Into the Light: A Game to take us from Isolation to Community
“Wake up, child. Bring our lost stars home.”
- from the video game, Sky
As we fight boredom, screen time, our kids, and even our inner selves, finding a constructive online game that is personally and socially redemptive is like finding the Holy Grail.
And we might have just found it in Apple’s Game of the Year, Sky.
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Several years ago I read about the Playstation console game Journey, and its creator Jenova Chen. Journey (now available as an Apple app) was awarded almost every industry distinction and has since been listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. At the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, formerly known as the Interactive Achievement Awards, Journey won eight awards, including "Game of the Year.” In 2013, Journey even received a Grammy nomination for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
I was intrigued as much by Jenova as I was by Journey, which has been called the most spiritual game ever developed. Jenova, who describes himself as deeply spiritual, notes that the spirituality in Sky is intentional:
"Among my founding team members, we were like, 'We are making a church experience’ ... [Everyone craves] feeling connected and a sense of awe. That's kind of what Journey is. We all have a craving for those emotions. It's just a different era, we have to provide the same feeling, but through the medium that people are accustomed to." (ABC News)
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Jenova was shaped by reading Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” which surveys religions worldwide and argues that all religions share a common narrative myth. This echoes the view that JRR Tolkein and his Inkling colleague Hugo Dyson shared with C. S. Lewis - a perspective that was instrumental to Lewis’s faith journey.
"I always thought if I was born 2000 years earlier, I would be a monk, probably carving a monastery or some giant pantheon buildings. I'd be trying to communicate the same feeling but using different technology," Jenova said in an interview with ABC.
Watch this short interview of Jenova Chen discussing the use of his games in some unconventional spiritual settings.
Whereas Journey explored spirituality from a more individualistic perspective, Sky facilitates a journey in community and emphasizes virtues such as collaboration and generosity to achieve the game’s objectives.
Like Journey, Sky is aesthetically beautiful, both visually and aurally. Both games eschew violence but don’t sacrifice intrigue and exploration. What stands out in Sky, however, is its metanarrative and its commissioning of players:
“With the stars united, our light was infinite.”
“But darkness came, and the stars fell . . .”
“Together, the fallen stars made a new home in the clouds.”
“If only they had listened…”
“A long time has passed. Now, I call to you.”
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In Sky, your redemptive work is to restore order in the world and bring back the lost light (i.e stars) t, which you pursue literally by lighting candles to dispel the darkness, a deeply spiritual imagery that is reaffirmed by many religious traditions. Furthermore, in contrast to games like Fortnite, players carry candles, not guns, and are encouraged to collaborate, to build relationships, and even to pray.
We’ve been reading about increasing depression, stress, isolation, and anxiety within Gen Z, exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Sky is a game that can be played together by family members and friends of all ages, on phones, tablets, and computers -- the very playing of which counters the forces that pull us apart and contributes to the “us versus them” othering that has come to define the cultural moment that we have been in.
I mentioned last month that we are making the first issues of our comics series free of charge on our website www.cavepicturespublishing.com and I hope you have taken time to taste and see.
Let me encourage you to do the same with Sky.
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But as a reminder, even as stay at home orders are lifted, we can light our way out of this present darkness and into collective hope and healing one little candle at a time -- through a meal shared with an elderly neighbor, a kind word spoken to a stranger, making a mask for a friend, giving surplus supplies to a busy health care worker.
Let’s keep lighting those candles, online and off!