Cloud Step 9

About Cloud Step 9

Inspiration

I designed "Cloud Step 9" around the Cloud motif as I wanted to find ways that Cloud9 fans can feel engaged and part of the team at the event.

The art style and bounce mechanic is inspired by games like Paper Mario, where using a badge like Power Bounce allows Mario to infinitely jump on enemies. I also added in some additional rhythm mechanics reminiscent of games like DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) and Guitar Hero. "Cloud 9" as part of our game mechanic, where the cloud bosses take 9 bounces to defeat.

How it works

Cloud Step 9 is a rhythm-platformer where players stomp on clouds with precise timing using a single button. Players must hit the timing rings perfectly to build combos, rack up points, and progress through increasingly difficult phases. The music gets faster and timing challenges more precise as the rounds go on and introduces boss cloud battles, a leaderboard system, as well as both single-player and 2-player split screen versus mode with character selection (boy or girl characters with unique sprite animations).

How it was built

The game was built using pure vanilla JavaScript with HTML5 Canvas for all graphics rendering and the Web Audio API for a fully procedural EDM soundtrack. The entire game runs client-side with zero dependencies, making it instantly playable in any modern browser.

Challenges

• Creating and cutting clean, non-bleeding sprite sheets for both character animations
• Implementing 2-player split-screen (managing two independent game states and camera systems)

What's next

• Co-op mode (play with a friend)
• Online leaderboards: Global competitive rankings

Built With

• canvas
• html5
• javascript
• localstorage