I don’t remember much about the physical experience of playing Journey, Thatgamecompany’s stylized 2012 PlayStation 3 masterpiece about a pilgrimage up a distant light-crowned peak. I remember the emotion, though, and that memory sometimes leads me to describe it as “the religious experience as game.” I wept during the credits. I let the music sweep me away, and I felt love for the nameless player who trudged with me up the mountainside. And in that flood of emotion, the last things thought about were the controls.
After an eight-year absence, Thatgamecompany has a new game out called Sky: Children of the Light, and I suppose we in the Appleverse should be grateful that it came to iOS first. As we’ve come to expect from the studio, it’s lovely, both in sight and sound. Its tale of returning souls to constellations champions empathy, flying, and puzzle-solving, not combat, and almost moment is worthy of a screenshot. Much like Journey, it strips multiplayer interactions of voice and text and leaves us with the universal language of gestures and actions. It’s a wonderful game.
