something they call “Ego”. When our Identities clash with one another, we will want to take control of the situation, and eliminate the conflict. This is why we end up fighting with each other. And block out each other’s Stars from our own Sky.
But the Spirits… do not seem to have an Ego. They do not seem to clash with each other. It is almost as if they are unable to hate anymore. Sometimes, they don’t even really seem to see each other. Much less us.
They often wander around with their minds in their own little worlds, and it can be difficult to get the attention of any such idling Spirit.
Some of the other skychildren think they aren’t seeing what we see. That perhaps they see us as fellow Ancestors. Imagine that; them living among us believing that the world never ended and nothing fell apart. To be living as a Spirit, completely immersed in a forever fever dream.
I worry that as I reach further and deeper truths, I will not be able to bear it. Though I have endured previous bouts of my own insanities, my Flame is weaker than ever, and my friends few. I must do my best not to succumb. There is no need to sleep. Not just yet.
The Spirits are strange. They seem to know far more about what we are doing here than we do. From when we first arrived, many of them seemed to not even be surprised to see us after we save them. They direct us to strange goals with confidence, as if they already know what we ‘need’ to do. They do not tell us why we need to go, and we can’t seem to pry it from them when we ask. They seem unable to tell us why we are to do these things, and can only explain what. I have asked the Steward many questions, and every time I am met with variations of “Not everything can make sense for now.”
The Steward is frustrating. All of them are so frustrating to talk to. They prattle on asking about how *I’m* doing; how *I’m* feeling. They tell me to go be with my friends. They tell me that there’s no use in being so worried about these things. It seems everybody tells me that these days. That there’s no point in chasing shadows. That the Light will provide.
Their favorite phrase, also used by the Rhythm and Nesting guides, is “All we can do is wait.” It’s as if this is all set in stone. Perhaps fate. Foretold. We are enacting out a grand plan, and these Spirits are the shepherds herding us along the path, never giving us the full picture. Perhaps, like shepherds with their manatees, they believe that we will not be able to comprehend the larger plan. Perhaps this is to prevent overwhelm amongst the millions of skychildren that have appeared over time. Perhaps this is to keep us complacent as they lead us to worse slaughter than they already have. Perhaps they truly don’t know how it all ends yet themselves, and can only see a little bit further down the path than we.
“Perhaps.”
Strangely enough hypotheticals have proven to be the key.
The Ancestors may not be able to tell us “the answers”, but perhaps what they can offer is indirect insight.
If they won’t just let us know the answers, I will solve all of this myself. The clues are there, even in what they say.
I will continue my research. I will learn more. I have to.
Both the daily and seasonal presence and interactions with Spirits has direct correlation with the quests they give to us. Quests of seemingly… varying degrees of importance. The evidence shows us that these quests are not primarily for their benefit. These quests are primarily for us. Take the candlemaker’s request to forge a candle, for example. He does not request this candle from us, but rather only wished that we forge one at all!
Most quests seem to not benefit the Spirit whatsoever, and often simply asks that we experience or practice one aspect of life or another; here in the world of Sky.
“Ride on a manta”
“Charge your Light”
“Collect pieces of Light”
“Meditate in the realms”
Why? Is this mere busywork? If unfamiliar with the mechanisms of our world, these quests don’t seem to hold any importance whatsoever. They are not contributing to the Aviary’s supply of colored lights for potion and spell making. They do not keep the Spirits memories alive and fresh in the Cycle of souls. They do not maintain the growth of Darkness across the realms. So what is the point?
Yet again, they seem to simply request that we have these experiences. They just want us to go out into the world and appreciate a multitude of aspects of life. So simple, yet so intriguing. Is this their task after they were reborn? Or do they do this out of free will and longing to care for us? Their intentions are just as vaguely shrouded as the mechanics of their origin. Sometimes I fear that we will never understand them. But I also know that we probably don’t need to. I will trust in the process. And I will keep hugging the Steward and waving to the Candlemaker.
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 I’m 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.
“Once upon a time, the Light talked to us.”
“Once upon a time, our gods talked to us.”
And yet I also can’t 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 it’s for the best that they don’t speak to us anymore.
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 another’s motives might work and only ‘respect’ their differences. (Sympathy)
Honestly, typically, I originate from self-deprecating characteristics and therefore tend to believe that “everyone else has better ways of processing their passion than I do”. And this isn’t 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. I’m 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 it’s been too long, and things have changed too much, or not enough is synergizing anymore, and it just seems like all that’s left is sentiment, I stand and watch, almost always in somber and quaint protest, as they let go and move on.
“When all that’s left is sentiment.”
Perhaps that’s what I feel like then. A dust bunny. A strained out ghost. What I am holding on to is not passion, and that’s 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 that’s 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 I’ve posted about multiple times now is pretty much just finalized as how I think Sky works, and that I don’t 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 ‘need’ 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: “No”
Apparently it wouldn’t 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. ❤️🕯️
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.
…
The creatures. They struggle and struggle ‘til the bitter end. Fighting for Light. Fighting for safety. Fighting for companionship- or- as you like to call it— Connection.
…
Do you think they hoped?
Hoped?
Believed. Believed they would make it.
Mm. Light always finds a way. We wouldn’t be seeing any of this right now if the Light in this Space didn’t believe it’d make it. And look! We are here. The vessels they have all been waiting for. They knew they’d make it. Because we are here Now. 🕯️
