Cloudpunk is a game that I’ve known for a while as I tend to lurk in the Indie Development groups looking for games that are diamonds in the rough so to speak. Games that stand out above the rest and for me I feel that they need to be recognized for their unique approach to storytelling, visuals, or all-around design.
Cloudpunk just happens to fit into all of these categories with a captivating story, and unique characters, and the game’s visuals are breathtaking.
The premise of Cloudpunk is that you’ve lost your home and everything you own to debt collectors including your dog’s body, no seriously; they took your dog’s body and left his mind as software. This is like in the first hour of the game too and honestly, it just keeps getting darker as the story progresses.
So you must now work as a delivery driver of sorts to try and make a living in the city, the catch twenty-two here is your deliveries aren’t your everyday deliveries. You’re not working for UPS or the Post Office but as a driver who delivers “special” packages such as explosives or whatever they need you to deliver. You’re not allowed to look in the packages for such reasons.
It’s to think extent that Cloudpunk takes a lot of credence from the CyberPunk design aspects in terms of visuals. Neon lights scattered through the air, and visors on people’s foreheads as well as augmentations but the real selling point for me is. Cloudpunk is based in a gigantic floating city hence its name “Cloudpunk” you fly among the city clouds in your taxi delivering questionable packages to try and make a living, and earn back what you’ve lost.
As for the narrative since I don’t like getting too far into spoilers as the story progresses you are tasked with branching narratives. But one will ultimately decide the fate of the entire city and all the inhabitants that dwell in it.
It’s from a lot of the story elements you are able to build the world around you in Cloudpunk and all the dark-sorted secrets that lay within it. Like what can happen to you after death if you owe money. I mean come on, seriously, they take your dog’s body because you owe money. You know it will get a lot darker from that point on.
Cloudpunk relies heavily on the atmosphere it creates in-game and the narrative aspects to build that world and it’s done in such a way that you can’t help but feel immersed in this wonderful world they’ve created.
It should be noted that upon its launch and when I played it initially the game had a lot of performance issues, and it was stated by the developers that they were actively working on solving the problems that have arisen.
The issues I encountered were based on these performance issues, where the game was slow and the controls tended to be unresponsive while I played on the Xbox One. Lagging quite a lot and very low frame rates, but since the Developer acknowledges these issues and is working to repair them I just wanted to make note of these.
It’s nice to see such a unique game like this, with a wonderfully well-written story, a vast array of unique characters to interact with, and a game that uses pixilation to define its world and honestly even with the bugs.
I would recommend this game to anyone, I think it’s wonderful.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!