What is Sky: Children of the Light#
In "Sky: Children of the Light," people can get closer to each other; here it can awaken the childhood in your heart, here it can let you encounter true friendship, here you and your loved ones can be closer, and here I hope you can fall in love with games again. — Chen Xinghan
"Sky: Children of the Light" (English: Sky: Children of The Light) is a social adventure game developed by Thatgamecompany.
This is the answer given by the encyclopedia, but in the actual gameplay process, rather than saying it is a game, it is more like a "large online social chat room."
Gameplay of Sky#
The gameplay of Sky is not complicated; in fact, after exploring all the map content and enjoying the scenery along the way, you can stop playing. || Stop playing: Some games can be temporarily set aside after achieving all accomplishments and collecting everything when there is no new content. ||
In simple terms, it is about freely exploring an open map, collecting items, enhancing your exploration abilities, and exchanging for actions, outfits, and other personalized items.
This is not the focus of this article; for this part, I will just show two pictures (not very detailed).
Social Interaction is Core, Open Exploration is Secondary#
If this were a single-player game like The Legend of Zelda, then after collecting all the content, you could indeed end the game.
But aside from the exploration content of the game itself, Sky has a more important element—social interaction. So how does it facilitate social interaction?
Other players in Sky initially have their usernames hidden, and even their appearances are just small black shadows; their chat content is also not visible.
Isn't that a bit counterintuitive? In previous MMO social frameworks, we needed to provide convenient social tools and create as many social scenarios as possible to promote social interaction, right? So why is Sky's social design like this?
I believe it is related to the social atmosphere they want to create. Sky's original intention is to foster a positive and uplifting environment, and by raising the entry threshold for social interaction, it aims to reduce harmful interactions between players, making the resulting social interactions more valuable.
Social Cycle in Sky#
The social cycle in Sky ultimately allows players to have more social avenues (better express themselves or help others).
- Players express themselves (personalized content: different appearances, actions, expressions, etc.), and others reward them.
- Players gain rewards through entertainment or helping each other.
- Rewards allow players more choices to showcase themselves (reward exchange for personalized content).
- The more choices players have to showcase themselves, the higher the chance of being recognized by other players.
Within this cycle, the material of love is used to establish emotional recognition between players, and personalization satisfies players' self-expression.
Feedback from Player-Given Rewards#
Rewards given by players rather than the system yield a higher sense of achievement and promote players to engage in this social cycle themselves.
Transforming Illusory Gratitude into "Physical" Love#
By binding illusory gratitude with love, using love as a gift item and then exchanging it for rewards, it preserves the emotional experience shared by both parties.
Personalization as Reward Content#
Players' initial appearances are basically the same and gender-neutral; players need to express themselves and will naturally seek personalized content, which will also encourage other players to join the cycle of self-expression.
Social Costs in Sky#
- To see other players' appearances, you need to get close and use candlelight to illuminate them.
- To establish contact with strangers (friends), you need to consume your candles first.
- To chat, you need to sit on a chair/bench (the same social tool)/give friends 3 more candles.
- To perform interactive actions with friends, you need to continuously invest candles to unlock the number of friends.
This part adds a sense of ritual to the social process, and through this ritual, it teaches players how to communicate with others/how to contribute (help others) and receive rewards (love).
In this process, players' initial social intention becomes wanting to be friends with this person, rather than for other reasons. || First, they must be normal people! ||
Social Relationships in Sky#
In previous MMO design frameworks, it was mentioned that as social needs are continuously met, some means are needed to solidify social relationships. So how does Sky do this? It is through the limited social goals we mentioned earlier.
- The interaction unlock between friends is proportional to the depth of the relationship: players need to invest together to gradually unlock interaction abilities.
In the long run, this increases the sunk cost of players abandoning relationships, while in the short term, it raises the threshold for player interaction (reducing low-quality social interactions and increasing emotional investment).
Social Content in Sky#
In daily tasks, some require multiple players to interact; this part of the guidance is somewhat forceful, but the design team still retains the option to complete it solo (interacting with ancestors in the game).
In addition, there are various hidden items and side content in Sky's maps, which slow down the game's pace, allowing players to focus more on interactions with other players.
Holding hands is one of the most distinctive features of Sky; players can completely hand over their control to another person and be guided around the world, allowing others to take them to explore hidden rewards. This further enhances the connection between players through mutual guidance and provides players with ways to help and express gratitude.
The map features side multiplayer gameplay, encouraging players to socialize and obtain personalized rewards. This part of the side content is not part of the main storyline and will not affect the experience of lone wolves (freedom seekers).
The social content in Sky is more about cooperation and sharing between players, encouraging players to engage in/attempt social interactions through some lightly goal-oriented gameplay and tasks.
Any activity performed near other players, which encourages simulating the thoughts and feelings of others.
The key to social experience: any activity occurring around other players that promotes players to simulate thoughts and feelings about others.
What Are We Playing#
So returning to the initial question of the title, what are we playing when we play Sky? Is it about collecting items to improve ourselves each time we run through the map? Perhaps, but what happens when everything is collected? What keeps you playing Sky? I think it should be the black shadows you encounter along your journey, and the moments of lighting them up, growing together, and playing together. Just like your daily commute to work, if it is the same scenery day after day, year after year, would you still be filled with anticipation for this world? In reality, although the scenes are repetitive every day, every encounter with someone on the subway and every event is unknown for each tomorrow; this uncertainty itself fills you with anticipation for tomorrow, and when you encounter something special, you will leave a part of that special memory in your mind.
I recall a moment from my time playing Final Fantasy XIV, where an NPC named Venus asked me,
Is your journey a satisfying one?
In that instant, I recalled all the bits and pieces of the storyline and the players I encountered. (I teared up.)
Perhaps this is the charm that social games bring us.
When you get close to another player in the game, gently illuminating their outline with your fingertips and sending a small candle, these seemingly childish actions hide the most genuine warmth. There are no rankings boasting combat power, no tricks of interest exchange, only strangers greeting each other with gestures and conveying feelings with candles. Those hugs across the screen, the starlight lighting the way home for strangers, and the fingers intertwined while crossing storms all prove:
Encounters may not have an ending, but they are certainly meaningful.
Just meeting is beautiful.
So ultimately, what we are truly playing is the most primitive social instinct of humanity—confirming that we are not islands in the vast and lonely universe and that there are those willing to share moments of starlight with us.
Some Possible Optimization Points#
Increase UGC-related gameplay for home-building: this adds playability from the game content perspective and introduces new monetization directions from a commercial perspective: furniture.
Furniture can also have gameplay elements, such as mahjong tables, playing cards, etc.; the expandability of furniture is very high. The final social gameplay in FF XIV is visiting player-decorated RP shops for interaction.
|| It turns out there is already a cloud nest house; old players just getting into the game need this, give me more placement space! ||
Dyeing optimization: increase more dye possibilities and multi-area dyeing.
Performance optimization for ensemble: when multiple players perform together in the game, there is latency; for ensemble needs, adding a multi-player ensemble state can reduce synchronization delay (FF XIV specifically optimized for multi-player performances).
Asynchronous communication: Although we already have many channels for chatting outside the game, having an asynchronous communication message board in the game would also promote social interaction; not every social interaction will develop outside the game.
Solidifying social relationships: For friend relationships, we can add some relationship types and introduce witnessing rituals for these relationship types, inviting other friends to witness together.
(I just returned to the game and have not experienced all the content yet; there may be omissions, so please respond to me in the comments.) || Off to collect candles! ||
This article is synchronized and updated to xLog by Mix Space.
The original link is https://blog.lolita.best/posts/GameDesign/When-Playing-Sky-What