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, 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: Children of the Light#
The gameplay of Sky: Children of the Light 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 put 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 similar to The Legend of Zelda, then once you have collected 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 avatars are just small black silhouettes; their chat content is also invisible.
Isn't that a bit counterintuitive? In the 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. The original intention of Sky is to foster a positive and uplifting environment, and by raising the threshold for social interaction, they aim to reduce harmful interactions among players, making the resulting social experiences more valuable.
Social Cycle in Sky#
The social cycle in Sky ultimately allows players to have more avenues for social interaction (better expressing themselves or helping others).
- Players express themselves (personalized content: different appearances, actions, expressions, etc.), and others reward them.
- Players earn rewards through entertainment or mutual assistance.
- Rewards give players more choices to showcase themselves (reward exchange for personalized content).
- The more choices players have to showcase themselves, the higher the chances 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.
Rewards Feedback from Players#
Rewards given by players rather than the system yield a higher sense of achievement and encourage players to engage in this social cycle.
Transforming Illusory Gratitude into "Tangible" Love#
By binding illusory gratitude with love, using love as a gift and exchanging it for rewards, a shared emotional experience is preserved.
Personalization as Reward Content#
Players start with similar, genderless avatars, and to express themselves, they naturally seek personalized content, which also encourages other players to join the cycle of self-expression.
Social Costs in Sky#
- To see other players' appearances, you need to get close and light them up with candlelight.
- 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) or give friends three 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 will be to want 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 led around the world, allowing others to take them to explore hidden rewards. This mutual guidance between players further strengthens the connection between them and provides a way for players to help and express gratitude.
The game has set up side multiplayer gameplay to encourage 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 that occurs around other players that promotes players to simulate thoughts and feelings about others.
What Are We Playing#
So back to the question at the beginning of the title, what are we playing when we play Sky? Is it about running around collecting items to improve ourselves? Maybe, but what happens when everything is collected? What keeps you playing Sky? I think it should be the black silhouettes you encounter along your journey, and the time spent 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 full of expectations for this world? In reality, although the scenes are repetitive every day, every encounter with fellow subway riders and the events that happen are unknown for each tomorrow. This unknown itself fills you with anticipation for tomorrow, and when you encounter something special, you will leave special memories in your mind.
I remember a moment during my time playing Final Fantasy XIV when an NPC named Venus asked me,
Is your journey a satisfying one?
At that moment, I recalled all the bits and pieces of the storyline and the players I met. (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 illuminating 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 in the end, what we are truly playing is the most primitive social instinct of humanity—confirming that we are not islands in a vast and lonely universe, and that there are people willing to share moments of starlight with us.
Some Possible Optimization Points#
Increase UGC-related gameplay for home-building: enhancing playability from game content and creating new monetization directions from a commercial perspective: furniture.
Furniture can also have gameplay elements, such as mahjong tables, playing cards, etc.; the expansion of furniture is very high. The final social gameplay in FF XIV is visiting players' own decorated RP shops for interaction.
|| It turns out there is already a cloud nest house; new players just entering 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 may be delays; it would be beneficial to add a multi-player ensemble state to reduce synchronization delays (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 within the game would also promote social interactions, as not every social interaction will develop outside the game.
Solidifying social relationships: In friend relationships, we could add some relationship types, and for these relationship types, we could introduce witnessing rituals and invite 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 updated by Mix Space to xLog.
The original link is https://blog.lolita.best/posts/GameDesign/When-Playing-Sky-What