Cloud

Cloud, a single-player video game for Microsoft Windows, centers on a boy who dreams of flying through the sky while asleep in a hospital bed. The player assumes control of the sleeping boy's avatar—the projection of the boy into his dream world—and guides him through his dream of a small group of islands with a light gathering of clouds. The avatar's direction and speed are controlled with a mouse; movement is generally on a horizontal plane, but vertical flight can be attained by holding down the third button of the mouse. The player may interact with clouds only while flying horizontally.

The game contains three types of clouds: white clouds, which follow the avatar; gray, neutral clouds, which become white when touched; and black clouds, which may be combined with white clouds to cause rain, dissolving both clouds. A large number of white clouds more easily dissolves a small number of dark clouds than an equal number, and vice versa. White clouds stop following the avatar if the player moves too quickly and they resume following if approached again. Each of the four missions in Cloud has a different objective, including forming patterns in the sky with clouds, eliminating black clouds, and creating rain over each of the islands.

Cloud was designed and released in 2005 by a team of seven students in the Interactive Media master's degree program at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. The game was made as a funded research project in the USC Game Innovation Lab. Development began in January 2005 and the game was released in late October, receiving its final update in December. The group was headed by Jenova Chen and included Stephen Dinehart, Erik Nelson, Aaron Meyers, Glenn Song, composer Vincent Diamante, producer Kellee Santiago and advisor Tracy Fullerton, director of the Game Innovation Lab. The game won the 2005 Game Innovation Grant of $20,000 from the lab, which was intended to support the production of experimental games.

Chen had the first idea for the game; while walking to school one day he looked up at the sky, noticing the difference between the fluffy clouds there and the "polluted and gray" clouds of Shanghai where he was born, and thought about making a game about clouds. It was given a story to "create the premise and help player to be emotionally invested"; however, the team avoided making the story too strong, as it would "distract the player from the core experience" of flying freely and shaping clouds. In the early stages of development, the game had an involved backstory about an alien who attempts to clean up the environment. The group's managing professor, however, challenged them to have a child as the protagonist rather than an alien or mad scientist, to which Chen, who needed the funding to continue at school, quickly agreed.

Cloud won the Best Student Philosophy award for artistic achievement at the Slamdance Guerrilla Games Competition and a Student Showcase award at the Independent Games Festival. It was featured on Spike TV, G4TV, and CBS Sunday. The game immediately received a great deal of attention when it was released; site traffic overran the server that hosted the website, and then crashed those of the school. By February 2006, just over three months after the game's release, the website had been viewed over one million times and the game downloaded over 300,000 times. By July 2006, it had reached six million visits and 600,000 downloads.

The game received positive reviews from critics. Joel Durham, Jr. of GameSpy claimed that "everything about Cloud is simply jaw-dropping", and cited its music, visuals, and sensation of flying as high points. William Usher of Game Tunnel also praised the visuals and audio: he believed that its graphics created a relaxing atmosphere, and that the "touching musical score" would emotionally move any player.