Greetings, Adventurers! Aviary Village starts to grow into its own with this update, and it’s time for the fireworks show to celebrate it! Also see who’s in town for Days of Feast, and read on for other details about nifty changes, updates, and fixes coming to the realms.

 

Season of Revival

We’re entering the final weeks of Season of Revival—we hope you’ve enjoyed helping Aviary Village become a bright and lively place! As you complete more Seasonal Quests, more workshops will open and more Spirits will return to the village. In this update, the last three quests become available; complete them, and perhaps your favorite Spirit will show up in town?

Be sure to complete the Seasonal Quest that becomes available on Tuesday December 12th (all times PST, UTC -8)—that one is a prerequisite to be able to join the finale show for Aviary’s Fireworks Festival. The final Seasonal Quest can be accessed starting December 25th.

Season of Revival continues until 23:59 December 31st. When the Season ends, the workshop offering seasonal cosmetics will temporarily close too—but don’t worry, this is only the beginning for Aviary Village!

 

Aviary’s Firework Festival Finale

Speaking of Aviary’s Fireworks Festival, it’s almost time for the show!

The fireworks finale begins on December 12th and runs through December 17th. To access it, first be sure to complete the Seasonal Quest that’s at the top of the Hopeful Steward’s Friendship Tree (the one that becomes available on the 12th).

Every 4 hours in Aviary Village, the Hopeful Steward and the Enchanted Pyrotechnian will call everyone together for the fireworks show. Meditate at a shrine that will appear near the realm gates in order to join them.

Do that, and you’re ready to be part of a flock of fellow children of the Light, and let the Steward guide you as the show moves through the village and into the sky.

The first show is on December 12th at 00:00, and is available every four hours after that. The last show will be on December 17th at 20:00. The entire event concludes at that point. However, next year the fireworks finale itself will come back on the first day of each month on the same 4-hour rotation—just in case you want to celebrate a little festival magic again with friends.

Quick reminder: The IGC (in-game currency) items for the Firework Festival will be available through the end of December 11th; they won’t be available once the finale period begins on December 12th. Although Aviary’s Firework Festival event itself is not planned to return, its IGC items are planned to come back in the future in a different format.

 

Days of Feast

The year in Sky just can’t end (or start) without a Days of Feast party or five. Days of Feast is back from 00:00 December 18, 2023 until 23:59 January 7, 2024, and this year’s new additions might be just the thing for Sky kids who feel the need for speed.

Two event guide Spirits will welcome you in Aviary Village. Meditate in the event workshop where they wait, and you’ll be teleported to a race out in one of Sky’s realms. These could be on snowy slopes, or in other spots that challenge your running and flying skills.

Plus, you can get an event currency for playing the race available each day! (The other four event currency will be placed around Aviary Village, for a total of 5 snowflake-shaped event currency available per day)

New IAP cosmetics can be found in the in-game shop menu, while the event guides offer a selection of new and returning IGC items. In the workshop, a new prop on the equipment rack allows players to create their own race courses out in the levels.

Event content from previous years will be back, too:

  • Grandma and Social Light in Home
  • Skyball in the Dreams Village
  • A mysterious Spirit leaving footprints around the Dreams Village with a known allergy to lower elevations—don’t stand too close when they sneeze, or you might feel the effects of a snowy transformation…
  • For Sky kids who can’t get enough ice skating, the Secret Area accessible from Vault of Knowledge is open to everyone and decked out in festive decorations.

 

This year’s new props and cosmetic are:

  • Winter Pine Cone Hair Clip: 19 event currency
  • Winter Feast Snowboard: 44 event currency
  • Course Creation Prop: 150 Candles
    • This prop will be available even after Days of Feast ends
  • Cozy Hermit Boots: $6.99 (all prices USD)
  • Winter Quilted Cape: $14.99

 

All items from previous years will return, for players who would like to choose from among more classic offerings.

  • Items from 2019-2020: Secret Level accessible from the Vault of Knowledge
  • Items from 2021: Home
  • Items from 2022-2023: Aviary Village

 

If you’d like more details about older returning items, head over to the patch notes for last year’s Days of Feast event—the item descriptions still apply! (Please note: The Feast Goggles have been adjusted to 60 Candles, due to the lens effect added earlier this year.)

Days of Feast content is available to everyone who’s completed at least the 4th Seasonal Quest from Season of Revival. More details are in our blog post for the event, too!

 

Aviary Village Updates

0.23.5 includes some changes that reflect Aviary Village’s growth into a gathering place in Sky. Some of these changes include:

  • A special candle that allows you to choose whether you’d like your game to load in Home or in Aviary Village.
    • A similar candle will appear in Home.
    • The location you choose as a load point will also be where you teleport when you use the “return home” button in your emote menu.
  • Traveling Spirits will appear in Aviary Village.
  • Friend Constellation statue is now available in the village plaza.
  • Daily Quest check-in and daily Seasonal Candle (during Seasons) will be in Aviary.
  • The Shared Memories shrine in Aviary will automatically play some of the recordings made there if a player is close to it, as a sort of village stage for players to stop by as they’re going through the area.
    • This shrine will also have weekly prompts, for players looking for ideas for their Shared Memories.
  • Various environment updates, including changes based on player feedback like implementing a day/night cycle, and adding the song to the area BGM that originally only played before the village’s restoration was underway.

 

These all become visible once you’ve at least started the 4th Season of Revival quest. Don’t forget, if you choose Aviary Village as your load point, there is a meditation shrine there to let you teleport into Home.

These changes are to help Aviary Village offer more as a hub in Sky. Home’s uses might shift, but it will continue to be open for players who prefer using a smaller, quieter location as a base for their Sky adventures!

 

Other Updates

Improvements to New Players’ Introduction to Sky

We’ve been beta testing improvements for how brand new players are welcomed into Sky, and some of these improvements will be added with 0.23.5. These are a work-in-progress, so for now, a portion of new players will experience the new introduction, and the rest will experience the same introduction as before this update.

Chances are that if you’re reading the patch notes, you’re not a new player and the new introduction won’t affect you. However, for current players who haven’t already at least started the fourth Season of Revival quest, a portion of them may also experience one part of the new sequence—namely, the Traveling Spirit will appear only in Aviary Village, instead of both Aviary Village and Home.

So if you’ve played Sky for a while, but after this update you see the Traveling Spirit only in Aviary Village, that’s why. If you don’t see the Traveling Spirit in Home or Aviary Village, you might just need to start the 4th quest from the Hopeful Steward. Once you do start that 4th quest, the Traveling Spirit should appear for you in Aviary Village.

Otherwise, this is a heads up that if you bring in a friend to try the game, or hear other players talking about their first moth-y moments in Sky, this is why their experience may be different compared to what yours was.

 

New Year’s Fireworks in Sky

When New Year’s Day approaches, get ready to celebrate the start of 2024 with a brief hourly fireworks show in Aviary Village that marks the start of the New Year for each time zone. Fireworks begin at 02:00 December 31, 2023 (midnight January 1 for Kiribati), until 04:00 January 1, 2024 (midnight January 1 for Howland Island).

 

Returning Days of Mischief Cosmetics

Players interested in Days of Mischief cosmetics from previous years will have the chance to choose the items they want in the Aviary Village event workshop. From December 11th through 24th, IAP (in-app purchase) Mischief cosmetics from 2021 and earlier will be offered—talk to a couple of Spirits who will show up carrying them in their Friendship Trees. (Note that you’ll need to update to 0.23.5 in order to see these Spirits.)

We hope this is helpful for folks who had been hoping to add these to their closets!

 

Edit: The Days of Mischief returning IAP to include items from 2021 and earlier. Items from 2022 will not return, since they had already been included with Days of Mischief when that event was held in the 0.23.0 update. We apologize for any confusion.

 

One More Note:

This is the last patch note of the year, so before 2023 comes to an end, all of us at TGC wanted to give a huge thank you to everyone who’s joined us in Sky! In live, beta, or maybe IRL at a Sky Assembly, it’s meant a lot to share this world with you. We’re working on even more to show you all in 2024, but for now, we hope the year’s end brings you warm memories and meaningful moments with those who are important to you.

 

Improvements and Bug Fixes in this update include:

Season:

  • Added a shrine to make the Friend Constellation a bit more accessible in Aviary Village (becomes available after the 4th Seasonal Quest).
  • Aviary Village environment updates, and a new day-night cycle.
    • ※ Most of these become visible after a certain amount of progress through the Hopeful Steward’s quests.
  • Spirits are well and good in the game, but maybe not possessed mannequins, so we dealt with the mannequins that were animated when unlocking seasonal items.
  • Avatar energy is restored when loading into Aviary Village.
  • Fixed a bug in the 2nd Revival quest where the quest instructions overlapped with the pop-up field to enter Message Boat text.
  • Carved out a nice cozy spot for the Sleepy Traveling Merchant to park their boat in Aviary Village.
  • Excavated some Seasonal Candles that were partially underground in the Butterfly Fields area.
  • Possibly the most important update of 0.23.5: Added an option to hug the Hopeful Steward after completing the 4th quest.

Audio & Appearance

  • Inbox attachment count now renders correctly on consoles.
  • We dove on in to adding more diving animation polish.
  • Fixes for certain hats clipping with the Elf Hair.
  • Fixes for cases where the wifi symbol overlapped with UI elements.
  • Candle counter UI updates.
  • Adjustments to the menu when viewing Player Creations.
  • Fixed various rendering issues in the Dreams Village.
  • Tweaked a Season of Gratitude cape to mitigate clipping issues, and fixed a bug that caused a number of outfits to slightly raise capes and make them more likely to clip into the avatar's body.
  • Visual improvements around the Office: called in some repair people to patch holes in the roof, rugs and posters don’t disappear from this plane of existence when the camera moves away, clouds realized it’s not physically possible for them to move through the wall near the portal, etc.
  • Sit emote animates properly when playing a Shared Memory recording.
  • Fixed visual distortion on Shattering Dark Plant cape when using certain expressions like “deep bow.”
  • Filled in a hole in the ground in Hidden Forest that unsuspecting players could fall through
  • Fixed several places in the Citadel area of Valley of Triumph that could trap players.
  • Enlisted Patch-chan’s help with a variety of graphic bugs in the Village of Dreams and Citadel areas of Valley of Triumph, and in the Office too.
  • No more bugs that were making rainbows appear too dim.
  • Firework particles don’t appear black when using the Days of Love Serendipitous Scepter

General Fixes & Improvements

  • Fix for a bug that prevented a player from lighting and activating the second bridge near the end of Hidden Forest if someone else had lit the bridge before the player entered the area.
  • To reduce visual clutter and improve player experience particularly for folks using controllers, Player Creations cannot be placed near level transitions as well as the entrance and "landing pad" zones of Aviary Village.
  • To balance Shared Memories, recordings of avatar “shouts” will no longer recharge viewers; however, all played Shared Memories now provide a charge effect based on proximity.
  • Added a new Shared Space shrine to Hermit Valley (in case, maybe, people with a Course Creation Prop would be interested to know…).
  • Fixed an older bug where the chat benches in the Office would not work from time to time during events.
  • Updated the “playfight” expression so that the player offering it now receives the interaction from their friend.
  • Other bug fixes and improvements.
  • Over the years, the rock had watched the curious children restore various parts of the world. Now it seemed as though they were focusing their efforts on bringing life back to a long-neglected village. Bright colors, new sounds, and old friends were like a breath of fresh air along the little street. The Sky children could accomplish anything when they worked together.

 

[Edit] 2023.12.12 Additional item added to the list of fixes and improvements.

 

Please refer to this page for known issues ongoing or introduced with this patch: Known Issues Patch 0.23.5.

 

As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback, and encourage you to join the community discussion on our official Discord server at discord.gg/thatskygame!