Sky: Children of the Light thoughts

By Kafka

I like Sky a lot but I there is still a room for improvement here. It's a great cozy game that took the cozy idea to the maximum level and have created a very relaxing experience. There is just something about Sky that can't be found in any other game I've played. The mini-social interactions, the music, the therapeutic gameplay that feels like meditation... There are some positive sides to sky that I like a lot: - music is the strongest part of the game. It's VERY GOOD!; - gameplay is simple and relaxing; - A huge focus on restoration and collaboration; - very beautiful environment; - no GACHA or anything chance based. You know what you are getting and how much. Paid items don't look that different from seasonal like in some games where paid cosmetics has much more attention put into it. There is no pay-to-win in this game. Unlike Infinity Nikki that deserves it's own conversation, the outfits in the game don't give any advantage to the gamplay and are mostly just for decoration. Hovewer there can be some rare items that can add some QOL fuatures like a mini-drone that can be obtained during the current Anniversary limited event. It's not hard to guess that the drone will not be availabe anymore soon. - Sky kids are all gray before you light with them. Means you dont see each other's outfits. It really helps to battle the FOMO (fear of missing out) effect, makes the gamplay loop less distracting and reduces the server load. However, there are some things in this game that I would like to be better: - Daily farming takes a lot of time and I mean it when I say it. It can take you from 2 hours to 40 minutes (if you are a pro) to farm a daily amount of candles (21 in total + additional 4 for the dailies). Candle quantity is capped, so there is no point in trying to get more. Outfits and other items cost candles and it can take a lot to get one piece. Wings can be more than 100. A full-body outfit can cost 75. Smaller items can be cheaper but for a full set you might wanna save several hundreds candles... - Another issue and why the farming takes long (could take less) is some unskipable cutscenes that you will see for many times. Some parts of the Sky realm also take a lot of time (VAULT of Knowledge, for example) cos you need to complete additional tedios tasks like lightning some lanters to get up. After playing some gacha games Sky: colt might seem like a chore when it comes to candle collecting. The worst offender for this is getting through Eye of Eden (game end-game content) that has a pretty long gamplay sequence that can't be skipped. It will get tirein after doing it for several times. - Very limited teleportation other than getting into the main village. Teleportation could save a lot of time. If we can teleport back to the village we should be able to do this with the rest of the map, especialy since there are places with more valuable farming spots; - Some areas in the game are paywalled. For example, there is an office area (currently available for temporary free visit cos of the anniversary) but later you will need a special cape that costs real money to get inside. And my final thoughts...I love the game. I did some progress there and finished some past seasons. The game has also improved a little, since they've added a building feature that helps getting out of bounds to the areas where you need other players to enter them. But it gets tiring. It takes time, and it gets repetitive. The game is fine as an idea but it's not for everyone. To add variability to the gameplay loop you need friends, cos the core idea of Sky: colt is making new connections and having conversations with them verbal or just emotes and gameplay. Plus, the overall nature of a life-service game makes it harder to trust the game developer behind it. Will it get worse? Will they add AI features in the game directly in the future. Will they change some gameplay loop and etc.... I can say for sure I have zero regrets playing and I could still recommend trying the game simply for the first 5 hours where there is no daily grindy gameplay loop. That part of the game is similar to other paid games in this style like Journey or Sward of the sea. After finishing it, it can be alright to just leave, but you will leave with amazing memories.

Why am I leaving soon? - Chinese version being operated under Netease (the company has some gen AI issues, history of making extremely expensive in-game purchases, and other issues...) - The Chinese version has different features, some of which are better than global or just different (other outfits, daily loging event, some minor QOL features) - Recent AI-related postion opening (yes, gen-AI related) is a consern and a likly prediction that they might add more jobs like that, even in the art department; - Overall burnout from the daily grind and a feeling that there is not much to do in a game after you are finished with the whole content.