RPGnet Reviews
Shannon Appelcline
September 2004
USA

Cloud 9 comes with very high quality components:
• 1 game board
• 1 elevated hot air balloon basket
• 12 wooden player markers
• 76 cards
• 4 dice
• 1 rule book

Game Board: A small, 6-fold board that opens into a long, vertical playing surface. It's printed on sturdy, glossy cardboard that very smooth to the touch, and is overall colorful & attractive. The board has a scoring track along the edges and a balloon track that runs up the middle; each space on the balloon track clearly shows an individual cloud's value and how many dice must be rolled to ascend above it, making the game quite easy to play too.

Hot Air Balloon Basket: The coolest component in the game. This is a hard rubber, painted balloon basket, complete with six spaces within to hold up to six passengers. There are also two clear plastic struts which are hooked into the balloon basket's bottom and lift it up above the board during play. This is generally gorgeous and impressed everyone who saw it.

Wooden Player Markers: A cylindrical wooden scoring marker and a wooden passenger pawn, each in six different colors (red, green, orange, blue, yellow, and black).

Cards: These are all highly glossy cards of light to medium weight, each printed full color and cut with rounded corners. The majority are simply colored balloon cards (purple, green, yellow, or red), though there are also four wild cards. Each card features attractive John Kovalic artwork, though the 72 balloon cards all use the same piece, colored appropriately.

Dice: Four wooden dice, each printed with four balloon sides (red, yellow, green, or purple) and two blank sides. The balloons are printed on the surface on the die, without indentation, so there might be some concerns about them holding up to wear.

Rule book: A glossy four-fold rule sheet, printed full color on card stock. It was easy to follow and very easy to reference during play.

Box & Tray: Cloud 9 comes in a medium-small box, just the right size for the components, and includes a tray which keeps the cards and other pieces in place.

Generally, Out of the Box Games has a reputation for producing simple games with very high quality components. This particular game exceeds even their normal high standards for component quality. I'd be tempted to call it overproduced if the price weren't so very reasonable. You clearly get much more in the way of components that you'd expect, and it's all very attractive and usable. My one complaint is that I wish the cards were sturdier, but nonetheless, the game earns a very solid "5" out of "5" for Style.

The Game Play

The object of Cloud 9 is to earn the most points through daring balloon ascents.

Setup: Each player is dealt an initial hand of six cards (each of which features one of the four balloon colors, or else is a wild card).

Each player places their scoring marker at the start of the scoring track and places their passenger marker in the balloon basket, which is placed over the first cloud.

A first player is randomly selected.

Raising the Balloon: Each turn the basket starts out over a cloud. The cloud is labeled with a point value (from "1" to "25") and with a number of dice (from 2 to 4). The active player is the pilot and throws that number of dice.

Each die shows either one of the four balloon colors or else a blank side. Together they show the sum of cards that the active player must play for the balloon to rise (e.g., "one red and one yellow").

After the dice are thrown, but before any cards are played, each player other than the pilot now gets to decide whether to bail out of the balloon or not; if they do, they place their passenger marker on the current cloud.

After everyone has decided, the pilot now must play the appropriate balloon cards if he has them. He also may play a wild card to replace all the required cards if he has that.

If the the pilot successfully plays the cards, the balloon rises to the next cloud, and the next passenger still in the basket becomes the new pilot. If the pilot fails, the balloon falls, tumbling back to cloud 1.

Special Rules for One Passenger: If a pilot is the last passenger in a balloon he may choose to bail out before the dice are rolled. This is the only situation when a pilot may bail out.

Ending an Ascent: An ascent ends either when the balloon rises to cloud 9 (worth 25 points) or when it plunges back down. At this point everyone earns a score.

• If the balloon ascended to the 25-point cloud (cloud 9), everyone still in the basket earns 25 points.
• If the balloon fell, everyone still in the basket earns 0 points.
• Anyone who bailed out early earns the points for the cloud they landed on.

Afterward, all the passengers return to the basket, which is placed on cloud 1, and everyone draws 1 card to add to their hand.

Ending the Game: The game ends at the completion of a balloon trip where someone earns a total of 50 or more points. The player with the highest score is the winner.

Relationships to Other Games

Cloud 9 is a simple game of card-counting and brinkmanship. I'm not aware of anything else very close to it on the market, though brinkmanship is a fairly common game play element that makes it into many of the tensest game designs.

This game was previously released in German in 1999 as Cloud Nine. It was substantially the same game, except with four extra cards which let you pass on being the pilot if played. The components in the German edition weren't nearly as nice.

The Game Design

Cloud 9 is a pretty simple & casual game. Its game play centers around three main design elements:

1. Card Counting: Keeping track of which cards players are short on and how many they have left both contribute to your success in the game.
2. Brinkmanship: Beyond that, there's a lot of "press your luck" brinkmanship.
3. Some Strategy: Finally, there's some strategy concerning bailing out, centering on: how many points you'll get and where that puts you on the score board; and whether your closest opponents decide to bail or not.

There isn't much more to say about the design because it's fairly simple, but also fairly unflawed, and, more importantly, fun. Overall, the game play was slightly above average and so I'd give it a high "3" out of "5" for Substance, with the additional comment that the simple game play and the short game length went together just right.

Conclusion

Cloud 9 is a short and fairly simplistic game of brinkmanship and card counting, here beautifully produced by Out of the Box Games. The game play isn't particularly noteworthy, but it's clean, allows some strategy, and is just right for the game length. I think Cloud 9 is a fine game and I do recommend this as a simple filler, particularly if you're looking for something for a more casual audience.

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