Place it in a position where a seed or a plant will be inside that circle, and you will watch that plant start to grow instantly. Basically, depending on the size of these objects, they will have an aura of influence that will be smaller or bigger (represented by a circle around it). Plaques, dolls, tools, debris, and barrels are just a few of the many different remnants of our civilization present in the game. As weird as it may sound, you do that by placing random human-related objects nearby. That’s an important decision and composes the first step in Cloud Gardens ’ basic gameplay loop because certain seeds can only be planted in specific places.Īs you progress, new types of seeds are introduced.Īfter choosing where to plant the seeds, you need to help them grow.
With a pointer that you control with the left stick, you can select the seeds and choose where you want to plant them. You may see a few elements here and there such as old cars, transit plates, or abandoned buildings, but the only thing you will be able to interact with are the seeds you may find scattered through the level. When you start each level, the diorama world is mostly empty. This happens as a consequence of what you need to do in order to complete each scenario.
Despite being a chilled experience where you can play without too much care or thought, it does come with a few puzzle-like mechanics. Cloud Gardens isn’t completely devoid of all challenge though. With different themes that change as you progress through the game, you will be responsible for filling with foliage places such as highways, junkyards, railroads, and rooftops, to name but a few examples. With each of the 100+ levels found in Cloud Gardens, you are presented with a different diorama-like miniature that works as a snippet of this post-apocalyptic world - but an empty version of it. You know the standard vision we have of post-apocalyptic scenarios, where the wildlife has taken the world back for themselves, and once cold and towering city landscapes have been completely overrun by foliage (similar to the ones we have seen recently in Kirby and the Forgotten Land )? In Cloud Gardens, your objective is to build those kinds of scenarios.Įach level comes with a different theme, including the most verdant rooftops. With a charming minimalist art style that blends 3D environments with beautifully-detailed pixelated textures, Cloud Gardens is a light puzzle game built on top of a peculiar premise. You’re the gardener of a post-apocalyptic world. In some cases, these titles feel more like a toy than a proper game, and that’s the exact category Cloud Gardens falls into. Games like Plantera, Townscaper, and Islanders are just a few examples of titles that are designed as relaxing brainless experiences where you can just chill for a couple of hours, where you don’t really need to deal with anything getting in your way. Yet, there are a few select types of games that opt to provide an experience that is almost entirely deprived of challenge. Unlock an enormous catalogue of objects and plantlife.įeaturing generative soundscapes by Amos Roddy, composer of Kingdom.In general, games are more often than not focused on providing some kind of challenge to the player.įrom action-focused experiences where you must master the mechanics in order to progress, to mind-bending puzzles that can only be solved by the sheer power of your brain, there are many different formats and genres that games choose to explore as a means of providing an engaging experience for the player. Solve organic puzzles in a serene 3D space.Ĭreate to your heart’s content in creative mode.
Players can download looping videos of their completed dioramas and share them with other gardeners from across the internet, and our Discord server has a lively community of gardeners. This is a chill game where the primary goal is to delight in your own creativity. It is a relaxing experience that takes you from one scene to the next while encouraging creativity and coming up with your own solutions. Partly a gardening simulator, partly a dystopian landscape builder, and partly a puzzle game that is both satisfying and without frustration. Adding objects will encourage lush vegetation to grow, but each object must be covered in foliage in order to proceed.Ĭloud Gardens hovers somewhere in between a sandbox toy and a game with challenges. Dive into a relaxing sandbox mode with no goals, or take on a multi-chapter “campaign” where the task is to strike a balance between the natural and the manufactured.