In Cloud Gardens from Coatsink and Noio you must harness the healing power of nature within charming wasteland dioramas. Check our Cloud Gardens review!
In Cloud Gardens from Coatsink and Noio you must harness the healing power of nature within charming wasteland dioramas. The world around you has certainly seen better days, and you have a chance to make things a bit better by planting seeds and repurposing the hundreds of discarded objects you’ll find in order to create unique settings where nature can do its thing so that life can thrive. It’s a very chill experience in a post-apocalyptic world where things have gone very, very wrong.
After the game greets you by your username, you’ll be able to collect your first seed. You’ll grab the seed by moving a cursor with the left analog stick and pressing the A button, and then plant it to have vegetation grow right away. After this, you’ll grab the available objects and place them near the plants so that they can continue to grow. Once you’ve placed all objects, you can carry on towards the next diorama. Oh, and don’t forget to check out your work by rotating the scene with the right analog stick!
The first handful of levels will allow you to learn the basics so that you can get the hang of things. It all starts easy enough, but you’ll soon be working towards completing a level by reaching 100% plant growth by carefully placing the objects you get as you harvest plants to be able to create more seeds by pressing the X button so that you can cover more of the available surfaces. You can harvest plants one at a time, or you can use your handy post-apocalyptic vacuum to collect a bunch of them in a few seconds.
Each seed type will produce a different plant, which will help to cover different surfaces. Each subsequent plant created with each seed will react differently to the objects you add to the diorama, with some being great for covering up walls or vehicles, while others will need to be planted on soil or on special planters so that they can grow at their full potential. Some plants will benefit from receiving direct light from a lamp or two!
And the further you progress in the main mode for Cloud Gardens, the more objects you’ll unlock for use in Creative Mode. As the name suggests, for Creative Mode, you’ll be using the objects and seeds you’ve unlocked to build custom dioramas. These can include all of the bases, appliances, bags, barrels, building parts, clothing, factory items, fences, furniture, greenhouse items, natural and ornamental elements, pipes, planters, roads, shipping containers, signs, skate park elements, stairs, streets, train elements, transportation elements, tools, and toys.
In both the main mode and Creative Mode, you’ll be able to activate Photo Mode. Just press up on the D-Pad to call up the Photo Mode section so that you can decide if the plants should grow or not, the camera motion, choose the lighting, the sun color, fog and fog density, and sky color. Once you figure everything feels just right, take a screenshot of your creation!
Cloud Gardens is a very chill and relaxing post-apocalyptic experience in which you’ll work on bringing back life to a world that has certainly seen better days. Its low-polygon presentation and soothing soundtrack are also a highlight of this experience. Cloud Gardens is out tomorrow on Nintendo Switch with a $17.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Cloud Gardens review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Coatsink.
