Comments on: The Cloud Game

The Cloud Game

splatta — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:06:57 -0800

Even if it was in a hospital gown? Cloud is a beautiful, simple, and free 3D game developed by students at the USC Interactive Media Center and funded by a grant from Electronic Arts.

By: lupus_yonderboy

lupus_yonderboy — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:21:10 -0800

It looks like the creators of the site and I assume the program believe that "computer" == "Windows PC". A shame they are corrupting students so young... I've been a professional software developer for 20 years and I have never owned a Windows PC.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:22:33 -0800

Yeah, I was let down to see there was no Mac version...

By: dwordle

dwordle — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:25:31 -0800

Bah! What about a linux version!

By: squidlarkin

squidlarkin — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:29:56 -0800

The game's quite pretty and all, but the actual play mechanics seem a little obtuse. What's the deal with cloud "height"?

By: ab'd al'Hazred

ab'd al'Hazred — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:30:36 -0800

How am I supposed to run this on my BBC Micro Model B?

By: mendel

mendel — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:35:40 -0800

Is this "game" something one would need a computer to have heard of?

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:43:15 -0800

Does not work on my Timex Sinclair. When will developers learn???

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:45:14 -0800

That looks very sweet. I like the idea of meditative noodling (and in this case, 'noodling' as goal-less swooping through airscapes) very much. I'll be grabbing a copy when I get home later -- thanks!

By: stenseng

stenseng — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:54:29 -0800

By: _sirmissalot_

_sirmissalot_ — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:55:58 -0800

I would be all over this game like white on rice except for the fact that it requires a video card.

By: Crabby Appleton

Crabby Appleton — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:58:27 -0800

War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery. Computer is Wintel. lupus, I'll see you in Room 101.

By: jepler

jepler — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:02:51 -0800

since we're all piling on about how this is no good, here's my contribution: it's not as good as that game with the dead prostitute and the psychedelic bubbles. crabby: what?

By: Decani

Decani — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:16:28 -0800

Dude, I fly through the clouds about twelve times a year. It's really no biggie. You know? Water vapour, Bernoulli principle, yada yada... come on. You want me to Meta your ass?

By: fenriq

fenriq — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:21:34 -0800

My hopes too, were dashed upon the shores of platform incompatibility.

By: splatta

splatta — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:22:57 -0800

Meta is a verb now? Could I have the definition?

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:27:15 -0800

Cloud is a beautiful, simple, and free 3D game Simple in what way? It's late and I'm probably stupid, but even with the PDF instructions, I can't work out how to make clouds or how to regain height if you dive below the sea surface. If we're talking clouds, this glider game (mentioned here recently, I think) is good, though; I didn't know until recently about its creator.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:34:36 -0800

What the fuck man, Any game that dosn't support the Be Box isn't a game worth mentioning.

By: Drastic

Drastic — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:39:18 -0800

Another nice entry in the rather tiny "meditative flying" game genre is Tranquility--which also runs on a wider range of computers.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:39:23 -0800

Some people I know who worked at the local Virtual Reality Applications Center came up with a game called treefort wars which looked simply amazing, mostly due to Andres Reinot being on the team, I would imagine. After seeing them develop it for months I was excited to play it, but, it turned out to be almost imposible to play. They had spent so much time making it look pretty, that, er, it was unplayable. Oh well.

By: InnocentBystander

InnocentBystander — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:44:17 -0800

Jeez, I *do* run Windows and it won't even work for me.

By: Decani

Decani — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:56:30 -0800

Meta is a verb now? Could I have the definition? 1. Yes, it is. 2. Only if you do lots and lots of sit-ups.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:32:52 -0800

After seeing them develop it for months I was excited to play it, but, it turned out to be almost imposible to play. They had spent so much time making it look pretty, that, er, it was unplayable. And then they added dinosaurs and released it under the name Trespasser.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:35:00 -0800

What are you guys talking about? I got it running on my programmable logic controller! Real men don't complain about OS support issues, they write their own binary runtime translation software. grumble, grumble... kids today...

By: ab'd al'Hazred

ab'd al'Hazred — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:48:12 -0800

this crashed my EDSAC

By: WolfDaddy

WolfDaddy — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:53:26 -0800

I have an abacus at home for that.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:04:03 -0800

Woah, what is going on in this image....

By: Crabby Appleton

Crabby Appleton — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:15:42 -0800

jepler: the reaction to lupus_yonderboy's post put me in mind of George Orwell's novel 1984, which everyone should read because we'll all be living it soon. It seems Orwell undershot the future by about 25 years. (Beware the spoilers in the Wikipedia article.)

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:19:57 -0800

I prefer FlyGuy. Raise Da Roof!

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:44:48 -0800

I forgot about FlyGuy! Thanks Eideteker!

By: D.C.

D.C. — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:45:12 -0800

The problem isn't that it's Windows-only; the problem is that they don't mention the hardware & OS requirements on the download page. This effects people with older wintel computers as well as Linux & OS X users. Bad form.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 04:39:58 -0800

This looks awesome, but, yeah, they're playing a bit fast and loose with the helpfulness. Since it looks like they were trying to stick to a minimalist web site, I guess it's not surprising they left out any computer requirements whatsoever. Sure they were 98% right, but that doesn't mean you have to be dicks about it. splatta: "Meta is a verb now? Could I have the definition?" Meta is a verb when it's capitalized thusly: MeTa. Which I think is what he meant.

By: Joeforking

Joeforking — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 05:07:17 -0800

Another vote for the beautiful "Fly Guy".

By: splatta

splatta — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:31:37 -0800

Plutor: could you use it in a sentence?

By: anthill

anthill — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:34:39 -0800

splatta: "If you keep derailing this thread I'm going to MeTa your ass"

By: 13twelve

13twelve — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:43:25 -0800

I liked it. Even if I didnt find it that easy to use. i.e. its not the same controls as counterstrike - so I was baffled

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 08:39:17 -0800

splatta: "could you use it in a sentence?" anthill got it. Short for "MetaTalk".

By: splatta

splatta — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 08:50:00 -0800

oooOOOooh got it.

By: jcruelty

jcruelty — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 17:38:58 -0800

interesting post (i'm interested in video games out of the ordinary; also misuse/abuse of games for art's sake or any sake really) on that note... i'm playing that flyguy game , and i chose to simply walk, walk, walk. i came to a bus stop (sign) and now i'm waiting for the bus. does the bus ever come?

By: nomad

nomad — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 18:39:07 -0800

I played this game for five minutes and couldn't figure out where the hell to go. I got so frustrated that I threw my mouse at the wall and now there's a big hole. I'm pretty mad about the hole.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 03:36:35 -0800

Not sure if this was linked already, but.