Pretty apocalypse puzzler Cloud Gardens is outgrowing early access
Full launch is coming on September 1
Urban decay and environment puzzler Cloud Gardens emerged in early access last September and has now announced that it's blooming into full release nearly a year to the day later. These little post-apocalyptic dioramas have levels with challenges for you to complete campaign style and a creative mode for sandbox building creations. After spending a year tweaking features, the developers have announced it will be leaving early access on September 1 with an update bringing 15 new levels, 120 new objects, and lot more.
If you've enjoyed building toy Townscaper, or perhaps landscape puzzler Dorfromantik, Cloud Gardens seems to fall somewhere evenly between the two. Developers Noio of Kingdom: New Lands fame, call it "partly a gardening simulator, partly a dystopian landscape builder, and partly a puzzle game."
You can catch a bit of all that in the new launch trailer up above. You can build industrial creations like stacks of shipping crates overrun with ivy or work your way across a series of campaign-like puzzles that have you use rain and tools to cultivate the environment until it's been sufficiently green-ified.
Between that and the extremely calm soundtrack, it seems like a very swell, calm time. I don't know if everyone's agreed on a name for these toy-like sandbox building joints just yet, but I'm well up for more of them, especially when they come with a little hint of puzzling.
On its official launch day, Noio say that Cloud Gardens will be getting a pretty substantial update bringing a "branching overworld map, weaving together all of the existing areas and adding more than 15 new levels, plus a whole load of extras in the Creative Mode: 120+ new items, custom skyboxes, freecam mode and tonnes of quality-of-life improvements."
If you're growing an interest in these puzzle-y builders too, you can find Cloud Gardens over on Steam and Itch for £11.39/$14.99. It will also be launching on the Xbox boxes on September 1.