Game: Shape of Clouds
Genre: Puzzle
System: Steam (Windows)
Developer|Publisher: Latte Games JSC
Controller Support: None
Price: Free
Release Date: December 20th, 2023
Review code provided with many thanks to Latte Games JSC.
Shape of Clouds is a relaxing puzzle game where you tilt, turn, shift, and twirl a collection of pixels. They will form a picture of something, but only from one angle, coaxing you to keep spinning the cloud until it comes together.
Simple and Relaxing
When I first started playing this game, I was visiting family for the holidays. My niece, who is now ten-and-a-half years old (the “half” is incredibly important), came to play it with me. She was enamoured with it, saying she found it incredibly satisfying to play. We sat at the kitchen table together, spinning pixels into pictures for a good hour before we were forced to close my laptop and hang out with everyone else. Even the younger kids seemed obsessed with watching the pictures spin into a recognizable image, trying to guess what it was along the way. It was a fun moment that we all got to spend together.
Basically, you play Shape of Clouds by clicking and holding as you move the mouse around, spinning the image in any direction until it starts to come together into an image. For a free game, there was a massive amount of pictures; some of them were just general items or people, and some were part of included “packs” that all had themes like famous buildings, Christmas, and isometric views of buildings. The gameplay is very simple, very relaxing, and quite fun. Unfortunately, it wasn’t without its own set of issues.
The Downsides of Shape of Clouds
I know that this is a free game, so it’s difficult to be too hard on it. The developers are giving away their time and effort, so you have this ingrained kind of desire to speak well of it. However, there are a couple of issues that I think are important to bring up with Shape of Clouds.
The music in Shape of Clouds is not great. Since you have to hear it over and over again, I found it grating after only a few minutes. I can’t imagine how much I would hate it if I’d not muted it early into my playthrough. Thankfully, there is an easy mute music and separate mute sounds button. Again, as a free game, I didn’t expect original orchestral or something, but at least a song that isn’t bad to listen to over and over again.
It also has a big bug with the Exit Game button; it only works some of the time, and it soft locks the game the rest of the time. I have often had to go into Steam again to force close it, which is frustrating. The rest of the game works so well; it’s a little weird that closing it is the only place that seems to have an issue. One Steam review mentions that Shape of Clouds crashed on them regularly, but I could not reproduce this issue myself.
Shape of Clouds feels a little unfinished. I wish there had been achievements or trophies in the game. There is also such a missed opportunity in user-created content. I assume that the algorithm used to break objects up into pixels could be recreated with user-uploaded images; I was really surprised that this wasn’t a part of the core game in the beginning.
Conclusion
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Shape of Clouds. It could have done more, but it was an extremely peaceful, original, and fun little puzzle game. I like the feeling of watching all the pixels start to line up and trying to guess what they might look like when they come together. The kids and I really had a good time in spite of the music and the sound design and the little bugs here and there.
Overall, Shape of Clouds is some amazing freeware that’s great for the whole family.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot.
