What was the origin of...

[Techwright]

What was the origin of  what I'd dub the "floating islands" game concept?  It may have a more formal name. I'm oblivious to it, if so.  Is there a predecessor game which others are mimicking?

 

Here's what I'm seeing:

 

• Character wakes up on a floating land mass, and can see several other land masses, large and small, both close and far away.  Floating lands appear over a vast emptiness, like infinite sky downwards.  (If we stopped right there, I'd say the movie Avatar was the sole inspiration, but I'm seeing more.)
• The land masses have forests, creeks, pools, hills, rocks, caves, and some sort of ancient ruins (and likely ancient tech) on them.  The floating islands are rich in resources to be collected for food and construction.
• There are numerous hidden spots on these land masses.  Many of these spots are only accessible by flying around the lower parts of the chunk of floating land.
• Players build houses and gardens on these land masses.
• Players build hand gliders to get around elevation needs on these islands and to make short hops between floating islands.  (this felt like it was inspired by the other Avatar, The Last Airbender.
• Players must build some sort of sky ship to do extended travel and/or battle between the islands.  These sky ships might even be using smaller floating islands as a core over which to build the ship.
• There is some sort of terrible "Big Bad" that announces its presence with a slow terrifying bellow or cry that shakes the lands, causes darkening of skies and or maelstroms. 
• Game mechanics feel almost identical between the games.  For example, when testing out one this weekend, I found I was playing by "muscle memory" from my extended time playing on another game's demo over a year ago.

 

I could probably list other similarities if I put my mind to it.  I've tried several game demos over the last couple, and was surprised to find ones that felt very similar in concept and even controls.  Which makes me think they're all knock offs of some game of which I'm previously unaware, perhaps a console game.

 

Some of the ones that spring to mind are:  demo of the upcoming Lost Skies, demo of the upcoming Solarpunk, Aloft, First Dwarf, and honorable mention to the Temple of the Gales dungeon zone of Palia.

[lemming]

Might be somewhat related to Ditko space, but I'm sure earlier concepts of them appear before his.

[Luminara]

The concept is rooted in mythology (of course, because isn't everything?).  In Homer's Odyssey, Aeolia is the floating island home of Aeolus, the "ruler of the winds".  The concept was further embellished upon by Aristophanes, about 400 years later, in The Birds.  Around the 9th century AD, Bishop Agobard of Lyon posited the existence of a floating island where sky pirates might live.  In modern literary history, Gulliver's Travels picked up the literary device for use as the home of the Laputans.  From the 20th century onward, it became a somewhat common trope in sci-fi.

 

In video games, the original Final Fantasy is where most of us likely encountered it.  It then appeared in a few 1990's games, such as Stratosphere: Conquest of the Skies and The Granstream Saga.  Japanese developers have exhibited a fondness for the concept and used it more frequently in their works, including several times in the Zelda and Final Fantasy series'.  It appears to be most commonly portrayed in RPGs and side-scrollers, which makes sense because those are the types of games which best use the unique aspects of a floating island.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_cities_and_islands_in_fiction