When considering taking time to hang out, explore and learn about and from a virtual world – it is more than fair to say I was more than a bit hesitant. I was born around the same time as the internet, but I would not consider myself a digital native. Online spaces are places I go to escape people, connect to loved ones separated by a distance, or make plans for in person events. In other words, I do not go online to make new friends. When I was younger, I tried World of Warcraft for a weekend, but my desire to not talk to anyone or fight, made that a less than perfect match. When my family was spread out in four different countries, my brother-in-law got the family into Guild Wars, which once again became more and more difficult as I did not want to talk to anyone besides my family in the game and did not want to fight. I have always found the graphics intriguing, but never really let myself be sucked into any virtual worlds. After a few troubling false starts, I settled on a game, introduced by our classmates. For me, there was a lot of attraction in the graphics, the anonymity, the quiet collaboration to complete puzzles, and the flying. This selection is about my experiences in Sky: Children of Light.

Sky: Children of Light is a virtual world with “seasons” and a storyline that I have yet to figure out. As children of light, the players draw their energy from light, candles and clouds as they navigate by foot, flight and in each other’s’ hands. There are puzzles that require duos or more to unlock, so “making friends” is key to the game. One makes friends by offering a tribute candle, which when accepted, connects the players. When connected, players name each or a random name generator chooses a name for you, but it is key to note that the friends you make in the name only have the names you gave them in your record, they do not choose, at least initially. Connected players can send tribute candles to each other from the home base (a platform surrounded by stone portals to different realms. As friendships grow through light tributes and hearts shared, the types of interactions increase from following and holding hands to high fiving and hugging, and eventually, chatting. Before the chat ability is unlocked players must sit at specific benches and tables and light white candles in order to talk to the friends who are seated at the same bench. When you hold a friend’s hand, a player can effortlessly follow the leaders’ movement, including doing movements and “expressions” or communicative gestures that only the lead player (the one who initiated the handhold) takes.

 

Getting Started: It was 10pm on July 8th and I sat down in bed with my notebook in hand to give this virtual world a try. The nerves around this virtual expedition were surprising to me, but I found myself quietly and quickly drawn in. It all started with this message: “Sound is more than half the experience.” On so many games, I turn sound off, so this caught my eye and made me want to learn more. The sound reminded me more of a meditation apps background, soft, focusing, and not too repetitive. When you tap on your character, there is a beacon sound that changes with how quickly you tap, so it can often mimic sentence structure. I noticed my new friends all had different sounds than I did. These beacons, along with limited gestures would serve as the main form of communication for me and my “friends.” Below I share a few moments and connections that stood out to me throughout the night in Sky.

Clumsy Connection: this point I had figured out how to make friends and hold hands, but in this moment, I made friends while holding a friend’s hand… Until this moment, I did not know I could hold two players hands at once. These friends did not stick around for long, but Nufipif and I sent light tributes to each other at a few points throughout the night – their names are randomly generated by the system.

Figure 1: 7/9/20 @12:20am CST – Clumsy Connections

Musical Characters: I started to realize that through the grey shadowlike presentation of the non-connected players, I could sometimes make out other items. I sought out and tried to befriend everyone with an instrument. This pic was from a new friend who was serenading me with a mask on, we held hands and played piano together for a while. Not pictured – I found two more advanced players who were talking to each other, I could see the dots, and befriended one, only to be rejected by the other. I sat their holding the guitar players hand hoping he would understand my desire to play, but eventually after silent deliberation, the guitar player dropped my hand and ran away with the pianist who had rejected me.

Figure 2: 7/9/2020 @ 1:50am CST – Musical Characters

Unfortunate Connections: I had two rather dramatic and devastating friendships, one that started with a conversation where we both said we were new and then they proceeded to take me directly into light draining waters and away from all of these shiny things that I was sure were important – I ended up literally running away from that player and ignoring their persistent advances. For whatever reason, I think of that character as male and keep trying to refer to them as him, which I think says more about how I felt controlled and frustrated more than anything… Interesting to note how I gendered the fairly neutral characters based on my gut interaction with them. The other dramatic friendship was with a character, who’s name I did not record, it all went downhill so quickly. I was at level 19, which meant my wings were getting stronger and I was getting more – I took this players hand and he quickly led me to a station where I could level up, this earned my trust, but then we were crashing off a cliff and under the ice and there were crablike monsters attacking me and I was surrounded by water and could not find a single light source to rejuvenate, I abandoned the friend who had dropped me in this life draining pool or maybe they abandoned me and beamed home, 13 levels lost. I was disappointed. Until this point, I had thought there would be no fighting and was worried that I had missed something.

Growing Friendships: In a rainy forest, I came across a shadowlike player with an umbrella and decided to take a detour from my search for musical instruments. The player with the umbrella quickly became my friend and off we flew. After being taken into the dark place beneath the ice I was interested to see that the umbrella protected us from the light energy draining rain.  The player with the umbrella shared light with me, helped me level up after my disastrous trip to the place under the ice and became my first, high five, hug, and chat friend. When we could chat, they shared a name that they would like to be called by. When I asked about the umbrella, they told me that their outfit, which the umbrella was a part of was a special edition related to the “ancestors of the past” and had cost 112 candles (for reference, I had never had more than 10 candles at a time, so this seemed like a lot to me). The “ancestors of the past” appears to be a watchable series related to this virtual world. The player with the umbrella reported to have been playing 4-5 months and was from China – we even typed in simplified characters a bit.

Figure 3: 7/9/2020 2:43am CST

Reflections: In many ways, this participant-observation highlighted the first impressions of a strange unstudied, for me, world, however I find it hard to imagine what a more extended project would look like on this world. For me, I believe it would have to be something more akin to either autoethnography or something that would seek to draw in the game designers to understand what the way they built the world and interact in it and from there look for what might be more player initiated engagements with the space. In particular, the sounds stood out to me – Did they design the beacon sounds for the players to be like voices? Did they intend them to be communicative? What would playing without sound look like?