Cloud (game)

Cloud is a single-player game for Microsoft Windows . The main character is a boy who flies through the sky in a dream in a hospital bed. The player takes control of the avatar of the sleeping boy - and leads him through a world of dreams, consisting of a small group of islands, collecting clouds. The direction and speed of the avatar is controlled with the mouse; the movement, as a rule, occurs horizontally, but you can fly vertically by holding the third mouse button ^[2] . The player can interact with the clouds only in horizontal flight.

The game contains three types of clouds: white, which follow the avatar; gray, neutral clouds that turn white when touched; and black clouds that can combine with white clouds to cause rain, which dissolves both clouds ^[3] . A large number of white clouds dissolves less dark clouds more easily than an equal number, and vice versa. White clouds stop following the avatar if the player moves too fast, and they resume movement if they fly up again ^[2] . Each of the four missions in Cloud has a different purpose, for example, in one of them it is necessary to form a pattern of clouds, in the other to eliminate all black clouds, and in the third to create rain over each of the islands ^[3] .

Cloud was developed and released in 2005 by a team of seven students from the University of Southern California ^[4] . According to the developers, the game was created for all classes and ages of people ^[5] . Development began in January 2005 and ended at the end of October, and a final update was released in December ^{[4] [6]} . The development team was led by Jenova Chen, it also included Stefan Deinhart, Eric Nelson, Aaron Meyers, Glenn Song, composer Vincent Diamante and producer Kelly Santiago ^[7] . The idea of ​​the game was partly based on Chen’s childhood experience, as he was often hospitalized due to asthma and, while lying in the hospital room, often dreamed of different things ^[8] . The game received a grant that was designed to support the production of experimental games in the amount of $ 20,000 from the university, of which 12,000 were spent on development and 8,000 on marketing ^{[4] [5]} .

According to Chen, Cloud was designed to “expand the spectrum of people's emotions from video games” ^[9] . Chen also told how he came up with an idea for the game: once, when he was going to school, he looked at the sky, noting the difference between fluffy white and “dirty and gray” clouds, and it was then that he came up with the idea to make a game about clouds ^{[10 ]} . He wanted to make a story that could “create a prerequisite for the player and help him emotionally invest in the game”, but the team did not want to make the plot too detailed, as he “distracted the player from the main experience” of free flight and creating clouds ^[8] . So, the story was supposed to tell about a foreigner who is trying to clean the environment, but it was reduced to “a simple poetic background about a child locked in a hospital ward” ^[11] . The team intended Cloud to “communicate with a sense of youth, freedom and imagination” ^[4] . The game used a modified version of the game engine developed by several team members for their previous game, Dyadin ^[11] . At the 2006 Game Developers Conference , Chen and Santiago showed Cloud to Sony spokesman John Haight. He became interested in the game, but Sony refused to publish it ^[12] .

Cloud won the Best Student Philosophy at the and Student Showcase at the Independent Games Festival . The game was demonstrated on Spike TV , G4TV, and CBS Sunday ^[5] . Cloud immediately received a lot of attention after the release ^[4] . So, by February 2006, a little more than three months after the release, the site with the game was viewed more than a million times, and the game itself was downloaded more than 300,000 times. By July 2006, the number of visits reached six million, and the game was downloaded more than 600,000 times ^{[4] [11]} .

The game received positive reviews from critics. GameSpy Joel Durham noted that “everything in the Cloud is simply amazing” and praised her musical background, visual effects and a high degree of immersion in the game world ^[13] . Gamer Tunnel’s William Usher also praised visual effects and music, including that the game’s graphics created a relaxing atmosphere and that “touching musical score will emotionally move any player to the boy’s dream world” ^[3] . A Game Informer reviewer called Cloud more than a regular game ^[3] . Ron White of PC World also called the game experience “the most relaxing I have ever had” ^[14] . Durham concluded that Cloud “will send your mind into free flight” ^[13] .

Chen and Santiago later founded their own video game development studio called Thatgamecompany . Composer Vincent Diamante and Eric Nelson worked with the company on their second game, Flower ^[15] . Thatgamecompany team considered developing an improved version of Cloud , but decided to start it only if the staff could not submit any other game ideas ^[16] .

• interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/ - official Cloud site