There are moments in everyone’s life where we just want time to slow down for us, so we might look up at the heavens and see beautiful clouds in the shapes we recognize. Or you might remember being a kid during those bright, blue-skied Summer days and laying on your lawn, pool side, or sitting someplace with childhood friends playing games of what shapes and objects you see in the clouds. Well, now there is a party game available to bring us back to that time of imagination and wonder.
Today we are going to look at Cloud Control from 25th Century Games, designed by Eugene Bryant, and artwork by Stephanie Gustafsson and Matt Paquette. It plays 3-10 players and takes between 15 minutes to 30 minutes to play.
Game Information
Game: Cloud Control
Mechanics:Pattern Building, Pattern Recognition (credit: bgg.com), Real-time spatial recognition
Time: 30 minutes to 1/2 hour
# of players: 3 to 10
Age: 8 and up
Overview
In Cloud Control, you work to use as many of the various cloud shapes provided to make the shapes into an object that the rest of the players have to guess what it is. Points are awarded to the “creator” and the person that calls out the correct answer first.
Over four rounds (two that involve everyone going individually and two “lightning rounds” that involve ALL players participating) players work to build various clues and objects with the cloud cards to earn points for both the “cloud artist” and the person who calls out the correct guess. And oh, yeah,like I mentioned - it’s all neatly and compactly done in four rounds and hopefully with lots of laughs.
Components
The base game box includes: 300 shape cards, 64 cloud cards, 50 point tokens broken down into 1 pt. Kites and 3 pt. Kites, one 90 second hourglass timer, a clear plastic card holder, and a rulebook. You can see the point tokens size in comparison to a US quarter dollar coin.
Gameplay
To start the game, the four copies of each cloud shape are stacked neatly and then the shapes are laid out in columns or rows, whichever you prefer, but it should look like a 4x4 grid. The shapes can be in any order you wish.
Then you lay out a stack of the 300 shape cards, the card stand, the point kites, and the 30 second timer next to the cloud cards.
Once you have everything laid out, it’s Go Time! You can get started playing! The first and third rounds start where each player gets an individual turn to draw a card on their turn and when they are ready they yell “Go!”, flip the timer, and use the cards to create a shape on the card. They can start with the 1 point objects/ideas or the 3pt. ones. Each time someone guess correctly they get the same points at the “cloud controller”. The game has interesting rules where people can “animate” the cards by moving them and use charades-style movements but cannot talk. Did I forget to mention you get 90 seconds to get through all four items on the shape card?! :90 seconds - no less no more! The game during these rounds can quickly turn into shouts and laughter and a ruckus of a good time.
The second and fourth rounds are called “lightning rounds” where everyone participates creating the shape that is listed on the bottom of the card and yelled out. Again, 90 seconds people...and the new twist is that you can only use one of each shape card. The people who get this card will have to create/recreate a “Fairway”.
After the time is up, the players get 90 seconds to discuss and vote on which player created the best representation/cloud image of the word. Again, player interaction is huge here and depending on how much people went “outside the box” or need to explain their creation - it can devolve into laughter and lots of shouting.
Final Thoughts
The art and design is clean, crisp, and simply elegant. Everything on the cards have their place and the artwork by Stephanie Gustafsson and Matt Paquette is vibrant and colorful. It reminded me and the players of a bright warm summer day. The game set-up is simple. I just wish the rulebook was a little more crisper - less paragraphs and more bulleted lists make important ideas/concepts stand out. The box holds all of the components very neatly and has enough ziploc bags to hold everything. My only other small issue is that using the same cloud shapes probably adds up to millions of permutations or possible combinations, but if they develop or produce an expansion with more cloud shapes it would just increase the replayability many times over.
As a Dad and husband of reluctant gamers, I have to be careful what mechanics I bring to the table in my house because my family is very picky about what games they play. I also brought this game to my parents house to play with extended family who are more open-minded. The turn-based card selection, shape building in real-time keep the game, and interaction with players keep it light and fluffy on the outside, but once the timer is flipped - it turns into a storm and cyclone of guesses and yelling out loud as the player builds their cloud shapes. The shared accumulation of points is also a motivational factor for players of all ages. For people/families with limited time this is an easy to learn game that can be a quick, entertaining evening at the dining room table and it is small enough to travel to other family members when the world becomes a safer place. This is a good game for all ages. As a reference, we played it with my nine year old son, me (43), and my parents who are 69 and 70 respectively.
If you have older relatives or parents, this is a game that can be played to help them with cognitive skills or spatial thinking skills. You can easily replace the :90 timer with a digital kitchen timer or an egg timer to increase the time for younger or older players. I could also see this game being used in various educational settings and in the field of mental health for teaching children and young adults gamesmanship, good sportsmanship, and a variety of other skills.
I highly recommend Cloud Control by 25th Century Games as a “party game” addition to float or drift it’s way into any tabletop game collection. I look forward to getting it to my table with family or friends again in the near future.