Clouzy Review

Clouzy is a relaxing, combat-free adventure game with the added gimmick of caring for little clouds. I think the developers themselves admitted that Slime Rancher was a major inspiration for this game, though Clouzy is very scaled back in comparison. The structure of the game is fun, though, where you have a small world to explore and a home base to raise clouds in. Parts of the world are off limits until you complete a puzzle elsewhere, and resources can be gathered throughout that go towards making items and food dishes for your clouds. In theory, this should work just fine. In actuality, Clouzy makes some truly awful design decisions.

This is another case where it wouldn’t take much to “fix” the game, but what’s broken is broken. First, the game is way too vague. I always appreciate when games lay off the hand holding, but this is taken to the extreme. I shouldn’t have to fumble for ten minutes trying to figure out how to turn in a quest item. I was about ready to quit at one point, because I had a sick cloud and no clue how to make medicine for it. The list of recipes didn’t have labels on anything, so I just started crafting everything I could until other useful recipes started to unlock. But after this crafting spree, I was left with a bunch of junk that I had nowhere to put.

And that’s the second design mistake that Clouzy makes. Inventory management is a pain… in… the… ass. You can only hold five items on you at a time, and you cannot drop items willy-nilly. You can only put them in a chest or discard them in a trash can. But your starter chest only has five slots, too! You have to earn money to be able to upgrade the chest. You can also buy a backpack, which increases what you can carry on you. However, the backpack is a separate UI from the main five items you’re carrying. Why did they over-complicate this?! It ruins any fun you might have running around the world, because you’re never sure what you should pick up and put in your extremely limited inventory. I just can’t understand hindering your players like this.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.