alias_sqbr

Sky: Children of Light is a gorgeous, gentle freemium phone/switch flying/exploration game that sent me into an anxiety spiral when I inadvertently friended someone but was otherwise really lovely!

I might play it again when I feel up to dealing with the possibility of other people trying to friend me without me having any way to unambiguously signal HELLO YOU SEEM NICE BUT HUMAN INTERACTIONS TERRIFY ME GOODBYE. The person who friended me seemed like they were trying to help the noob which was very sweet and also HORRIFYING. I just wanted to flail around incompetently in peace! None of the buttons had descriptions so I was clicking semi at random and we ended up holding hands for a while?? TOUCHING STRANGERS WITHOUT KNOWING THE ETIQUETTE D: D:

Anyway. This is from the same creators as Journey, and like that is a gentle puzzle platformer with a lot of flying around ridiculously pretty landscapes to soft, soaring instrumental music while a bittersweet symbolic fantasy story plays out around you. I normally dislike platformers but it's all so gentle and pretty I got through Journey and was doing ok with this one. I didn't get to the part with microtransactions but it seems to mostly be appearance and emote stuff. Afaict from some brief googling you can get most things eventually as a free player but I have no idea how obnoxious/expensive the game is once you get into it. Apparently you can mostly play without friending anyone but you'll have a harder time.

I don't regret downloading it, even the ten minutes or whatever that I played was An Experience In The Joy Of Flight that makes up for the anxiety I had later. I even enjoyed the less intense social mechanic where you can click on random strangers and...give them light? Not sure what that actually does but it was cute. Anyway, it's a good game, but if you are as much of a human disaster as me be prepared for friendly strangers lurking around trying to be nice.