That Sky Game

Sky: CotL – Season of Moomin

It’s time for a new season in Sky: Children of the Light. This is another tie in season like the Season of the Little Prince and Season of Aurora. This time around the world of Moomin and Moominvalley with the Season of Moomin.

So, in case you are like me, and in the US and (probably) a bit confused as to what a Moomin is, I figure a bit of a brief description is probably in order. I’ve only barely heard of this property at all, and only recently a few months ago when I saw an add for some sort of Moomin related toys on Instagram. Basically, it’s never really “been a thing” in the US. I mean, maybe I just somehow missed it, buy I find that unlikely. It’s pretty popular over in Europe and Japan though.

The Jansson family has kept the rights of Moomins and controlled the Moomin Boom. The artistic control is now in the hands of Lars Jansson’s daughter, Sophia Jansson-Zambra. Wanting to keep the control over Moomins, the family has turned down offers from The Walt Disney Company.

— Wikipedia

Gee, I wonder why it’s not a thing in the US. Kind of feels like the Mouse may have been keeping this one down in hopes of cashing in.

Anyway, it’s Sweedish/Finnish based children’s property created by Tove Jansson. It follows the adventures of the Moomintrolls, large white hippo looking creatures, and thier various companions. The art style overall is quite charming in my opinion. It’s got a very interesting look to it, especially the non Moomin characters.

It feels like a pretty good fit with Sky’s world and aesthetic though. I kind of like the crossovers that Sky does, but it also feels like they are hard to do because, not just anything fits. They really couldn’t do a “Transformers Crossover” really, for example. Aurora fit well, The Little Prince fit well, The Nine colored Deer fit well, the brief Cinnamaroll mini event was alright as well. I think part of the key is that the property needs to have a sort of, soft-ish aesthetic and elicit a strong emotional response.

So the Season has just started, so there isn’t a ton to mention on the season itself aside from, this really feels more like what seasons should be in this game. I started playing just before Season of Aurora, and have only skipped one season (Passage), but so far this season really feels like one of the more elaborate so far. Even Season of Aurora, which had little mini stories paced to Aurora’s Music wasn’t quite this fancy. Season of Moomin has it’s own special landing area with a little, sort of campsite. Then the event itself takes place in (presumably) Moomin Valley, and tells a little story of an Invisible Girl named Ninny.

After completing the first part, it unlocks a second little story thing where you travel around a building as an unlit Skykid. It’s not clear what this is about, but I suspect more will be revealed as the Season progresses.

You can also return to Moomin Valley to simply, explore the world. Exploring the world lets you interact with some other characters and mini stories. The season also features some pretty nice Moomin Cosmetics, though the nicer ones are locked behind real money IAPs.

On a little last side note, there seems to have been a few additional changes to some of the game as well. Old spirits in the world at large now have darkness plants enveloping them, and aren’t just sitting along hunched over in the world. I didn’t use it, but I have also seen reports that the ability to use shared memories to quickly collect wax in each zone no longer works. I’ve also noticed that the Nest size has been, adjusted,

Sky Children of the Light 5th Anniversary

Jul 27th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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With the 5th Anniversary even now closed out, I wanted to take a moment to share some random shots and comments on the various activities.

I didn’t spend as much time in the game doing things as I feel like I should have, but also, it was a bit chaotic, which kind of feels like a regular problem for some of these events. I did not realize until last minute that the portals took you to the special gallery areas. I think for the most part, I managed to catch everything at least once. There were the two wireframe galleries, a sort of fancy dancing area on top of the Office zone, a giant video screen viewing area, and regular events in the Aviary itself.

Probably the most interesting but was the two gallery areas. One in Isle of Dawn and one in the Forest. You explored through each zone viewing commentary and images. The neat part was that both had a modified display so everything was a sort of wireframe look.

There was a special cape you could buy that would allow you to return to these zones later. I considered it but decided not to get the cape.

The Isle of Dawn zone was a sort of, history of ThatGameCompany and the lead up of decisions to creating Sky: Children of the Light.

The Forest zone was the same idea, except it was a behind-the-scenes look at the history of Sky.

The Dance zone was neat but I don’t socialize enough to have really taken advantage of the area. This was where the vendor for the limited cosmetics was located though so I went there pretty regularly. The cosmetics were, ok, I doubt I use most of them. The nest decor was the better stuff overall, there was a cool Disco Ball thing for some heart currency.

The cooler thing from the Dance zone was that they had all of the previous special capes available for use so anyone could access the various special zones. I got to visit a few areas for the first and maybe only time. I did not revisit the Aurora Concert using the Aurora Wings nor did I visit the Nine Colored Deer.

I did visit the others. First was the Little Prince Moon. This season happened before I played Sky at all, and had some nice looking items I missed. This includes a cape that would allow you to visit a small area inspired by the story. It’s a small planet, like in the story, which has a small biplane. Several Sky Kids can sit on the plane and eventually, it launches and flies around past various other views and things to see.

The second, and one I might eventually buy except I don’t own a Switch, is the Nintendo Area. Accessible via a warp pipe prop. The neat part of this zone is that it is locked to a 2D view, like a Mario game. The zone actually serves as a home hub with portals to each of the places in Sky similar to Home and Aviary. There is also a little underground area that is designed like a mini Mario level with moving platforms and coin blocks that spit fireworks and butterflies.

Back on other actual anniversary activities, one was a schedule of videos from the designers in a large viewing area. I kind of watched a few of these but personally, I feel just watching a YouTube video would be a better format for this.

Lastly there were a bunch of activities in Home, some group games, occasionally giant Oreo dogs would take over, and a fireworks display.

2024 Days of Color in Sky:CotL

Jun 24th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have been playing Sky for a few years now but somehow I have missed the Days of Color event. Twice I think even. I have been waiting for this one to come along, for kind of a dumb reason, it’s the only way to (non hacky) access the space way up above the 8 Person Door puzzle area.

The Days of Color is essentially Sky’s Pride Event for Pride Month. Everything is rainbow themed. In fact, it was originally called Days of Rainbow. There are a bunch of Rainbow themed cosmetics available during this event and, like the recent Days of Nature, part of the sales go to charity. In this case, the donation is The Trevor Project, but I don’t see how much (Days of Nature was 50%). Like other “Days of” events, there are special daily tickets to collect and exchange for special cosmetics. There are usually plenty of days to collect the needed tickets, and there is a vendor that lets you buy them for 2 Ascended candles each if you come up short.

Or are impatient.

There are plenty of pricey real money items as well, though as mentioned, it includes a donation.

The event itself takes place in the 8 Player Puzzle door of the Daylight Prairie. There is a spirit in the Aviary that will teleport players there directly, which is nice because waiting for people to show up and complete the puzzle can be a pain. In addition to 4 event currencies on the ground floor, a 5th is found above in the normally inaccessible upper zone.

To reach the upper zone there is a rainbow themed puzzle. If I understand it correctly, in the past, you needed 8 players to complete the puzzle, but this year, a single player can complete it, which is new. Basically, there is a node (that should change each day) corresponding to one of the colors of the rainbow. The first day is Red. You wear a red cape, or use the nearby color foundation, which randomly speed out a different color that temporarily changes the player cape, trails, and hair color. Then you stand near the node for a few minutes to power up the rainbow which activates a jet that will propel you to the sky.

It’s only the first day, I am not sure if tomorrow you will need to power up two nodes or if the Red will just be activated already. Also notable, the first time I did this, something bugged and the upstream jet did not activate.

The colored jet can be rode up high in the sky to some floating islands where a 5th event currency is located. There are some neat little alcoves on these islands to explore as well, and the other main event for this event.

There is a race track down a twisted rainbow. It works like other races in other areas, players sit at the starting line to activate it and must collect checkpoints as they slide down.

It was really giving me some Mario Kart vibes.

I also have to say, I kept missing the checkpoints, which usually means starting over. Which is fine, it’s low stakes and that means it’s tricky, but not impossible hard.

Sky: CotL – Without a Cape aka “Hard Mode”

Nov 20th, 2023

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have been setting up a couple of secondary accounts on Sly, to send Hearts to myself, because you need a zillion hearts and there isn’t any reliable way to accumulate them with any speed. Even having alts, it’s slow as heck.

With the Steam version of the game, this is a lot easier to do, especially since I have several machines capable of running the game. Ideally, I might automate this task, but for now, I am fine with doing it manually. I probably won’t do it consistently either since sending hearts takes 3 candles, which are easy to get, but it does require some actual playing.

For my latest alt, I decided to try something different. When you first enter the world of Sky, you have no cape. Which means you can’t fly or glide, you can only walk and run and sort of hop around. A minute or two into the game, you are prompted to collect your first Winged Light, which unlocks the cape and most of the game’s mechanics.

A thought occurred to me.

What if I just… Didn’t?

I landed on the Idle of Dawn, a fresh unwinged moth. You can’t swim around the first mountain, there is wind blocking the way. So I proceeded through the story cave and came out, prompted to collect my cape. The game strongly encouraged this because the Winged Light (WL) is in a little cratered area, you have to be able to fly to get out.

Or do you?

You can’t swim off the main area here, I tried that. So it was back to the edge of the mountain. To my surprise, you can simply cop up the edge of the crater, and escape, no WL needed.

There was another obstacle though, the desert area that follows is also surrounded by a tall rock wall, too tall to even fly over with one WL. The proper path is to collect your first Spirit, then unlock a Spirit Gate, and climb up a rock cliff, where you jump into the clouds and fly to the next area.

Fortunately, there is a cloud wall along the right side edge of the desert. And fortunately, you still bounce up in the clouds, even without a cape. So I was able to scale the wall. But then I also glitched out and fell into an out-of-bounds (OOB) area just under the terrain.

After exploring a bit, I headed towards the glitched area under where you are supposed to leap off the rock face. Fortunately, the geometry of the world worked out, and I was able to ride clouds from here, out of the OOB area, and up to the temple at the end of the zone. First major hurdle passed!

The second zone, the Daylight Prairie was pretty easy to pass through. All of the needed activities can be passed without flying. You can burn the bells from the ground and ride the mantas up to the temple. The main thing I needed to keep track of was not to collect any of the WL along the path. Fortunately, you have to actively press a button to collect them.

My other concern was in the temple. To pass to the next area, you do a deep call and ride some butterflies up. My worry was that the butterflies would not carry me without a cape. Fortunately, they did.

The Hidden Forrest presented the first real challenge. Shortly after entering, it starts to rain. The rain constantly drains your energy. Now, for those who don’t know how energy works in Sky: CotL, its your cape. The more WL you have, the longer you last before you burn out and once you burn out, you can rapidly perish.

Having no cap, I had no energy.

I managed to skirt around for cover and recharging well enough. I got stuck though at the end of the zone. You have to hop between some flying jellyfish to get to the temple. Maybe, MAYBE on mobile, I could have done it, the momentum is funny and weird on PC, and after many failed tries, I could not make the jumps, at all. So I had to cheese it a bit by bringing my main account on and handhold flying my alt up to the temple.

The butterflies also carry you off at the end of the Forest zone, which was good.

The Valley of Triumph was also very simple to run through. The trickiest part was avoiding the WL on the downhill slide areas. Unlike every other WL, these are automatically collected on contact. And I did NOT want to collect any.

After the Valley was the Golden Wasteland. I was worried this one would be impossible, because of how much can damage you. There are several points where you have to trudge through sludge that drains you. While I took long routes to find short paths across the sludge, a few times I came close to completely draining.

Then there was the Krill. The huge dragons that patrol around. Apparently, I have gotten good enough to just, know their paths, because they were no problem.

The Vault zone afterward was pretty straightforward as well. I was worried it may have been tricky because some of its puzzles are easier with flight. Easier, but its not required. There are little jump pads you can light and use in most cases. Or you can wait for someone else to do them.

Upon reaching the final summit, I was greeted with another barrier. You need to have unlocked 20 Spirits to enter the final zone. I had done zero, intentionally. I logged in on my phone again and pulled the alt past the barrier.

I am happy to say, I have gotten very good at Eden as well. I had almost no trouble passing through the entire area. This means, taking no damage as well. When I go through Eden on my main with a mighty 11 wing flaps unlocked, I can usually take like 2 hits before it becomes a problem. With zero, any damage would basically one-shot me down to injured and near death.

I made it almost all the way and picked up some accompaniment along the way. I imagine they were intrigued by my lack of a cape. Then, right at the very end, things got messy. I took a hit, and while crawling to the safety of light, the Krill that patrols right before the exit spotted me. Somehow, I managed to crawl to cover before it struck.

But then my new friends showed up. And it spotted them, and they would get to cover, but then they would get hit by a rock and lose WL, and trigger the Krill again.

And despite my better judgment, my instincts said, “Help them, help collect their lost WL, they were helping you.”. Which just made things worse possibly.

The Krill never did strike and finally left, but it was a slightly comical moment of people losing WL to rocks and me getting dropped to slow crawling all while we scrambled for cover.

But we all made it to the final cave and the final zone.

I was wondering what would happen in the final zone, given that I had, zero WL. Well, as soon as I entered, I died. Before the opening cut scene bit ended.

My friends cried over me, it was nice.

I watched them complete the end scenario, but then y game wigged out and I had to quit and resume things, so I lost them. Which was sad, because I wanted to chat with them at the bench in Orbit.

Then the normal ending moments happened, and I made it to Orbit.

No spirits greeted me there. No ascended candles were given. I just, walked to the exit to be reborn.

And when I was…. The game had given me the default 1 WL cape. Which was irritating.

Sky: CotL Guide Part 7 – The Eye of Eden

Mar 15th, 2023

by Ramen Junkie.

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The Entire series can be found on this page.

The end of everything lies in the Eye of Eden. I’m going to throw out plenty of spoilers in this page, and I recommend doing Eden blind the first time through. It wraps up everything in a nice, somewhat unexpected way that works better not knowing. I will give some spoiler free advice first though.

Eden resets once a week. You can make as many Eden runs as you want, but the final bit only works once a week, and resets I believe on Sunday or Monday.

Bring a stock of regular candles, maybe, 40-50, and as many WL as you can get. You will want the candles at the very very end before finishing the game.

This place is rough. The Golden Wasteland is scary and spooky, Eden is just a brutal nightmare. I cannot stress this enough.

Just. Keep. Going.

Push on, you fall, get up and find a lamp to recharge. Lose some WL, it sucks, just get up and keep pushing on.

Be patient, because there are places that require waiting for an opening to pass, and there is a lot of waiting behind rock outcroppings while waiting for a rock storm to pass.

Stick with the others as much as you can, help them when you can. You don’t need to bring friends to Eden, but you will probably make friends along the way. The whole zone works better when everyone works to bring each other up and along. Light them and collect their WL if you can’t though don’t kill yourself in the process, because two downed moths are less useful than one downed moth.

The final zone has you lighting some statues under a constant barrage of lava rocks, just, get as many as you can. Keep pushing forward and onward.

And with that I’ll go on to the individual zones, which will get more and more spoiler filled as things go along (not much to really spoil until the third area).

Wind and Rock Cliffs

Eden is reachable either through the final alter area of the Vault zone, with all the thunder and lightning, or through the large portal on the back end of Home, if you don’t want to go all the way through the Vault. Funny enough, there is a social area at the start of Eden. The area itself is locked by a multi person gate. At one point, it required I think 5 people to open the gate, but it’s been changed so one person can unlock it alone. Usually there are other people around though.

The first area is pretty basic, you fight the wind to climb up a long winding path to a small enclosed rest area. Being blown off is bad, and flying will get you blown around through most of Eden, so don’t even bother trying to fly anywhere really. If you are an extremely skilled flier with a lot of flaps, you can fly through this zone however. Personally, I don’t recommend it, it’s not too hard of an area. There are like 2 or 3 spots where you need to pause and wait for gaps in the wind and rock storm to run to the next safe area starting about halfway up.

Krill Battlefield

This is where the real fun begins. There are several sections, one right off, and one near the end, where you have to fight the wind and hide behind rocks to avoid being pummeled during the times the wind blows. The trick here is to be patient and not get greedy with progress. Just, run to the next rock outcropping, especially early on when you may be uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the area. Halfway through there is a sort of, climbing maze, with Krills patrolling around. There is plenty of cover to hide from them, but once again, it’s about patience. Also if you fall off, you pretty much have to start the climb over again, but sometimes falling down to cover is preferable to a Krill strike.

The third part of this area is more rock storm and rock outcropping cover. Some of the cover is just low spots in the cliff and not so much an actual rock outcropping. There is also a Krill patrolling around to watch out for.

At the end is a long tunnel full of Winged Lights.

At the end of the tunnel the game will give you a message that you have reached the point of no return. Proceeding beyond this point means finishing the game. You can’t go home, if you leave the game you will return to Eden on reload. There is no going back.

Statues Area

The final area of the Eye of Eden. There is a constant barrage of red lava rocks that pummels the area and you’ll need to run from outcropping to outcropping to avoid them. Along the way, you must place your Winged Lights into statues scattered throughout the area. I believe that in total there are 60 or 70 statues, you do not have to do all of them, just do as many as you can.

In case you didn’t put 2+2 together, placing WL, removes them from your inventory. As you proceed through this zone, you will become weaker and weaker. The farther on, the less cover there is as well, I believe to reach the final 4 or 5 statues you basically must crawl to them, losing WL to the lava storm as you go.

The zone ends once the player is dead.

There is no other exit, as the warning stated, Death is the ONLY way out.

After dying, if there are other players left, your spirit will follow them around, and you get to watch them die as well. FUN right?

Once all of the players are dead (or if you skip watching the other players), all of the statues will burst open and all of the freed WL and your own spirit will break free and the game continues on.

Ascent and Orbit

Not much to say about this area itself. After breaking free, your spirit flies through a long sequence. The cloud area basically follows references to the other Zones of the world in sequence until you ascend up into space among all of the other spirits and enter Orbit. It’s quite beautiful really.

Eventually you wake up and rejoin your body. In the final area you will receive pieces of Ascended Candles for each WL you placed in a statue. The total possible is around 15.5 last I checked. There is a constellation alter here. Remember I mentioned bringing some candles? You will want to unlock as many of the Ascended Candle locks as possible now. Don’t bother with branches, find the 1-2 candle locks, and unlock up to them, then unlock them. You only need the first level, the few second level ones don’t count.

Once done, continue onward, or socialize a bit with your fellow Sky Children if you’d like, to the final portal. Along the way you will collect all of the unlocked Wing Buffs (from the Ascended Candle locks). These Wing Buffs can be lost in the world like regular WL, but you always regain them when passing through Orbit when reborn.

If you’ve done the Little Prince quest line, the Little Prince will appear just before exiting Orbit and you will be reborn into the Starlight Desert. Otherwise, you will be reborn back on the Island of Dawn. All of the WL in the world will have been reset, Spirit Memories are kept. If it’s the first time completing the game, additional Spirit memories from the various seasons will now be available throughout the world.

And that’s it for the game. After this it’s all pretty much making Eden Runs to get more Winged Buffs to try for that sweet 12 flap cape (200 WL level) or just hanging out and collecting cosmetics and emotes.