David’s 30 Platinum Trophies Before Turning 30

9/30

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: As close to perfection as one can get.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5: Excellence incarnate.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Amazing experience.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5: Good game.
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Fun enough to be worth your time.
⭐️⭐️.5: Missed the mark in a considerable amount of elements.
⭐️⭐️: A trudge towards progress/completion.
⭐️.5: A great deal of regrets playing this.
⭐️: Truly disappointing.
.5: Kudos to anyone with a shred of bother.

The above rating descriptions pertain strictly to the overall rating after taking into consideration the elements below, for which I’ll still employ a five-point rating to get an average afterwards.

Graphics: 4.5 - One can see the meticulous detail put into building this game’s voxel cyberpunk dystopia. Neon blue everywhere, and reminiscent of Blade Runner and the very obvious Cyberpunk 2077.

Gameplay: 3 - Driving around to see the world is fun, just make sure to progress far enough to get vehicle upgrades that’ll make you more appreciative of doing so. Running around, however, isn’t as much. I think the ability to switch between first person, third person, and a side scroller perspective is great, but it also made it feel like I was running oddly when I was in third person mode. It didn’t help that navigating on foot felt like purposely made to be a chore, with convoluted paths which otherwise could have easily been a quick trip. Taking in the sights does make up for it, though.

Audio: 3 - Not much by way of soundtrack; the few that were there did complement your futuristic adventures. Voiceover was admirable, save for a few characters that sounded like they didn’t know they were recording dialogues, especially your character, who felt flat for a good amount of time in the beginning, but in my opinion, redeemed herself for the majority of the story.

Replay Value: 2.5 - Side quests had a lot of potential, but I’m delighted that there was a bit of variety. Making a decision to progress forward didn’t really have heavy implications, but it does add some replay value.

Story: 3 - The main plot felt disjointed. The themes and ideas were there, but it just didn’t seem to click together towards the end, which was quite unfortunate since there were the expected existential and philosophical questions inherent to science fiction that demanded more exploration. The missions that progress the story all felt like their own side quests.

Overall: 3.2 - It truly did feel like the sky high ambitions were there, but the execution was not as punk as was hoped for.

interesting, had potential with being a blue collar worker in an ultra cyberpunk setting, maybe have you still do deliveries even while the city turns into a warzone or something and find better routes to avoid getting blown up by a driving straight into a stray rpg

but ultimately its a boring game that is doing deliveries for (mostly) shitty people while listening to the main character for all of it (who is also a shitty person) while getting riveting social commentary like "bigotry against cyborgs (trans people) is wrong!" and "corporations done care about anyone or anything but money" really!? I thought about that, oh do go on!

The Strand Genre returns!

Really liked Cloudpunk, definitely the best Cyberpunk game I played in the past two months. Yeah, it's a bit thin on gameplay, but existing in the world, taking in the sights of the city, and going through the various stories was a satisfying time. Not every story was a winner, sometimes the voice acting wasn't great, but on the whole I enjoyed myself and thought it was a good package. My biggest gripe is that I only need to find one or two locations on the map to get the platinum trophy and I have no idea what I'm missing, so that's frustrating... gonna take a ton of aimless flying to get that and I don't care to do that right now.

Cloudpunk is my second introduction to games with cyberpunk themes, and I have to say it didn't disappoint. The cyberpunk genre is new to me, and I am slowly beginning to fall in love with it. I quite enjoyed playing this game. I especially enjoyed roaming the city while playing my favorite music and looking around the stunning Nivalis. It really was just a wonderful vibe. When I'm not doing that, I will do the missions to hear the dialog between the Renia, Camus, and Control. especially Camus. I liked the characters you meet during the side quest, some are wacky and funny, some are annoying, and some are serious. The voice actors weren't perfect by any means, but they were good for me.
Some negatives I want to share. The character Design is not good at all, but to be fair, their portrait design looks great. The music could batter, and I honestly just wished for a radio function in the game.
I recommend it, it's a great game.

+ Unique voxel-based environment.
+ Feels expansive and populated, even though it relies on copied assets.
+ Very well-designed mood - really makes you feel like you're in this massive depressing city, especially when played in first person.
- Sadly not very long, leaves you wanting for more.

Definitely can recommend this one.

CORA is everything and all of us. CORA is the provider and the caretaker and the disciplinarian. CORA holds out a closed fist, and we must push out our chin.

Stylized like everything is a thick pixel except for the void below and the heavy sky above, the nightlife of Nivalis shines through. I did not think for a second that I would connect with this game the way I did. I thought that with most Cyberpunk games, the rich shallowness of the world would take you in but instead I drove for the first time and was met with the voice acting of a very solemn man, who only grew more disdainful as the game progressed. Each new character showing how brutalized they have been by Nivalis. The overworld is barren of activities for the most part, it's there just to show itself off. It's while the main character, Rania, is driving through this showoff of a city that you find her story and you begin to resent Nivalis too.

the vibes and storytelling sustained my interest in this one all the way through, which is rare, but even rarer for a game that i would still describe as not being particularly well written or voiced. story and writing are different things, though, and the story was compelling, and the game felt good to play, limited as it is mechanically. i didn't want to write a thing with caveats, i had a ton more thoughts about this game a week ago when i finished it, but i dragged out on it, so i feel myself bailing out now. this is a worthy little game, though

Cloudpunk toma una decisión que me parece acertadísima para un juego ambientado en una ciudad cyberpunk: nos pone en el control de una repartidora de paquetes (además, inmigrante). Eso nos permite ver la ciudad desde todas sus capas, a medida que vamos arriba y abajo, conocer sus gentes y experimentar sus vidas. Creo que hace muy buen trabajo a la hora de representar injusticias presentes y futuras relacionadas con las tecnologías, pero me hubiera gustado que se hubiera contentado con este constumbrismo, ya que no termina de convencerme el rumbo que toma con su historia hacia al final.

a lot to love here, the mysteries spun throughout are enough to keep one poking at the nooks and crannies of Nivalis until the game's end, but the lo-fi presentation may be too much for many. the blocky environments are fantastic, it looks really stylish and they really went hard on weather effects, particles etc. to great effect. however, the roblox action figure characters are difficult to appreciate. unfortunately, the narrative choices don't have weighty consequences and the main story thread comes to a fairly abrupt end without much of a build up, the side stories and characters are far more memorable. many systems introduced do nothing (i don't think the buff items did anything at all).

i think a dystopian story where moral choices have near-zero consequence could be an interesting artistic decision but here it feels like limitation somewhere. it's feels great to drive the HOVA around and enjoy the vibe but that won't be enough for most people.

i heard some bad stuff about this game but i decided to play it thinking it wouldnt be bad and very shortly after i hear "playing or enjoying jazz is punishible by death you need a permit"
this game is bad
no subtlety its really fucking boring the game plays like shit the driving sucks and the voxel artstyle sucks, voxels already are mostly pretty bad but everything in the game being a different resolution is just insane
the story has nothing to say it is painfully uninteresting the game has nothing to say it is cyberpunk slop it sucks
but its not ALL bad
the detective was pretty cool, the protagonist was nice, and her interactions with control and the dog were pretty good, and the story goes to some decent places ocasionally
but ultimately cloudpunk is painfully uninteresting, and the gameplay is awful, the art is bad, and its city is empty
i had more structured criticisms some time earlier but my brain has melted away from clawing my way to the finish line of this game im tired

sorry for the negativity as i said its not all bad but its still bad
this game sucks dont play it

I actually like this game a lot, the writing is awesome, the visual elements are fun and there is a lot of good around this game. The only issue is that the main centric gameplay (the driving) is just okay. It's not bad or overtly good, its just not amazing or super well made. I like the game for its storytelling but there is not much else to it as it is incredibly rail-following. It's pretty fun for a few hours, but there is a reason I couldn't pick it back up.

I'll probably return in the future to finish it out.

You play as Rania a newcomer to Nivalis and new employee of cloudpunk. You spend the entire game making deliveries and engaging in brief conversations with a variety of citizens. These conversations illuminate much of the dystopia that has befallen Nivalis.
The delivery company you work for isn’t exactly on the up and up and works with some unscrupulous clients. At certain points you can make choices that affect differing outcomes as the story plays out.
The story is something of a slow burn and takes a while to get going as you complete a lot of deliveries around the city.
Nivalis is vast but mostly empty and I wish there had been more on offer outside the main path instead of a time consuming collectathon as a substitute for a decent sidequest. The story as mentioned took a while to get going and then it came to end rather abruptly once you’d started to get to know people.
The driving is mostly fine but can be clunky with upgrades being a necessity. The computer controlled drivers on the other hand will just smash into you particularly when you load into a new area which is annoying as you eventually have to pay for repairs when you take too much damage.
Worth a punt if you like cyberpunk noir type stories.

My initial thoughts of this game were that it was going to be a drag to finish. Yes, Cloudpunk does feel slow most of the time, especially when the story moves extremely slowly in the first half of the game. However, certain elements such as the visuals and soundtracks did neutralize some of that wearisome moments of the gameplay.

Speaking of the gameplay, it was repetitive to have to either drive/walk throughout the entire game. Understandably, this is an indie game after all but I feel the gameplay and mission elements could've been more varied because it was dull to have to do the same thing over and over again with a mix of some dialogues every now and then which I couldn't really be bothered to listen to at times especially if it didn't concern the plot.

The plot itself was never appealing enough. Yes, there were some good moments here and there specifically Huxley's story arc which I thought was the most engaging one out of the lot. But overall, the story just felt mundane most of the times and it was only at the end when I felt some form of feelings towards whatever was happening, which was a shame.

Moving on to the positives, obviously, the graphics/visuals is the magnum opus of this title and it is easy to see why. The voxel art concept alongside the neon-dystopian scenery is a great combination that worked effectively well here. The atmosphere and overall ambiance of the game were what made this game work and playable, as the story wasn't all too engaging, especially in the 3/4 of the game.

Voice acting was right I guess, some of the acting was obnoxious and I didn't bother focusing on what they were talking about. It didn't help that you're forced to stand still and not move around when a dialogue is taking place, and to make it worse, it's not effective since this game uses a voxel art style, making it difficult to animate the characters that they are completely voided of emotions and movements which just make the overall interaction awkward and clunky.

Overall, definitely some good, decent and bad things to be said about this game, took me about 10 hours and I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed every single hour I played this game as some of those hours felt like a chore for me to complete this game. What the developers could've done to counterbalance those draggy sections is to have either shortened the story or revamp the gameplay altogether.

El mundo del cloudpunk es absolutamente precioso. La estética de Nivalis no tiene rival. Es sin duda alguna lo que más me llamó la atención del título y lo que más he disfrutado. No es casualidad que decidiera usar este juego para estrenar mi nuevo monitor. Sin embargo, creo que el resto del juego no está tan a la altura de su apartado artístico. El guión se siente algo disperso, como si cada parte remara en direcciones diferentes, dando un resultado no tan gratificante como su presentación.

Desde un principio cloudpunk te deja claro que tiene un gran énfasis narrativo. Recorrer los diferentes distritos repartiendo paquetes, no es más que una excusa para hacerte conocer como funciona la ciudad y los habitantes que la pueblan. Y ese worldbuilding está muy logrado. Como buen cyberpunk pivota alrededor de los temas que definen este género , viendo así como nivalis es en una ciudad dominada por megacorporaciones y con un sistema capitalista de su lado más salvaje, todo eso con ayuda de un hiper avance de la tecnología y la inteligencia artificial . Esto crea lo que todos podemos imaginar, una ciudad donde los pobres sufren y los ricos viven a costa de ellos, utilizando dicha tecnología para mejorar su vida en detrimento de los otros. Y no solo lo cuenta con su narrativa , si no que con el diseño de su ciudad lo representa de forma indirecta, con pequeños detalles que me gustan mucho. Entre esos detalles , me gusta el hecho de que tras impactar contra otro vehículo no hagan siquiera amago de detenerse, si no que continúan imperturbables. Es una genial forma de representar el acelerado ritmo de vida de nivalis.

Ahora bien, creo que su guión no aprovecha correctamente esa buena construcción de mundo. Hay partes verdaderamente interesantes que desarrollan bien los temas de juego, y otras que no son tan capaces y se acaban haciendo algo aburridas. Tengo la sensación que su guión no se siente bien cohesionado, y cada misión quiere tratar una cosa por cuenta propia, creando un resultado final algo regular. Aun así me gustan los personajes principales de la historia, les acabas cogiendo cariño.

Jugablemente, es simple y satisfactorio. Conducir el Hova por la ciudad se siente relajante y gratificante, muy acorde al funcionamiento del título, ya que el gameplay no es su mayor atractivo. Sin embargo creo que su estructura de mapa medio abierto depende demasiado del mapa e iconos en este para orientarte. Me hubiera gustado que se sintiera más orgánico moverse por su mundo y descubrir lo que tiene para ofrecer.

Me dejo para el final una de mis cosas favoritas y es su apartado artístico. Ejecuta la estética cyberpunk de forma excelente, con una elección de colores genial , dándoles su propio toque y personalidad haciendo que todas las texturas del juego estén en voxel.

En definitiva, cloudpunk está bastante bien. Es un caramelito para los ojos y moverse con el Hova por su mundo se hace agradable. Solo echo de menos un guión muchísimo más solvente y que aprovechara todos los fuertes de nivalis.