Cloud Gardens

How a Cloud Gardens diorama comes together

Cloud Gardens hands you a small 3D scene of concrete, rust and abandoned objects, and asks you to let nature take it back. You plant seeds, place discarded objects from a large catalogue, and watch foliage creep over them.

The twist is that objects encourage growth. Adding manufactured things helps plants spread, but in campaign mode every object must be covered in foliage before you can move on. The developer, Noio, says the game sits somewhere between a sandbox toy and a puzzle game, and that it aims to be satisfying without frustration.

Each scene is compact, which makes it easy to finish one in a short sitting.

The scenes themselves have a particular mood. The developer describes lo-fi scenes of urban decay and manufactured landscapes, which you slowly soften with green. It is a quietly hopeful idea: nothing is destroyed, only overgrown.

Sandbox mode for evenings with no goals at all

Alongside the campaign, Cloud Gardens has a sandbox mode that the developer describes as having no goals. You unlock a large catalogue of objects and plant life and simply build. For the end of the day this is often the better choice, because nothing asks you to finish.

Sound is a big part of the mood. Nintendo UK's listing mentions generative soundscapes by Amos Roddy, so the music shifts as you play rather than looping a single track.

The game does not explicitly state whether any campaign scenes involve timing, so we have not ticked the no-timers flag. In practice the documented design is about placement and patience, not speed.

Because the scenes are small and self-contained, Cloud Gardens also suits a laptop or handheld in bed, as long as you keep the brightness down. If you tend to play past your intended bedtime, finishing a single scene gives you a clear moment to stop, which is one of the habits we suggest in our wind-down routine guide.

Sharing and community in Cloud Gardens

When you finish a scene, you can save a looping video of it and share it if you wish. The developer also runs a Discord community. Both are entirely optional, and there is no in-game social feed or chat.

That makes Cloud Gardens a tidy fit for screen-light evenings. It is a single-player game with no accounts to manage and no events to keep up with.

If you like the idea of small creative spaces, Townscaper offers a similar goal-free feel with buildings instead of plants.

There is no account to create, no daily bonus and no notifications to manage. Everything happens in the scene in front of you, which suits anyone trying to keep evening screen time simple.

If you do want to share, a finished diorama makes a pleasing little looping clip to send to a friend who likes plants. If not, nothing in the game asks you to.

Where to play Cloud Gardens in the UK

Cloud Gardens is listed on Steam for Windows and Mac, and on the Nintendo UK eShop for Nintendo Switch, published there by Coatsink Software and released on 16 June 2022. Nintendo UK rates it PEGI 3.

It is a one-off purchase with no in-game purchases listed. As with any digital store, prices vary, so check on the day.

It works well in short bursts. If you like games that are easy to put down, our ten-minute unwinds playlist gathers more of them.

Cloud Gardens is also a good bridge for people who enjoy real gardening or houseplants but have never played much. The ideas are familiar, the controls are mainly pointing and placing, and the developer's aim of a satisfying, frustration-free experience means a new player is unlikely to get stuck for long. Steam lists full controller support for those who prefer the sofa to a desk.