Sky - Children of the Light: a flight through the memories of the past

Sky - Children of the Light

How important are memories? How do we approach them? What do we feel and love? How do video games speak to the public? And again, why is such a contact line created with our favorite medium and with our lives in general? These are questions that, in one way or another, we all ask ourselves when we live new experiences, and Sky: Children of the Light pushes us to ask ourselves further ones.

We start from a world, we explore and understand it, then we move on to something else, looking for new stimuli. It is natural, because it is part of the market and the constantly changing video game landscape can change from one moment to the next. It can give us a new masterpiece, it can offer us an anonymous video game without depth, and it can also make us angry because of moves that we sometimes don't share. The controversies arrive, other controversies, new controversies, and so on, but the journey we make is already marked.

It's like in Edge of Tomorrow, a science fiction film starring Tom Cruise: everything repeats itself and we can't stop it, if not go ahead and try to be better. Video games, if nothing else, try to convey this teaching with the aim of offering the player new worlds to live in, inevitably interfacing with themselves. Red Dead Redemption II has done it and many other productions have done it, and each one has filled our emotions with new sensations to make us travel to distant and unknown worlds.| ); }
The universe of Sky - Children of the Light, held up by a simple but at the same time unique base, is part of a world to live with someone, and better if this "Someone" is a stranger . On the other hand, this is the purpose of similar video games, unique and memorable, meaningful and impacting on a collective as well as personal level. We explore the light within each of us, taking steps forward, knowing more closely what lies beyond the cloud of deceptions and fears, while dealing with other players.

The magic of a perfect context

So we try many useless attempts, trying to feel good through the simple gestures that distinguish us so much, maybe doing what we like, understanding our neighbor and his problems, trying to feel that light within us again. This is a complex process, however, which most of the time can have positive results and other times, instead, show us how dark the world can be.

Jenova Chen, already famous in the panorama for Journey and Flower, is a developer who has been able to insert within Sky - Children of the Light the same passion that has always characterized works that we could consider intimist. If we think about it, To the Moon and other small productions have embarked on this path, managing to give depth to the story in a sweet and exemplary way, making you dream. In fact, we need video games that know how to tell wonderful and touching stories through the context and their gameplay, between one scene and another, between a mechanic and a loading. Sekiro's combat system, for example, teaches us to live moments as if they were the last. And we learn to strike, kill, survive and die, resisting and learning to deflect the thrust of a katana.



Jenova Chen, through this narrative way, explains to us that we are the ones who tell the stories of the universe of Sky - Children of the Light, living in a dream context. Going back to the past, we can imagine what it was like to live in the past and what it was before the desolation. In the production of thatgamecompany, in fact, we absorb the memories of those who have been part of that world that now, instead, would only like to see those who have lost. If in Journey we experience desolation and we know that nothing is left around us, in Sky - Children of the Light there is still hope for those who are looking for a little peace, dreaming more from the nothing left by the end.

How do we approach it, for example? How does the vision of a story narrate the loss, enhancing unique and significant characteristics, capable at the same time of delineating a tangible, living and pulsating dream? Why don't we know how to seize the moment, ripping off the sadness that left the desolation of Journey? And how much does a flower, perhaps the same as Flower, resist bad weather?

These are questions that, in one way or another, change the way we approach the journey of peace told in Sky - Children of the Light from the Los Angeles development studio. There is a world out there, chaotic and evil that is not always what it seems. It is nature, however, that resists anyone who is ready to threaten it. In the journey of Sky - Children of the Light, as we come into contact with the various settings, we get to know better what is around us, and from them we learn their present.

Memories of Sky - Children of the Light between literature and video games

As we experience the memories of the non-player characters scattered around these scenarios, we learn their stories and what they left behind. It is a precise and not at all unusual game design move, because it concerns in a unique way all those who care about the context they have around while living an interactive experience, going well beyond the classicisms of a saturated genre and thickened by too similar productions. from each other.

We see the sun's rays penetrating the clouds, shining on the placid ponds of a clearing that has many stories to tell. Meanwhile, the context tells of the past memories of lost souls, now lost in a purgatory from which they cannot escape. They try in every way to do it but they cannot, because they are lost spirits and without guidance, and this is where we come into play. By supporting them, helping them and growing them, we become necessary guides as we seek our courage. Even if it is complex to connect such a discourse with productions of other mediums, it is impossible not to find similarities with literature, which in video games extends its hand offering new suggestions, coexisting and strengthening itself.

The latter, and we could cite several books about it, it has always presented itself to the world in the same way as some video games do. Sky - Children of the Light is a fairy tale that tells why remembering is vital to have a link between the past, the present and the future, and what there is to discover in the context to better understand what is hidden in the world. Poems, historical novels, lost and found tales, the stories of men like Arthur and the legends of Middle-earth are part of the human heritages that we summarize with a powerful but essential term: culture.

When Sky - Children of the Light hosted the dedicated event of "The Little Prince", landing on Nintendo Switch, we immediately understood where he intended to go. The Serpent, which represents the symbol of death, is nevertheless a positive figure in the journey, because it explains how evil is actually necessary to equate good and evil on the same line of events. The term "Journey" is back in fashion, which in the videogame panorama represents the force capable of taking us from one end of a virtual universe to the other, giving us the opportunity to travel above all with the imagination.



In Sky - Children of the Light and Journey, in fact, we explore different scenarios, embarking on a memorable journey. As we mentioned earlier, there are two substantial differences that, in one way or another, make these video games pearls for the industry and in general for emerging storytelling. When we tell a work, we do not leave out anything: we describe each sensation in an intimate way, and each message and passage becomes, in equal measure, as important for us as for our interlocutor.

The players, through this possibility, they can tell each other and live together the events of Sky - Children of the Light, going far beyond the worlds, universes, scenarios, emotions and sensations that make a videogame work unique and unmissable. Because, if you hadn't understood, Sky - Children of the Light is an open book that tells memories and emphasizes the way in which we can approach them. It is a way that, in addition to being meaningful and appropriate, shows us that the world needs more hope to live with serenity, arriving where we do not even imagine. We flit from one side to the other, and we use nature without destroying it, giving it the right respect.

As we fly from one end of a scenario to the other, we see what we have around us become microscopic, and move in the middle air becomes a wonderful moment in which to get lost. Magic, at the heart of Jenova Chen's production, we contemplate interacting with other players, perhaps holding hands, supporting each other and giving each other support. We are projected into a future that, without too many ceremonies, reminds us how wonderful it is to live an experience with someone.

Even if it is far away and we do not know who it is, the person who agrees to take us by the hand could have need a little peace to find the necessary serenity and disconnect your mind, experiencing a moment of joy and carefree. During the pandemic, in fact, works such as Animal Crossing and Death Stranding have allowed many people to go beyond the barriers created by social distancing and to experience moments of sharing, allowing themselves to explore nuances of themselves that, in normal contexts, no one would be. never been able to contemplate in the right way.



Sky - Children of the Light is a video game that follows this philosophy, and goes far beyond cooperation between individuals. It is an adventure that can be lived alone, but consolidating a relationship with another is certainly the most valuable side of the experience. With Journey this is not possible, and clearly that has never been her goal, because the final message of Jenova Chen's masterpiece is about desolation inside and outside of us. In Sky - Children of the Light there are environments that, on the contrary, show that something alive is still there. And no, it is not just us and the other players who realize it, but the contexts we live and with which we interface during our experiences. There is always something incredible out there waiting to be fully explored and understood. Everything, in one way or another, passes through this.

What to expect from the future?

Sky - Children of the Light is certainly the pinnacle of the creativity of a developer who, over the last few years, he has always offered incredible and memorable works. Indeed, we need such productions, capable of both surprising and leaving their mark as well as teaching something through memories. It is the connection that defines a type of video game that, over the last decade, has offered adventures that are not only concerned with selling, but with accompanying the player on a journey that goes beyond one's own certainties and certainties.

We must take a risk, take a leap, not just live the status quo and understand that, perhaps, in these wonderful worlds it is worth being happy. In everyday life we ​​can aspire to contentment, which is more satisfying than a moment of happiness because it lasts longer. Jenova Chen is an industry talent who is likely to offer another iconic production in the near future. Minds of this kind, surprising and unpredictable, can outline works of all kinds. Maybe it will make us impersonate a shell, which will move in the sea until it reaches a beach, or maybe we will be a sprig that will survive the ages, making part of an ancient tree. The life told by Jenova Chen deserves further space, especially in a complex panorama like ours. We need contentment.