Cloudpunk, developed by Ion Lands, is a third person, story-based exploration game set in a future, dystopian city. It has a distinctive voxel art style that is both beautiful and distinct.

You control Rania, an out-of-work musician and recent migrant to the city of Nirvalis. Destitute and desperate, she signs up for Cloudpunk, a pseudo-legal company that delivers packages away from law enforcement’s often-corrupt eyes. Like the player, she knows how the world works but is new to Nirvalis, becoming a compelling point-of-view character.

The game takes place over a single long, rainy night shift. Most gameplay involves piloting Rania’s flying car, or “HOVA”, like the Delorean from the Back to the Future series. Occasionally you disembark and walk around the elevated streets, picking up or delivering packages and talking to other inhabitants. 

However, you get the most out of Cloudpunk by taking the time to explore. Nirvalis’s verticality can be disorienting, and the HOVA’s controls can take some getting used to. Wandering reveals NPCs with interesting stories or discarded items you can sell. You can even decorate your flat.

This premise is excellent. It allows Cloudpunk to start on seemingly random deliveries, drip-feeding details about the world and its various strata. Delivering parts to someone doing illegal street racing? Check. Delivering food to the impoverished? Check. Delivering a pizza to an executive? Check. You just need to follow the rules: never miss a delivery or ask what is in the package.

However, Rania quickly gains some agency. Do you deliver a ticking package to the recipient, knowing it could be a bomb? Do you return a replaced HOVA part to the garage or sell it? While no choice branches the story, there are consequences.

This premise also allows for telling longer and broader stories. You visit some characters multiple times, slowly revealing their tales. Can you help a detective solve a case? What about unearthing more about Nirvalis’s history?

Outside the plot, Cloudpunk‘s voxel graphics are disarming but expressive, reminiscent of Minecraft. Volumetric lighting and lens flare render life-like graphics. You only notice the blockiness close to individuals or HOVAs, giving Cloudpunk a unique charm.

The city of Nirvalis is beautiful, even when rendered in voxels. The streams of HOVAs act like the city’s arteries, providing a relaxing, constant buzz and stream of lights. The Bladerunner-like neon signs and periodic audio advertisements for virtual holidays and insurance against computer viruses help make the world consistent and believable.

Cloudpunk‘s synthwave soundtrack is atmospheric, on-point for the genre and sets the mood well, such as the more meditative pieces when driving, the pressure of an urgent delivery or a club’s upbeat, drum-heavy dance track. The track names read like cyberpunk staples, like “Neon Rain”, “Sleepless City”, and “A Million Different Faces”. One important track is different, though.

Cloudpunk keeps the mood in a deliberate balance. Like in many cyberpunk stories, they wanted Nirvalis to be distant enough from the modern day to be disarming but close enough to be relevant.

On the one hand, there is depressing, omnipresent exploitation and inequality. Rapid gentrification means rents can rise by the hour, evicting people instantaneously. The ruthless and efficient debt corps practically enslave without remorse, if needed. It is easy to despair at the environmental damage and the crumbling city.

On the other, there are many lighter moments. Advertisements warn about the unlicensed playing of jazz or retro computer games. Gang members build children’s playgrounds to be subversive. Vendors sell cherry pies with “real” cherries. You could not taste the difference, anyway. 

Canus, your AI canine assistant uploaded into your HOVA, also plays a vital role in setting the mood. Part researcher, part moral compass and isolation-busting companion, Canus’s naivety is endearing. The contrast with Rania’s world-weariness also subtly focuses the player’s attention on the moment’s moral quandary.

While full of cyberpunk tropes, it leverages them to reflect on important questions, not just as a lazy crutch. For example, how do we treat each other in a world where we value humans and intelligent AIs by their wealth? Can we learn to love those with whom we vehemently disagree? At its core, Cloudpunk is a game about heart. Nirvalis has never needed Rania, a Arabic name meaning queen, and her music more.

Cloudpunk takes about ten hours to finish, not outlasting its novelty. It will appeal to fans of the cyberpunk genre or those looking for something unusual, pensive and emotional.