[b]Cloud Climber[/b]
There is a unique novelty about this game, which I found particularly compelling. The further I investigated the various towers, the more and more I began to question my identity as a protagonist. You first wake up in a room with a journal entry from Stan on the table, so naturally you would assume that you are Stan, but then I noticed that there was very limited bedding in comparison to the number of occupants working in each tower, which suggested several rotations in the work shifts.
Couple this with the fact that there are actually two water buckets in the first room you wake up in and that I get mine out of a locked storage chest filled with water, this then led me to the belief that I was actually Joey, as that was something he would do out of habit, even though the protagonist knew that he was the last sole survivor, to the final cloud tower complex known to still exist.
Mankind has been trying to avoid extinction, due to a severe water crisis. The planet has become a barren and desolate wasteland now void of resources due to an event that happened over a thousand years ago which caused all of Earths water to evaporate into the clouds. Over a period of time, each surviving family tribe, have been trying to build towers to reach the heavens in a vain attempt to extract water from the clouds, either by meeting a deity, or by presumably forcing precipitation through cloud seeding. There are two types of towers, it appears the round towers are the main towers made for cloud seeding/rain extraction and square towers designed as supporting towers of residence. When a round tower gets decommissioned, the supporting towers appear to get torn down.
The tower group we are with, is the last one left and has been going on for over 100 years building. Several generations now exist on the structure, with some of them being born there and have never even seen the ground as the dust storms cloak the Earth’s surface habitually and prevent even a glimpse. Ground control is usually what is responsible for bringing up supplies, but they too have become exasperated over the years and last month have not even been providing the essentials. Things have become rather bleak for the cloud dwellers and desperation has quickly set in with severe rationing being mandated in regards to water supply.
Water is now stored away in locked storage chests and is being rationed by Hadang a relatively new occupant (probably from the ground crew) who has been made responsible for guarding and dispensing water equally toward all. In fact, he is the only one who has the master key. The reason for this, is maybe because Hadang being new, would hardly be likely to show favouritism to anyone (Pg 1 of his journal). Problem is Hadang is accidentally killed by Karl who over the years has clearly been stripped bare of things like empathy.
With Hadang now gone, it is at first feared that the storage chests would need to be broken open, but again through careful scrutiny, a player will soon discover that this has not been the case and that the master key either was obtained forcibly from Hadang’s possession prior to his death or that the master key was conveniently discovered among his possessions after his death. This made me now even entertain the notion that the surviving protagonist might have been a bad guy, and that we could even be Karl.
After all these dramatic events, the God complex leader Kevin decides to try and calm the situation down by giving a pep talk about them all being the chosen ones. This unfortunately backfires and causes a power struggle between two brothers. For unmentioned reasons the main tower is severed from the supporting towers, probably in the hopes of minimising the conflict from affecting others, but this was futile as both towers had the means of reestablishing contact if they wanted. Since Kevin was delusional with power and referred to himself in the third person, could we be him?
I know this is only art, but it amazes me how much you can breathe life in any piece of art with some imaginative and creative thinking. Not only does it help us to escape momentarily our reality, but it also helps us to play out and problem solve possibilities, disasters, solutions and scenarios to things we would never become privy to in real life.
The game was originally developed in one week by a very talented YouTuber named Gavin Eisenbeisz. It was for a 2020 Game Jam which carried the theme “It’s been a long time, but we are not done yet.” There is also DLC available for cost, but it only contains 3 wall papers, 10 uninspiring character cards and a hum drum commentary by the developer that offers nothing new to the lore.
In final: A free game into a bleak world where only the protagonist lives and so there is unlikely to be a continuation into the franchise, but like others I care a lot about this world and so would like to offer an alternate solution for the developer to consider.
After Hadang’s terrible death and Kevin’s unappreciated pep talk, trying to ignore what was really happening with supplies and instead attempting to stir enthusiasm in the continuation of building. Instead, it did the opposite and a democratic vote took place and unanimously it was decided that everyone go down to ground level and investigate how bad the situation really was.
Meanwhile Bernie the ‘Great and Terrible’ woke up and convinces himself that he is the only one left alive and that they all must have killed themselves. When in reality no one likes him because he is so lazy and no one even entertained the idea of including him in the democratic vote.
With everyone gone, Bernie decides there is nothing left to do than to finish the last tower, which luckily only requires laying 26 more planks of wood and makes it rain. Not only does this ending give more people for the developer to make a sequel with, but it also reiterates the moral that the blooming lazy tortoise always wins the race.
https://youtu.be/CX9SrtufO3k?si=S4ICtUIakDB30utj
My Reviews: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6843548/
