Clouzy!

Have you ever looked up at the sky and wished that you could be friends with a cloud? The makers of the adventure game Clouzy sure hopes your answer is yes, because their newest title sees you hanging out and helping a whole floating island full of friendly clouds. You'll cook for them, clean them up and even take care of their medical needs, all while exploring the island and collecting orbs. It's cute, colorful and full of cartoony characters, but who exactly is this game for? That's what I want to find out in my review of Clouzy.

High above Earth's mightiest skyscrapers is a floating island where humans and sentient clouds co-exist peacefully. You play the island's newest resident, a customizable character whose job is to explore the surroundings and run missions for their neighbors. What we quickly discover is that we're essentially running a cloud clinic. The locals will drop off their angry, sick and nervous clouds, and it's up to you to not only solve their ailment, but also clean them up and give them a fresh meal. Once you've done all that, you'll return them to their humans, collect a reward and then welcome in the next patient.

In order to help these clouds, you're going to need to get used to creating different kinds of foods using the cooker. Need to mellow out an angry cloud? Don't worry, there's a special kind of tea for that. However, in order to make that tea, you'll first need to gather up a bunch of ingredients found around the floating island. This is the majority of what you'll be doing in Clouzy. Almost every mission will require you to hunt around the island for leaves, berries, mushrooms, bamboo sticks and a whole host of other items, all of which you'll use to craft and cook new concoctions.

As you can imagine, this constant hunt for ingredients helps you memorize where everything is. You'll quickly learn that the berries you need for that calming tea are located near the giant windmill, while the mushrooms required for an especially spicy dish are always found in the caves. This search for different types of ingredients will reveal more of the island, which will uncover new parts of the story.

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Although it isn't clear at first, the ultimate goal of Clouzy is to retrieve all four of the orbs hidden away on the floating island. Of course, these orbs aren't just laying around and waiting to be picked up, as you'll need to figure out a way to access them. This is where the game switches into puzzle mode. These range from being ridiculously easy to downright frustrating, with one at the end requiring a whole lot of trial-and-error guesswork. But no matter how annoying some of the puzzles can be, it's always worth the effort. Collecting the orb will not only advance the story, but will also grant your companion cat a new ability.

Wait, did I forget to mention the companion cat? No matter where you go on the island, there's an adorable floating cat by your side ready to help. At first it seems like the little guy is just along for the ride, but the cat will become invaluable as you collect the orbs and power-up. For example, your helper will allow our customizable character to jump higher and get to hard-to-reach areas. The cat can also glow, making it possible to explore the island's caves. What I like is that your helper just floats around on its own and stays out of trouble, but when you need them to help, all you have to do is push the button and it will come running. It's a lot more reliable than real cats. (And a lot less musical than that movie Cats.)

I would say that the exploring and adventuring is a lot more compelling than the cooking and crafting. Even with a limited amount of ingredients, I found running a cloud clinic to be incredibly repetitive. There are times when the game will literally give you the exact same mission two or three times in a row. But even if it's not identical, most of the cloud missions are so similar that they might as well be worded the same. I was always excited to see a mission that involved actual adventuring, even if that meant dealing with a trial-and-error puzzle. The problem is that the balance is all off. This game needs three or four times more exploration and about half of the missions where we clean and feed clouds.

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When it comes right down to it, I'm honestly not sure who this game is for. On one hand, it looks like it's aimed squarely at young children. I mean, it's bright, colorful and has adorable clouds and animals you can pet. Yet, this game makes absolutely no effort to explain what's going on or how to make things work. There's almost no hand-holding here, which you would expect from a game aimed at a younger audience. Hell, even as somebody who is clearly not a "younger" gamer, I needed clarification on how some of these different mechanics worked. I kept messing up some of the more complicated cooks, and it sure would have been nice to see why. The game is constantly asking you to do things and hoping that you'll just stumble into the right answer.

Don't get me wrong, there is fun to be had exploring the island, but a lot of that fun is undermined by the small locations. There are only a few different looking parts of the floating island, including a desert region, a peaceful forest and the caves. Sure, there are some beautiful landmarks, like the river and the sky palace, but there's not enough to this island to keep you invested. It took me around eight hours to beat Clouzy, and let me tell you, I was bored of the tiny island long before the credits rolled.

With the bright and colorful visuals and cute characters, I could see kids liking this game more than I did. Perhaps they won't be as annoyed by the small world and repetitive missions. However, I suspect everybody, no matter the age, will be frustrated by the puzzles, the questionable mechanics and the game's poor communication skills. If you're the type of person who would rather take care of sick clouds than go on epic adventures, then Clouzy is the game for you. Everybody else need not apply.