Cloud Kingdoms

Cloud Kingdoms (1990) is a colorful, momentum-driven arcade puzzle game that shares a fascinating, slightly tangled history regarding who actually built it. While the database at PriceCharting lists the developer as Electralyte, the game was actually developed by Logotron. It was designed and coded by the legendary British developer Dene Carter. Millennium Interactive acted as the primary publisher across the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS ports.
Despite many players remembering the character as "Plop," the official game manuals and documentation name the main hero Terry—a bouncy, round green ball.
The story follows Terry on a desperate chase against the villainous Baron von Bonsai, who has stolen Terry's prized collection of magic crystals and scattered them across 32 treacherous, high-altitude floating islands known as the Cloud Kingdoms. Cloud Kingdoms looks like a standard grid-based maze game, but it relies on a very specific set of physical rules that make it an entirely dynamic puzzle:
- The Shared Global Timer: Unlike most games of the era that give you a fresh clock per level, Cloud Kingdoms gives you a single pool of time (around 400 seconds) for the entire game. Falling into an open pit or getting popped by a roaming bug resets you to the start of the level and drains a chunk of your precious overall clock. Fortunately, completing a level rewards you with an extra 80 seconds.
- The Non-Linear Map Tree: You don't play the levels in a straight line. The game requires you to conquer 8 levels total to win, but it features a branching tree design. You start with a choice of 4 initial worlds. Depending on which path you take, your next options change, meaning you have to find the route that best suits your playstyle.
Each of the 32 available kingdoms forces you to adapt to a specific environmental hazard:
- Ice Kingdom: Completely strips Terry of friction, forcing you to slide uncontrollably across the grids.
- Arrow Kingdom: Floods the floor with directional arrows that violently force your ball in a single direction.
- Unseen Kingdom: A brutal test of memory where the paths are entirely invisible, leaving only the lethal death pits exposed to the naked eye.
- Magnet Kingdom: Ground panels that lock Terry to the floor, preventing him from utilizing his essential jump mechanic to clear moving bugs and hazards.
While the 16-bit home computers like the Amiga and Atari ST enjoyed the native focus of Logotron's vibrant artwork, the MS-DOS port had to compromise. Depending on your PC rig in 1990, it ran primarily in EGA graphics mode.
Even with a slightly reduced palette compared to the Amiga version, the hand-drawn pastel blocks, smooth scrolling grids, and clean isometric layouts translated beautifully.

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