It's understandable that "Cloud Gardens" is not a game for everyone. By the end of the level, what was once almost literally a blank canvas is now a large rectangular lot covered in junked cars, piles of overturned shopping carts and various bits of garbage, all beautifully overtaken by nature. What starts out as a simple diorama element, such as a square of parking lot concrete, quickly grows more complicated as the diorama's build space expands. "Cloud Gardens" also includes a photo mode, to take snapshots and video images of your creations to share online.Ĭompleting the puzzles also unlocks items and structures in the "Cloud Gardens" sandbox mode, which allows for a more freeform creation. After nature has overtaken enough of a diorama, the puzzle completes and unlocks the next challenge. There isn't really any set right or wrong way to expand the scene, as each person's placement of the visual elements is going to be distinct.
Clicking harvests seeds from the plants, and after enough seeds have been added to the scene, a single headlight flickers on, adding an interesting element. Adding piles of tires causes plants to grow and fruit. In one puzzle diorama, a metal fence surrounds a rusty, junked car. Placing the man-made elements stimulates the growth of the natural elements, causing them to flower and grow fruits. To solve the level, players will alternate between placing a natural element, such as the seed of a flowering fruit plant that grows downward or vine that grows in all directions, and then placing a man-made element, like a metal directional arrow sign, a pile of old tires, trash cans, abandoned vehicles and beer bottles. Each level is presented as a small diorama surrounded by clouds, a tiny corner of a wasteland, such as a child's playground or building rooftop. The basic game-play is not just artistic but also solving a puzzle. Now that aesthetic has been turned into a video game in "Cloud Gardens," where you're the artist creating whatever scene you think is beautiful. I even got to see many examples in real life when I spent some years growing up in a very rural environment, where it was not uncommon to see overgrown, abandoned roadside cemeteries, gravestones almost entirely covered by weeds, or farm buildings more than 100 years old slowly being reclaimed by nature. I find these images haunting and beautiful. It's a familiar sight in post-apocalyptic movies such as "I Am Legend" or video games like "The Last of Us" and "Fallout." There are also, of course, unlimited real-life examples, such as those stunningly depicted in the 2018 book "Naturalia," featuring photographs of nature taking back abandoned places.
Picture a crumbling highway overpass, cars rusted and broken down, directional signs faded and overgrown by vines.
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