A Game Where You Are a Cloud

I was out for a run the other day, and I found myself in desperate need of distraction as my mind kept wandering to some rather unpleasant topics (topics that I can't actually discuss here on this public blog). I had read a few post about Mountain, although I hadn't purchased it yet, and as my eyes drifted skyward I thought to myself, "I wonder what it would be like to design a game where you are a cloud?"

Having since purchased and played Mountain, I can assert that it's a rather zen game, and definitely isn't the sort of thing I was thinking about as a design challenge while contemplating clouds. At least, one dimension of the design idea that was percolating through my head wasn't so much on the contemplative art game end of the spectrum (I'll get to the part that is at the end of this post).

You see, I just can't help but think about game design through the lens of learning, even when I'm thinking about a design idea that's purely intended to be a "non-educational" experience. As such, my mind went immediately to the water cycle, and of course to water usage on this planet. There are definitely already serious games out there that tackle the topic of the water cycle and water conservation (see for example Perfect World), but I'm not really thinking about a game that is overtly educational here so much as one that draws on our scientific understanding of how water works to create a game about clouds.

Speaking of a scientific understanding of how water works, while turning a corner in my run and contemplating this game idea, it struck me how little I truly understand about water and clouds. Sure, I know that evaporation takes place, followed by condensation, which eventually leads to precipitation, but beyond that I haven't the slightest clue about cloud behavior. I mean, I'm aware that cumulonimbus clouds are the big storm clouds that produce lots of rain (among other things), but I honestly have no idea what the other types of clouds are that produce rain, sleet, hail, snow, and other more unpleasant hybrids, and I definitely don't know how the different types of clouds form and interact with each other.

Basically, if I were going to make a game where you are a cloud (or perhaps a system of clouds), I would have a whole lot of homework to do. I might relish that opportunity, but I think I'd need a really good excuse (and probably some funding) to devote enough time to learn enough to make such a game. Having a good subject matter expert to partner with wouldn't hurt either.

I'm also pretty sure that in order to make the sort of game I would want to see happen I would need a pretty serious back end programmer to work with (quite apart from someone to help with the front end development to make it look pretty), because even a cursory look around the web has shown me that there are a whole lot of interesting systems that could be modeled in terms of density, pressure, and temperature (just to name a few), that could potentially make for some awesome mechanics with deep replayability.

Ultimately though, in looking up at those clouds I kept thinking about the aesthetics of clouds, and what sorts of performative acts one could grant a player in designing a game about clouds. In Mountain, the player arguably has no real agency as a mountain, and as a cloud there's very little agency that you can grant the player without seriously bending the rules. Of course, game design (especially in the arena of entertainment) is all about bending the rules to produce satisfying and meaningful play experiences. Towards that end, I would want the player to feel that cloud-like feeling...I would want the game to evoke some of the same mystery and wonder that we experience in our most childlike states when we gaze at the clouds giving names to the shapes they represent, or imagine jumping into them and landing on a soft pillowy surface, or are simply overwhelmed by the strange beauty of these untethered objects drifting in the sky.

All of these thoughts about the aesthetics of clouds ultimately led me to the notion that any game that adequately satisfies the objective of letting the player be a cloud includes a deeply existential theme. The most powerful experiences we have with clouds as humans are the moments in which they give themselves up in the form of precipitation, whether it be a gentle rainfall, a fierce thunderstorm, or a billowing blizzard. In any of these processes, clouds release the very water which gives them form and substance, returning it to groundlevel . If I were to design a game about being a cloud, it is this mechanic more than any other that I would want to get right. Whether the player travels, or grows, or merges, or blocks out the sun, or obscures a flight path, or delights a sentient being, or performs any of the other myriad actions one could potentially grant to a player controlled cloud, it is the act of letting oneself go and feeding back into the continuous cycle of water on the planet that seems to me to be the most essential part of cloud-ness, the aspect that I would want to let a player experience in a game where you are a cloud.