Has anyone played this yet? Shall we start a ball rolling on any reviews or discussions, that you may wish to share?
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I played it. I dont know if I am right but I feel as if CoG games are getting shorter. And I didnt like how my character was such a whore…there wasnt any way to prevent that and it bothered me.I felt like there were very little twists.
I want more games like CoBroadsides.
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Was it really that short because i’m going to buy it but Wanna know if its worth it (cuz i’m not gonna wazte money)
It felt short to me. but I may be insane
It’s not really worth the money. I have NO issue with paying money for COGs. However, this game wasn’t just short. Short is okay. Starship Captain was short BUT felt complete and mostly developed. This game is woefully underdeveloped. It’s rushed. Scenes are glanced over and the actual City only gets a few short, undeveloped scenes. The sexuality in the game is immature and laughable. When the ending came I sort of blinked because it came so suddenly, and I didnt realize it was the end until I saw the “play again” button. There are certain things your character can do (steal something from the museum, buy malaria pills) that end up not even being mentioned again. Also, you can choose your secret weapon and fear…and it is never mentioned again. Maybe this was supposed to be a longer game but was rushed out the door. Also, the tone shifts wildly. One moment the narrator cracks jokes about my whip and sado-masochist lovers and the next it’s allowing me to chop a man’s foot off only to leave him to die.
I really hope this isn’t a trend with COGs. I’m not trying to be difficult, but my feelings towards this are very negative. I love supporting COG, but I’m not going to throw money at a half-baked product. I’m probably going to wait from now on for reviews before I buy another COG title.
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I too have no problem spending money on their games, but the games were better when they were free. Romance, Intriges, Vampire, Broadside, and Dragon were all free and they were long and whole. Heroes rise was fun for money. Space captain felt short. But City of the clouds wasnt worth the money to me.
@Farside I agree with you
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One note on the “shortness” of City of the Clouds – when I went through it in beta, I felt that it was definitely built for replays, with a higher-than-average amount of variety in the side choices. Like many such games (e.g. Choice of the Dragon) each individual playthrough is pretty short, but you find relatively more new stuff on repeat gameplay.
By contrast, Heroes Rise felt wonderfully, luxuriously long on my first playthrough… but on replays, I quickly realized this was because it had a lot of fake_choices, and that the actual text I read through wasn’t going to vary as much as seemed possible. I still thought Heroes Rise was terrific, but many others have complained about the “railroading” feel.
@Farside, is it possible that some of the things that you complain about not being mentioned again actually were relevant to some of the future paths but not others? It’s been a while since I played it, but I feel like there were actually consequences to stealing from the museum in some of the later storylines, depending on your choices… and I also seem to remember catching malaria and dying on one failed attempt to escape the City.
Seems a lot of the games outside of their core author team don’t tend to represent what we’ve come to expect. I’ve not bought a game since CoZ, purely because the latest ones just haven’t appealed to me… 
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The writing in the game was pretty good, but I have to agree with @Antitorpiliko and @Farside. The game was just too short and it felt underdeveloped. I expected to spend a lot more time in the lost city since that was the focus of the game and was incredibly surprised when the game came to end shortly after.
I’m not sure if I could get more out of a second play-through like @Havenstone suggests because unlike most CoG games, I really didn’t have any desire to play To the City in the Clouds over again.
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Ima not gonna buy it now (i think)(or not?) no i’m not going to
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I’m not quite sure on the replay value. I found three endings:semi-success, great success, and the curse of the mask you can steal. I did like that whether you lost your camera and GPS factored into how successful of an ending you got, but those actually feel like the only two things that mattered to the ending now that I think about it. There’s a lot of dead ends, too, but those aren’t really endings.
The prose itself was clean and concise. Again, though, it felt like it couldn’t decide what mood it was trying to evoke. The chicken is hilarious, especially if this was completely a fun romp, but it uneasily exists besides very grim and dark elements. Hilarity and darkness can be combined in one story, but in this case it feels like they exist in two different games.
I feel as if the game is missing a lot of the craft, care and love of past COG games. Even Heroes Rise, although not perfect, was clearly a labor of love.
It could be. I suppose I’m merely a bit disappointed and venting. It’s not a bad game at all.
It had the potential to be a decent piece, were it not for the fact that it was wanting for detail, poorly-structured, prone to introducing plot points with unprecedented suddenness, similarly prone to introducing strange tangential decisions, had the consequences of a decision either absent or divorced completely from the decision itself, constantly forcing one to adopt a persona one has neither the desire to possess nor empathy for, a too-blunt ending, and a pervading theme of vulgar sexuality.
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I agree with basically everything @Drazen said. As well as some rather bizarre connections made to things that never crossed my mind, such as how having a whip makes my character into S&M, or the only reason my character can have black hair is if they dyed it to fit in with the locals (which really stood out as odd when I was imagining my character as a non-white ethnicity, though white people can have naturally black hair too).
Over all, I’m kind of disappointed with this one, especially since the adventurer archaeologist genre is one of my favorites. If this had been better written and focused on a more serious, consistent tone, I would have loved to see it as a full series.
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Concept-Good
Length-To short
Romance-Not very good
Price-To expensive
I’m not trying to sound improper, just giving my opinion.
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I only played the demo, but I thought the silly sexual content was actually rather amusing. Not everything has to be serious you know. It always annoys me how people are so much more accepting of violence than sex. It’s a shame the game doesn’t seem like it’s worth buying though.
Thank you all for posting in thread. I’ve played the demo, but there is something lacking… that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The elements, however, were interesting and educational to boot, in the field of archeology, which I’m certainly new to. I appreciate knowing what more people thought of the game.
@Shoelip
I love romance in my games! I think a good portion of COG gamers do to. Just look at “Affairs of the court” which ranks as one of their most successful games amongst the in-house bunch.
I didn’t have much of a problem with the silly sexual content, as it didn’t run counter to the character I was trying to make. If the sexual content was something your character could choose, it’d be really fun, but it was sort of forced on you no matter what character you were playing. Also, my gripe is that the game flip-flops between dark violence and the threat of violence and then tries to play itself as a silly romp. It never quite reconciles those themes. For a lot of the game your enemy is FARC, which adds a bit more darkness than a light-hearted adventure with mummies in a tomb (which I think is what the game was trying to get at with its jokes and the chicken).
Also, I was disappointed that the fling with the student archaeologist was relegated to two scenes with no development. I’m not asking for a romance, but if you’re going to introduce something like that, give it development or cut it out. Of course, a lot of things don’t get much development in the game, including the City of the Clouds (which is the title of the work).
Thanks for the reviews, I was wondering about those issues myself. The black hair thing, the alcoholic thing and the overall blunt shortness (akin to the starship captain one) really put me off but it’s interesting to see that the consensus has agreed on the shortness. Not really surprised about the sex either.
@Antitorpiliko I kind of agree, maybe COG are prioritizing giving authors an opportunity to write stories, but I do agree they could do more with quality control? Or I don’t know, just shift the story to the free section. I don’t mind short stories but they’d have to be of superb quality to justify a purchase. On the other hand I half expect some people will enjoy them so different strokes etc.
I think the concept itself has so much potential. I am thrilled when I see there is a CoG based on a real life setting finally, and buy immediately without reading any reviews.
I enjoyed the first part a lot: the customization of character, the preparation etc, which I expect to have profound effect on the later adventure, like it does in CoB and CoD… but turns out it does not. Maybe it will take me a few more replays, but I cannot work out the consequences of many traits my character have.
Another let-down is the connection between scenes, which does not really exist. The character feels like darting from one place to another without the process in between. I am expecting some more perils on the way, so I am quite shocked when I arrive at the temple without much efforts.
This game is not bad, but it is disappointing to see so much potential wasted.
The concept was very good, and I enjoyed some of the humour, however, many choices you make throughout the game have no effect, and just as I was getting into the game it suddenly ended.