Cloud

[Great Rumbler]

Cloud is an indie game created by some very intelligent people at USC. Instead of describing the game to you, which is difficult, I will instead provide you with some pictures:











Basically it's a series of demos where you move clouds around and perform various tasks. Of course that description does absolutely no justice to the game itself. It's free and the download is only 33MB. So get it.

That Cloud Game

Why can't more games be like this?

[A Black Falcon]

P4 2.8ghz, 1gb ram, good 64mb videocard, and windows xp? Yeah right...

[Dark Jaguar]

2.8 Ghz? That's too rich for my blood. I'm using 2 Ghz. I have every other stat it needs though.

[A Black Falcon]

Try it and see if it runs then... it certainly won't on my system. But processor speed (and ram) is usually an easier one to get under than video cards and operating systems...

[Dark Jaguar]

True dat. Okay I'll go for it.

[Great Rumbler]

My laptop has a 1.3GHZ processor, 512MB of RAM and no dedicated 3D card and it runs, although not particularly smoothly. It's playable though.

[A Black Falcon]

Really... I know that games don't usually enforce most of the 'minimum requirements', but 3d cards are one category where they usually do... I know I've played demos which said 'you need a better 3d card to play this game' but I don't remember ever playing one that said 'you need a faster cpu' or 'you need more RAM'.

Either way though, the OS is an insurmountable hurdle when you don't have it. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

My PC handles it just fine. I wonder by what means they arrived at those figures? Probably what such specs mean is "these are the minimum specs we have CONFIRMED the game will run smoothly at". That makes more sense.

<img src="http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/Really-Big-Word.jpg">

[A Black Falcon]

It would, because those are surprisingly high for a PC game... I mean, a game that says it needs a 2.8ghz cpu? Um... most retail games require, like, 1.5ghz...

[Dark Jaguar]

POLYSYLLABIC!

Biggest word = "surprisingly"

+12 to attack!

http://whatistng.ytmnd.com/

[Great Rumbler]

Really... I know that games don't usually enforce most of the 'minimum requirements', but 3d cards are one category where they usually do... I know I've played demos which said 'you need a better 3d card to play this game' but I don't remember ever playing one that said 'you need a faster cpu' or 'you need more RAM'.

ABF, my laptop has NO dedicated 3D card. It still runs though. Maybe you should just try it anyway? It would only take you like ten minutes.

[A Black Falcon]

I did, before making my first reply. My computer instantly froze and required a hard reboot.

[Great Rumbler]

Well, okay then.

[Dark Jaguar]

A seperate video card was not listed as a requirement, just one with that level of power. It matters not if it is it's own card or just integrated into the laptop.

[Great Rumbler]

If it's integrated into the laptop it means that it takes power away from other system processes...I THINK. Regardless, it's not a very powerful 3D card no matter how you look at it.

[A Black Falcon]

No, a distinction is usually made between integrated and seperate videocards, since the integrated ones are so much worse. My videocard is awful, but I bet that it's better (preformance-wise) than any integrated card ever made... (and mine's a 32mb geforce2 gts.) They say '64mb videocard' and then give an example, and it's not an integrated one.

[Dark Jaguar]

Laptop video "cards" are almost always integrated right into the system, though generally based on existing tech. Tell us GR, what video card do you have? Don't say "none", go into system properties and the hardware manager. If you truly didn't have any video card, you couldn't see anything.

Laptop integrated cards are REALLY above the curve set by desktop integrated. My mother happens to have a GEForce 4 integrated into her laptop.


As for the drawing of processing power from the main CPU, that is sometimes very true, and soemtimes not so much. It's certainly been the case with all the desktops I've used. However, my mother's laptop doesn't seem to suffer from that, so I take it they integrated a seperate GPU. They would sort of have to considering the architecture of the thing though.... But anyway, point is neither of the things you two mentioned are constants.

[Great Rumbler]

My videocard: Intel Extreme Graphics 2 for Mobile

It's not very good.

[A Black Falcon]

Intel Extreme Graphics... I've heard of those... ouch... I may hate my videocard, but I am lucky that I actually HAVE one! Those things are complete garbage for anything beyond spreadsheets.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well that settles it I suppose. What, is that sort of video cared limited to decent 2D and nothing more?

And yet, you can play this game?

I take it those minimum specs are pure garbage?

Well, I only popped into the game for a few seconds (was in a hurry), but from what little I saw, it's not exactly a visually demanding game. I was expecting the bulk of the game's requirements to deal with isometric fogging or some such thing. I dunno, I really should play it again later.

[A Black Falcon]

Not all of them... given what it did on my PC, the Windows XP part at least looks like it's probably accurate.

[Dark Jaguar]

And so I'm wondering, exactly what am I supposed to do here? Just fly through the clouds? I mean, that's nice and relaxing and all, especially with that great music, but...

Point is, wasn't I supposed to be able to move the clouds? They tell me how to move, move the camera, and that's it. I went towards the nearest cloud, and it was neat, but after flying past it it tells me to "slow down" so it can follow me. I did, I moved away from it as slowly as possible. The clouds don't seem to do much of anything except float in place.

[Great Rumbler]

There's a certain cloud that's brighter than the other ones. You use that one to pick up other clouds.

[Dark Jaguar]

I know, I was messing with it forever. How do I "use" it? There doesn't seem to be any real way of interacting. The clouds are completely static. Are they supposed to, I dunno, distort about as you move through them? That's not happening. Are they supposed to "befriend" you and follow you around? That's not happening either. Am I supposed to interact using some button to "befriendinate" them? I can safely say if that's the case, the instructions have given me no indication of this. Further, NOTHING in this world seems solid except the ocean. I flew THROUGH the islands down below, once I accidently figured out how to adjust my height, and that was a bit of a wake up call.

[Great Rumbler]

Okay, here's what you do: Go to the one extremely bright cloud in the sky. When you get to it press and hold down the left button on your mouse, this will cause the cloud to follow you. Move slowly towards other cloud and when you are close enough to them they will come to you and follow you. In levels 2,3, and 4 there are objectives to accomplish, you use the clouds that are following you to accomplish these goals.

[Dark Jaguar]

Now I really wish they had told me as much. They just highlighted the left mouse button with no rhyme or reason when I wasn't even by a cloud, and pressing it just seemed to zoom out the camera.

[Smoke]

I've played the game. Nice tech demo, but they forgot the fun.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah... Sure the puzzles are cute, and both the music and the artwork are pretty amazing. Too bad the actual gameplay is pretty boring...

Also it's really not even that much of a tech demo. The graphics aren't all that incredible. The cloud physics are nice, but nothing that hasn't been done before (just not with clouds).

[Great Rumbler]

Cloud isn't about "fun", it's about a calm, soothing experience.

[Dark Jaguar]

Right, whatever... All I know is flying around a bunch of clouds gets boring pretty fast. Sure it was fun at first, but eventually, there's just nothing more to do. Now, sailing in Link's ship, that didn't get old for a long time. There was a lot more to do though, and a lot more going on.

This world FEELS like a program. It feels like a hollow shell, which it is. I'm sorry, but I can relax a lot easier by doing nothing at all if I should feel like it. Sitting up in a wooden chair moving a mouse around doesn't figure into "soothing" for me.

[Smoke]

Cloud isn't about "fun", it's about a calm, soothing experience.

I can get that from downtempo music.

[Dark Jaguar]

Down tempo means the song is constantly slowing down right?

[Great Rumbler]

:shake:

[A Black Falcon]

Don't ask me...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well yeesh I don't know. I've heard it many times and I think I know what the phrase means, but I wanted confirmation.