From Final Fantasy IX to Moebius and Treasure Planet: these are the artistic roots of the deckbuilder Cloudsphere
Blockbuster releases keep pushing technology forward with dazzling visuals and endless sliders, but the most surprising ideas often surface in smaller teams where art leads design. Cloudsphere, an upcoming indie deckbuilder, is one of those projects that wears its inspirations proudly while twisting the genre with a playful, skyfaring premise.
Where your ship is your deck
Cloudsphere is a roguelike deck-building game set in a world suspended among clouds and wreckage. Airships aren’t just transport—they’re homes, battlegrounds, and, crucially, your “deck.” Every component you bolt onto your vessel functions like a card: modules, weapons, engines, and systems become the tools you draw upon in battle. Run after run, you salvage parts from the shattered remains of Altul—a once-majestic leviathan city now strewn across the sky—piecing together a ship that suits your strategy before taking on pirates, sky monsters, and the world itself.
There’s a looming objective hanging over every expedition: coax a colossal beast toward the maelstrom at the world’s edge. How you configure your ship—what you strip, reinforce, or risk losing—defines not just your combat options but the story of your voyage. It’s a literal spin on “deck-building” that lets engineering decisions double as tactical choices.
Light hearts in a broken sky
Despite the apocalyptic backdrop, the tone leans cheerful and adventurous. The crew you guide is a band of drifting, oddball robots, more treasure-hunting tinkerers than doom-laden survivors. The fiction makes room for whimsy: patched sails and gleaming brass, mismatched hull plates, and ports bustling with raffish charm. The world invites you to chase scraps of wonder as often as you chase upgrades.
Artistic DNA: Moebius, Treasure Planet, Atlantis, and Final Fantasy IX
Cloudsphere’s look and feel pull from a rich, interlocking set of influences. There’s the romantic, seafaring sci‑fi of Treasure Planet and the pulp-adventuring mystique of Atlantis. Layered over that is the ethereal, airy sensibility often associated with Moebius: vast skyscapes, elegant silhouettes, and color palettes that feel simultaneously nostalgic and otherworldly. And from the realm of games, Final Fantasy IX’s soaring airships and love of whimsical world-building echo clearly in the project’s bones. Together, these inspirations create a universe that feels hand-illustrated yet robust, fantastical yet grounded in mechanical detail.
An art-first studio with a tinkerer’s soul
Laki Studio is led by CEO and founder Andrzej Wysocki, a concept artist by trade who assembled a team of specialists to pursue art-driven game design. The studio was formed six years ago with a simple mandate: craft original, visually striking games with the polish of big productions and the personal touch of passion projects. Cloudsphere reflects that ethos from the keel up—every bolt, strut, and sail seems designed to tell a story as much as to win a fight.
Building the perfect hull-hand
Cloudsphere’s structure plays like a series of risky scavenging runs. Drift through cloud-littered routes, pick through the ruins of Altul, and decide which finds to weld onto your ship. A new cannon might slot into your “hand” at the cost of energy demands; a reinforced frame could save your skin but slow your turn of speed. Encounters with pirates and leviathans stress-test your build, forcing difficult trade-offs and encouraging inventive combos that only emerge when a ship’s weird parts start to sing together.
Because your “cards” are physical ship modules, customization is both tactile and readable: you can see your strategy hanging off the hull. Failures become blueprints for the next run; victories push you deeper into the cloudfront, ever closer to that world-rim maelstrom and the high-stakes luring of an ancient giant.
Why this matters for deckbuilder fans
By treating the deck as a machine you can literally assemble, Cloudsphere bridges the satisfaction of crafting with the snap decisions of roguelike cardplay. It promises a different flavor of mastery: less about memorizing card pools and more about understanding how a living, creaking contraption behaves under pressure. Combined with a buoyant tone and striking art, it’s poised to stand out in a crowded genre.
Release window
Cloudsphere is targeting a PC launch in 2026.
