The Cloud Game

November 30, 2005 6:06 PM

Have you ever wanted to fly through the clouds? 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.
posted by splatta (40 comments total)

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.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 6:21 PM on November 30, 2005

Yeah, I was let down to see there was no Mac version...
posted by brundlefly at 6:22 PM on November 30, 2005

Bah! What about a linux version!
posted by dwordle at 6:25 PM on November 30, 2005

The game's quite pretty and all, but the actual play mechanics seem a little obtuse. What's the deal with cloud "height"?
posted by squidlarkin at 6:29 PM on November 30, 2005

How am I supposed to run this on my BBC Micro Model B?
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 6:30 PM on November 30, 2005

Is this "game" something one would need a computer to have heard of?
posted by mendel at 6:35 PM on November 30, 2005

Does not work on my Timex Sinclair. When will developers learn???
posted by boo_radley at 6:43 PM on November 30, 2005

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!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:45 PM on November 30, 2005

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.

Yeah. They were 98% right. Get over it.
posted by stenseng at 6:54 PM on November 30, 2005

I would be all over this game like white on rice except for the fact that it requires a video card.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 6:55 PM on November 30, 2005

War is Peace.
Ignorance is Strength.
Freedom is Slavery.
Computer is Wintel.

lupus, I'll see you in Room 101.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 6:58 PM on November 30, 2005

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?
posted by jepler at 7:02 PM on November 30, 2005

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?
posted by Decani at 7:16 PM on November 30, 2005

My hopes too, were dashed upon the shores of platform incompatibility.
posted by fenriq at 7:21 PM on November 30, 2005

Meta is a verb now? Could I have the definition?
posted by splatta at 7:22 PM on November 30, 2005

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.
posted by raygirvan at 7:27 PM on November 30, 2005

What the fuck man, Any game that dosn't support the Be Box isn't a game worth mentioning.
posted by delmoi at 7:34 PM on November 30, 2005

Another nice entry in the rather tiny "meditative flying" game genre is Tranquility--which also runs on a wider range of computers.
posted by Drastic at 7:39 PM on November 30, 2005

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.
posted by delmoi at 7:39 PM on November 30, 2005

Jeez, I *do* run Windows and it won't even work for me.
posted by InnocentBystander at 7:44 PM on November 30, 2005

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.
posted by Decani at 7:56 PM on November 30, 2005

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.
posted by smackfu at 8:32 PM on November 30, 2005

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...
posted by blue_beetle at 8:35 PM on November 30, 2005

this crashed my EDSAC
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 8:48 PM on November 30, 2005

I have an abacus at home for that.
posted by WolfDaddy at 8:53 PM on November 30, 2005

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


posted by delmoi at 9:04 PM on November 30, 2005

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.)
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:15 PM on November 30, 2005

I prefer FlyGuy. Raise Da Roof!
posted by Eideteker at 9:19 PM on November 30, 2005

I forgot about FlyGuy! Thanks Eideteker!
posted by brundlefly at 9:44 PM on November 30, 2005

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.
posted by D.C. at 9:45 PM on November 30, 2005

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.
posted by Plutor at 4:39 AM on December 1, 2005

Another vote for the beautiful "Fly Guy".
posted by Joeforking at 5:07 AM on December 1, 2005

Plutor: could you use it in a sentence?
posted by splatta at 6:31 AM on December 1, 2005

splatta: "If you keep derailing this thread I'm going to MeTa your ass"
posted by anthill at 6:34 AM on December 1, 2005

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
posted by 13twelve at 6:43 AM on December 1, 2005

splatta: "could you use it in a sentence?"

anthill got it. Short for "MetaTalk".
posted by Plutor at 8:39 AM on December 1, 2005

oooOOOooh got it.
posted by splatta at 8:50 AM on December 1, 2005

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?
posted by jcruelty at 5:38 PM on December 1, 2005

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.
posted by nomad at 6:39 PM on December 1, 2005

Not sure if this was linked already, but.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:36 AM on December 4, 2005