Blending an engaging sci-fi narrative with an interactive role-playing experience, Sky of Tides is an upcoming game that takes players to the world of numen9 – a planet torn apart by calamity and now suspended in the sky as nine isolated planetoids. As Rin, players embark on a journey to uncover a conspiracy, find her missing father, and ultimately decide the fate of a world that has two strong ideological factions: the technologically dominant Syndicate and the tradition-bound Sovereign. Developed by Lofty Sky Entertainment, the game doesn’t just offer a compelling story-driven experience – it’s also being expanded into a television series, Sky of Tides: Atla, which follows a parallel storyline with its own protagonist. In our interview with Jason Loftus, we discuss the inspirations behind the game’s world-building, the challenges of creating two narratives across different mediums, and how meaningful player choices shape both character development and the overall experience.
What inspired the concept of Sky of Tides and its sci-fi universe, particularly the fractured world of numen9 and its hovering planetoids?
The world and initial concept came from Ukranian-Canadian creator Lina Skorbach. Lina has an interesting background and you can see her mix of interests reflected in the world design. She’s from Eastern Europe, lives in North America, studied earth sciences, and speaks Japanese. There’s the sci-fi aspect of this broken world powered by a mysterious mineral, but also very distinct and rich cultures on the different planetoids of numen9. Our writing duo, the Pearman Brothers, immediately fell in love with the world and felt they had a lot to work with. They took it to another level creating a cast of unforgettable characters and storylines. The broken planet speaks to the polarization, isolation, and division in our world today. It’s fantasy and there’s no intentional allegory, but it taps into something that feels relevant.
The moral and ideological conflict between the Syndicate and the Sovereign is a central theme. How did you approach writing this conflict to make it relatable and compelling for players?
I think we can all relate to the push and pull between past and future and between progress and tradition. Modern technology allows us to enjoy a lot of comfort and convenience, but there are costs as well. As the world shrinks, some of its richness and diversity can be lost and replaced with a sameness that can be bland. Or perhaps the technology itself has downsides. And those that control it may have disproportionate influence, and not all of it positive.
It’s a made-up world with the oceans hovering in the sky, but the themes resonate.
Developing a TV show (Sky of Tides: Atla) alongside the game is a unique challenge. How do you ensure that both mediums complement each other while also standing alone for audiences who may only engage with one?
Our team enjoys this challenge. We’ve worked together on other narrative games as well as other film and tv projects. There’s definitely a difference so you want to play to each medium’s strengths. In this case, we benefited from very strong world and character design. We’re working in the same world and dealing with the same overall conflict, but by approaching the two stories from the point of view of two different protagonists (in this case, on opposite sides of the conflict), it allowed us to craft one narrative that was well suited for an adventure game format, and another a linear series.
Without giving too much away, players who beat the game and achieve the true ending will see a nice tie in between the game and series, but we made sure they can stand on their own recognizing that players might start with one or the other.
Dialogue choices and character stats seem deeply integrated into the gameplay. Can you share examples of how these systems affect the story and player experience?
Yes, we took a different approach with the RPG mechanic in this one. Typically, you would min-max your stats to tailor your experience, but we’re dealing with a broken world that is already extreme and divided. Pursuing extremes won’t fix that. So while players have choices along the way, the game does reward balance. You obtain character stats based on the dialogue choices you make in the game and the items you find through exploration. These unlock player customization, which in term allows the player to enhance their stats in pursuit of your character goals. In other words, if you want to unlock the true ending of the game, you’ll want to take care of all five character stats, rather than just one or two. Each character stat – intelligence, humor, compassion, luck, and courage – is tied to an important outcome in the game related to one of the key characters Rin encounters on her path. So there are a total of 32 combined outcomes you can experience. And if you can balance all your stats, you’ll get the true ending.
The game promises interesting and dynamic interactions with NPCs. How do you ensure that these NPC characters feel memorable and impactful to the player’s journey?
It terms of being memorable, it’s a combination of great writing and an outstanding cast. It’s awesome that after years of working with these characters, our team still gets a kick out of the performances. So many times when we were recording I would have just a giant smile on my face. It was a lot of fun, and I think people are going to feel that when they get to know the characters.
To make these interactions have impact, we felt it was important that the NPCs didn’t just enter and exit, but that there was uncertainty in how Rin’s relationship would play out with them. We tied distinct outcomes with these NPCs to different character stats. So players can experience a different ending for each.
With a narrative-heavy game, how do you balance giving players meaningful choices while maintaining a cohesive story arc?
That’s right. If players don’t feel there is agency, then it’s a passive experience and it’s not engaging. At the same time, if everything is open-ended then it doesn’t feel like the story resolves or has anything to say. We found a balance in the game where players could affect the outcome in a number of key ways and they can tailor their experience (including how NPCs respond to them, character customizations, etc.) along the way. We’re optimistic we’ve landed somewhere players will enjoy. They are impacting things as the story is progressing, but they’re heading to a conclusion that is satisfying.
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