Sky

By: Beixi Chen

There is always someone or something that inspires you in your life; it could be your parents or your siblings, a TV show, or even a game...it could be anything! What inspires me is a mobile game called ‘Sky: Children of The Lights.’ It was designed by Jenova Chen and published by Thatgamecompany. ‘Sky’ was first released on July 18, 2019 in the Apple Store, and a year later, on April 7, 2020, the Android version was released. ‘Sky’ is an open world social indie adventure game, players get to explore the maps and meet new friends through adventures, this makes this game unique and distinguished from other current popular games.

In ‘Sky’, the biggest component is doing the daily missions, where you can run the map to collect candles to exchange clothes and items with the spirits (which are like NPCS -- non-player characters -- that leads you through the game), make friends, and see an entire new world! It might sound boring, but it can keep your mind off things that you struggle with, I get to just simply be myself when I play.

Last year I was struggling with anxiety, and ‘Sky’ helped me through this. Whenever I feel down and anxious now, just by going online, hanging out with my friends, or simply sitting there and watching the views, I feel comforted.

In the world of ‘Sky’, I get to know people from all around the world: China, Japan, Russia, Paris, etc! In real life, I’m not a talkative person or someone who has a lot of friends, but ‘Sky’ gave me a great chance to socialize and it encourages me to make friends. It got me out of the predicament of loneliness and social anxieties.

‘Sky’ is a small fantasy world inside our huge real world, what happens out in the real world repeats in the little world and is unpreventable. You make friends and you lose friends, too. If people know each other in real life, they have a chance to sit down and talk things out and do what they can do to fix the relationship. But in the world of ‘Sky,’ people are just strangers over internet, and if you lose a star, it would be lost forever. Once the star is dark, all you can do is just stare at the screen and hope it will light up again. Well, unless you know where he lives and would fly across the world for him. In the very beginning, Jenova have said “encounter is a traveler, a traveler is a pass-by.” He is so right; if I had understood this when I first played in 2020, I would have had a better experience.

This game is worth playing; anyone would have a remarkable gaming experience in this small world Jenova created for us. I would give this game a four and a half star out of five. I love this game, but at the same time, this game can really affect your emotions because it felt so real that I sometimes couldn’t be sure if the reality is actual reality. Sometimes I wish I could just get through the screen and be in the game. If you are puzzled and struggled about things in your life, maybe you can find your true self in there.

Hi Beixi – thanks for sharing this! You have a lot of interesting details in here! For your next draft, try to focus on organizing your piece so that it tells a clear story. You might also read this out loud so you can catch places where the flow is a little funky. Also, make sure to define any words that are specific to the game/not commonly known by everyone.