CloudAge is a strategy game from Alexander Pfister and Arno Steinwender. The award-winning authors have created a dark and dystopian world for 1 to 4 players.
Fifteen years ago, the mysterious secret society "Cloud" set fire to countless oil production sites and burned down large forests to destabilize the world. The resulting environmental catastrophe had disastrous effects on the entire planet. Now, years later, you travel above the dried-out landscape in your airships, searching for a better life. You visit cities, send out drones to collect resources, and battle Cloud militia.
An innovative sleeving mechanism makes a new, more immersive, form of resource gathering possible. Players try to predict which cloud-covered terrain will contain the desired amount of resources or where additional actions are possible. Resources allow players to develop useful upgrades for their airships or attract new crew members.
CloudAge is a mix of engine-building, deck-building, and resource management. The campaign system makes it easy to start playing quickly, with new elements being introduced into the game as players progress through the chapters. While you play, you also experience and help guide the story. If you prefer, you can also play standalone story spin-offs as single scenarios.
—description from the publisher
- technology-driven exploration, collaboration, resource management
- Futuristic colonization and development on cloud-based habitats
- science fiction flavor with strategic depth
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- cooperative with optional competitive elements — Players cooperate in shared goals while pursuing individual objectives.
- engine building — Develop capabilities to improve your position on the cloud-habitat board.
- engine-building — Develop capabilities to improve your position on the cloud-habitat board.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's a very difficult game
- a fully cooperative game where you are trying to protect this island from invaders essentially
- each player plays as a different spirit who is protecting the island
- each spirit has their own thematic asymmetric card
- we vow to do more play-throughs of because we really enjoyed it
- it's a dry euro
- this is a big combo-tastic game
- chronicle Darwin's journeys throughout the Galapagos Islands
- it's a party style game where you're going to be drawing
- it's hilarious
- I'm terrible at it
- we played with the sisters and everybody had a really good time
- we definitely want to do another top 10 this month
- maracaibo this week
- we're going to release maracaibo this week
- we think cloud age is on its way