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'Sky' Could Be A Game Changer For Apple

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From all the hours I’ve spent scrolling through Apple’s App Store, searching for a decent time-waster, I can say from experience that there’s not a lot of good, or even decent games out there. Occasionally, there’s a sparkling, indie diamond in the rough, but they’re difficult to find amongst the uncountable mass of flavorless resource-management games, which are so mind-numbingly boring, they offer the option to pay to speed things up.

The iPad and Apple TV are a world away from game consoles and PC’s, but they’re not bad devices to play games on. It’s the lack of appealing content; the sparse selection has never really been a significant draw for gamers, even casual gamers like myself, to the App Store. Infinity Blade was pretty and all, but one eventually gets tired of watching a mildly interactive cutscene.

But thatgamecompany, the creators of Journey, and Flower, have developed a multiplayer game known as Sky, arriving first to Apple TV, iPhone and iPad. This could be quite the win for Apple, as thatgamecompany is known for creating unique gaming experiences, far removed from the “kill everything that moves” objective of most games.

Their games are difficult to describe, and a joy to play. Their soothing, meandering gameplay tends to appeal to people who don’t normally bother with games. There’s almost no objective; the games are genuinely about the journey rather than the destination.

This sounds pretty artsy-fartsy, and sometimes, it is. I played two of thatgamecompany's early releases, Flow and Flower, and found them strangely serene, but also, kind of boring. Flower especially, felt like a tech demo rather than a game. It was incredibly pretty, and ultimately aimless.

But their subsequent title, Journey, struck gold. Journey remains one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I’ve ever had, one of the few games that I can comfortably call a work of art. There is only one objective to Journey, and that is, to climb a mountain. Reach the omnipresent light that tantalises you from a distance. As you get closer, you explore the ruins of a fallen civilization, and reflect on what may have happened to the people who once inhabited it.

Eventually, you are joined by a fellow traveler, whose behavior might be somewhat erratic. You and the companion can only communicate through tinkly noises, and through leading by example. During my first playthrough, my companion and I helped each other traverse the dilapidated landscape, until we were tragically separated.

I watched, helpless, as my loyal companion mistimed a jump and plummeted into a chasm, sounding off one last little tinkle as he fell into the darkness. I continued without him and completed Journey alone, wondering why the AI didn’t respawn. But the end of the game revealed my companion’s username, and I realized I’d shared the experience with a warm-blooded stranger, not a string of code.

It was a fairly profound moment, from an already inspired game. Certainly, it was a unique approach to multiplayer. I’m curious to what Sky, being multiplayer on mobile, has in store for us. Thatgamecompany has stated that the goal is to work together to progress, and spread light throughout a dark world.   

From the trailer, it looks as though Sky has retained, and expanded on, many of the elements that made Journey such an enjoyable experience. There’s the soaring through the air, the crumbling, mysterious ruins, and the wonderful art style, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s hand-painted worlds. The option to help rather than murder your fellow players is something I find interesting; as fun as it is to go on in-game killing sprees, there’s something weirdly uplifting about helping unseen strangers traverse a fictional landscape.

Sky already looks like a world I want to get lost in, and seeing as how Journey changed my perception of gaming, perhaps Sky will change my perception of mobile games. I always thought mobile games had much more potential than the mindless slog of Angry Birds and Candy Crush. Mobile phones are connective devices by nature, yet the major game franchises push pointlessly addictive gameplay, instead of experimenting with player-to-player communication.

If Sky manages to bring the uplifting experience of Journey to mobile, and expand upon it, then Apple may have a mammoth hit on its hands.

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