Sky: Children of the Light News

You might have heard a few weeks ago that Sky will soon be coming to PC. We’re pretty darn excited about that here on the Community team, and while the rest of the studio is hard at work, we thought we’d have some fun of our own in the lead up to launch.

To get the PC launch countdown started, we decided to borrow Design Team’s game design hats (don’t worry, we’ll give them back!) and make a little game out of Steam wishlists.

Enter: The Steam Wishlist Extravaganza, or The Steam Moth Recruitment Drive—whichever you prefer.

On Steam, the more wishlists a game has, the more new moths will find their way to Sky’s kingdom of enchanting scenery, adventures in the clouds, and Dark Dragons offering hugs (or…something…) to everyone they meet. We’ve set up a handful of wishlist targets, and for each one cleared, we’ll be doling out exciting gifts to you, the players!

Participating is simple:

• Head to the Sky page on Steam: bit.ly/SkyPCSteam
• Select the green “Add to your wishlist” button. If you’re not logged into a Steam account, you’ll be prompted to log in, or create a new account for free
  
• Insert Confetti Cousin emote—you boosted Team Wishlist!
  

Tell your friends too! Anyone can wishlist Sky, including current players.



And what are these gifts to reveal?

[h3]100,000 Wishlists: Special Edition Desktop Backgrounds[/h3]
[CLEARED] Perfect for PC and any other device you’d want a high quality Sky background on, handmade and delivered fresh from the Art Team.

[h3]200,000 Wishlists: Sneak Peek Concept Art[/h3]
At this milestone, we’ll sneak into the Art Team’s desks I mean ask the Art Team to also share some of their latest concept art from their brainstorming work for upcoming content. It’s all stuff in early stages so will likely change a lot before ever making it to the live version of Sky, but it’s great for hypothesizing, taking OC inspiration, or wondering just what kind of shenanigans we get up to before something is ready for beta.

[h3]250,000 Wishlists: Traveling Spirit Community Vote[/h3]
At a quarter of a million wishlists, we’ll run a huge poll for players to choose a Spirit to return as a Traveling Spirit. Vote for your favorite, and the winning Spirit will be the second one to visit after Sky’s PC launch.

[h3]300,000: Double Hearts and Candles[/h3]
When we reach this exciting milestone, we’ll add to Steam launch celebrations by holding a special Double Hearts + Double Candles event in Sky during the first week of PC launch.

If these numbers seem high, fun fact: The number of people who have joined the official Sky Discord server is about 525,000. Just mentioning, you know, in case that’s a helpful reference for how close these could be…

That said, we had these rewards all planned for each milestone, and then the community beat us to the punch on the first one—right now we already have over 100,000 wishlists on Steam, which is really awesome! As a thank you, we’ve prepared four backgrounds that are ready to use, perfect for your devices (especially PC, of course). Download here: https://bit.ly/SkyWallpaper

Tio, our Social Media Crab, will be keeping us all updated as we reach each wishlist level, so stay tuned to Discord and our other social media channels for updates. In the meantime, be sure to add Sky to your Steam wishlist and help us share Sky with new people (future moths!) all around the world. See you in the skies!

If you’ve been following our blog lately, you’ll know that we have a lot in the works, not least of all a PC launch and a new addition to Sky we’re referring to for now as Project Aviary. But as you might know we enjoy a good crab dance party, so today we’re announcing a series of Sky Assemblies being held across the world to celebrate Sky’s 4th birthday together, in-person.

We’re excited to announce that Assemblies will take place in five different countries, spread out for several weeks starting from July 15th and continuing into August. If you’ll be in one of these areas, we hope you can join us!

Below is some of the basic information for each Sky Assembly, in order of date (all times published in local time zones). Stay tuned to our social media channels for details about each one as it approaches. You can also find information on our website at thatskygame.com/sky-assemblies.



[h3]Seoul[/h3]

When: July 15-16 (Sat.-Sun.) 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Where: On.S Cafe, 59 Jandari-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul (South Korea)
Activities Include: Sky photo booth, themed food and beverages, and gifts (for starters)
How to Join: As those following our Korean-language channels have seen, free tickets are required, and registration to apply for tickets is now closed. Due to high interest, applicants will be randomly selected; ticket winners will be announced on our Korean channels by the end of the month!



[h3]Tokyo[/h3]

When: July 17 (Mon.) Two sessions: 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

• A special 4th Anniversary exhibition is on July 16 (Sun.) with five 90-minute slots held between 11:30 am - 7:00 pm. This is separate from the Sky Assembly and will not include designated Assembly activities.
  

Where: GG Shibuya Mobile Esports Cafe (Shibuya PARCO 6F), 15-1 Udagawacho, Shibuya City, Tokyo 150-0042 (Japan)
Activities Include: “Daily Quests,” a Sky art panel presented by Lead Artist Yui Tanabe, and more. (The special exhibition on the 16th also includes activities, videos, and a photo spot, and a pop-up store on the 5th floor runs from June 30 - July 18.)
How to Join: Tickets are free and required to attend. Follow our Japanese-language channels for additional information!



[h3]Los Angeles[/h3]

When: July 22nd (Sat.) 11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Where: The Fig House, 6433 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042 (United States)
Activities Include: Lots of things, not least of all Sky-themed outdoor games, crafts, meeting the devs, and of course, crab dancing
How to Join: Simply join us at The Fig House on the day of the Assembly! Entry is free.

A number of us from the studio will be coming to this one too, so we’re looking forward to meeting folks there! We’ll share more information here on our news page and our English-language channels as the event gets closer.



[h3]Sāo Paulo[/h3]

When: July 29th (Sat) 2:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Where: Garage, 164 Rua Madalena Vila Madalena, SP 05434-010 (Brazil)
Activities Include: Sky quiz, in-game scavenger hunt, a Crab Workshop, and more
How to Join: Tickets are required to attend. Head to https://bit.ly/AssemblyBrazil to reserve free tickets and see a detailed schedule

This event will be hosted in Portuguese by Tio from the TGC Community Dev team, but further updates will be shared on our English-language channels ahead of the event.



[h3]Jakarta[/h3]

When: August 26th-27th (Sat.-Sun.) 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Where: 3Point Tebet (3-min. Walk from Tebet Station), Jl. Tebet Raya No.90, RW.3, Tebet Tim., Kec. Tebet, Kota Jakarta Selatan, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 12820 (Indonesia)
Activities Include: Sky photo booth, food and beverages, games, and goodie bags
How to Join: Reservations required. Attending is free but a deposit fee of Rp 50,000 is needed to reserve your spot; the deposit will be returned after you arrive at the event.

Follow our Indonesian-language channels for additional information about registration in upcoming weeks!

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At every stage of our work on Sky, our team is always discussing ideas for the game—what emotions we want it to foster, the kind of world it builds, how to make opportunities for meaningful memories. At the core of it all, the pillars that guide us are humanity, wonder, and community. Later this year, we’ll be sharing a big update that’s based on those pillars to bring a new dimension to the Sky experience.

This is still in early development and isn’t in beta yet—we’re calling it Project Aviary for now (a name we thought players familiar with Sky’s earliest days might recognize!). You can see some of the work so far on it in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TW3_orxFx4



This new space is envisioned as an area for Sky kids to come together for all the different things they might enjoy: making friends, meeting players and Spirits, joining events, putting on shows, watching performances, finding items for their closets or Shared Spaces, or simply relaxing and recharging.

Project Aviary is part of a larger endeavor that we’re working on to bring the feeling of an ongoing festival to Sky, where everyone can create and spend meaningful time with friends. You’ve already seen some initial aspects of this in the game so far, or will see them soon. For example, there’s the Skyball set that allows you to start a spontaneous mini-game with anyone you meet, and a prop coming with our next update will make it possible to share a game of footbag with other players. The team is also updating musical instruments to make them more approachable for any skill level, and to open up the possibility for creating and enjoying mini-performances with each other.

Another aspect of Project Aviary is Festival Tech, first introduced for the Season of AURORA concert. This feature allows large groups of players to gather beyond the usual limit of eight people per session, so that dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people can share the same experience together. Over the last few months you’ve seen us continue to develop it, adding ways it can be used to interact with the game, the story, and other players.


As we keep working on this feature and make it more flexible beyond a coliseum built for thousands of people, Festival Tech can open doors to an even wider range of ways to experience Sky, whether playing through the levels, spending time with friends, and anything in between. You’ve seen the start of that work so far in Days of Bloom and the Season of Passage quests, and we’re excited to reveal more in future updates as well.



We see this feature as an unprecedented tool for building and deepening connections across the community, and it will be part of what makes Project Aviary unique to play and be in. We recently posted a conversation going into more detail about Festival Tech—you can watch it on YouTube here.


Project Aviary won’t be just for players who know the ins and outs of the game, either. A notable element of Project Aviary will be making Sky easier to delve into for new players, many of whom are family or friends of current players and want to jump right in and share in the experiences they’ve been hearing about. Using this area as a starting point, we’re hoping to make the welcome into the game smoother and simpler, especially for players who may not play video games very frequently, so that everyone can take in what Sky has to offer.




Humanity, wonder, and community remain at the heart of Sky, and to keep these pillars strong we are constantly exploring and experimenting with new ways to bring them alive through the game. If you’ve played Sky for any length of time, you’ve seen that Sky’s world is always evolving. The very process of searching for possibilities and trying new things allow us to weave life into this world together, player and developer alike, and Project Aviary is the next facet of this ongoing exploration.

The earliest stages of this latest experiment are done, and now the next stage approaches. Later this year, Project Aviary will arrive in the beta version of the game to undergo a key part of its development: rounds of testing and feedback with beta testers to prepare it for the live version of the game.

We’ll have more to share in future updates—stay tuned for more information on our website and our social channels! Whether you’re a long-time member of the Sky community, or a recent arrival to these realms, we’re excited to have you with us as we continue to experiment and find the new stories and experiences that await. We can’t wait to see you in the skies!