Four expeditions, one board
Three regions — the Verdant Reach, the Iron Cleft and Whisperfen — on small, medium or large maps. Two resources to manage: Shard and Salvage.
A stand-alone strategy game · set in the world of The Great Cloud™
Cloudfall:
Expeditions
Hex strategy where every expedition moves at once. Plan in secret, seal your orders and watch them all land together — in fast matches you finish in one sitting, not over days.
Android phones and tablets · 1–4 players · Out 19 November 2026. Buy once, no ads, no in-app purchases.
Coming to the Microsoft Store
Pre-register and Google Play tells you on launch day. A standard match is 30 turns on a 55-second planning clock, so about half an hour at most.
Made by Kai Karhunen, a solo developer in the UK.
- 15–45 turns a match
- 1–4 players
- 16 campaign expeditions
- 0 ads or in-app purchases
01 — How it plays
Everybody moves at once
No waiting for three other people to finish their turn. Everyone plans in secret at the same time, seals their orders, then all of them resolve together.
-
Plan
Up to three orders, in secret
Move, recruit, fortify, found an outpost or upgrade gear. Your rivals are doing the same and you cannot see what they chose.
-
Resolve
Orders land together
Armies cross, walls hold or fail, camps change hands. You watch it play out on the board, and “What happened” explains every turn.
-
Win
Four ways to finish ahead
Win by conquest, by wealth or by dominion, or lead the tally when the last turn ends and the Cloudfall dissolves.
Built for fast matches
Strategy games like this can run for days. Cloudfall is made to be finished in one sitting: a short planning clock, everyone planning at the same time, and a turn limit that ends the expedition as the region fades. Nobody waits for anybody, so a four-player match runs on the same clock as a solo one.
Standard is 30 turns; pick 15 for a swift match or 45 for a long one. Set the planning clock to 30, 55 or 90 seconds, or Relaxed with no clock at all. And if the last turn ends with no outright winner, choose Play on: the turn limit lifts and the expedition goes on until someone wins by conquest, wealth or dominion.
Know the odds before you commit
Blows land within a range and forest can turn one aside. The forecast shows the exact odds of each, so every gamble is a choice.
Camp, outpost, expedition hall
Settle neutral ground, claim salvage sites, grow what you hold, and ring it with a timber palisade or dressed stone before someone comes to test it.
The edges start to shimmer
In the final turns the board's rim fades into The Great Cloud. The rules don’t change, but you will feel the clock.
02 — The premise
Land that was not there yesterday
Every so often The Great Cloud lets go of something: a stretch of meadow, a ridge, a lake with no river feeding it. People call it a Cloudfall. It arrives whole, scattered with wreckage that glints like the inside of a shell, and it does not stay.
The factions each have a theory about why. None of them can prove it. All of them send an expedition anyway — because whatever a Cloudfall is, the salvage is real, and so is the ground you hold when the edges start to shimmer.
You lead one of those expeditions for a sponsor. Found camps, raise outposts, field wardens, lens-archers and strider-riders, and finish with more to your name than any rival leader before the land is gone.
03 — Campaign & modes
A campaign, a daily challenge and a table full of friends
A story campaign to work through, a seeded challenge everyone plays, with a result to share, and matches for one to four players on one device or many.
Campaign
The Expedition Ledger
Sixteen scripted expeditions in four chapters, one for each region and a finale across all three, each with its own rival leaders and a story to it. Every expedition sets three objectives: the first decides it, the other two earn extra seals. Win every expedition in a chapter to open the next, and take all three seals for its title. Win it again on Hard for a gold Veteran seal.
Solo · offline
Against expedition leaders
Take on one to three rival leaders on Easy, Normal or Hard, each with a temperament of their own. Set the match your way: two to four expeditions, three map sizes, 15, 30 or 45 turns, doctrines on or off. Plays fully offline.
Daily · weekly
One map for everyone
The same seeded map, setup and sponsor for every player, for the day or the week. One ranked attempt, a streak to keep and a line to share.
Online
With friends
Private rooms with a code, an open lobby board and quick match. Orders stay sealed until everyone has committed. Leaders fill empty seats, a dropped player can rejoin, and text-free Signals stand in for chat.
Local
Pass and play
Two to four players on one phone or tablet, with a curtain between turns so nobody sees an order they shouldn’t.
Training grounds
Learn as you play
Five short lessons on a real board, then a practice expedition with Keeper Aven on hand to suggest a plan and say why. The Field guide is one tap away, and History replays your recent matches.
Watch
The whole game in under two minutes
Planning in secret, the attack forecast, the turn unfolding, the three regions, the sponsors, the campaign, the daily challenge and Signals — walked through with real footage from the game.
Read the transcript
In most strategy games, you wait while your rivals take their turn. In Cloudfall, nobody waits. Everyone moves at once.
Each turn begins in secret. Select an expedition, aim a move, and read the forecast before you commit: the odds of winning, what each side stands to lose, and why.
Queue up to three orders. Recruit, move, fortify, settle, upgrade. Nothing happens until every player is ready.
Then you commit, and the turn unfolds. Every order resolves together, and the board shows you exactly what happened.
The world does not stand still, either. Every expedition has a turn limit, and as it nears, the edges of the Reach fade into the cloud. You have turns, not forever, to hold your ground.
Three regions change how a match plays. The green Verdant Reach. The stony Iron Cleft. And the misty Whisperfen.
Five sponsors bring their own doctrines and looks. Choose one in Prepare, pick your leader’s skill, and set how long the expedition lasts.
Play solo against up to three opponents, at Easy, Normal or Hard. Climb the sixteen expeditions of the Ledger. Take on the Daily challenge: the same seeded map for everyone, and one ranked attempt. Share one device with friends in pass and play, or play online with friends.
There is no chat. You speak in signals: a hail, a well played, a good game.
Every match earns experience that climbs thirty ranks, and each sponsor’s mastery unlocks liveries, trims, banner cloth and portrait frames. They are cosmetic, and worn on your own units.
Cloudfall: Expeditions. One purchase. No ads, no in-app purchases, and it plays offline. On Android phones and tablets, and on Google Play Games on PC.
04 — Leaders & doctrines
Pick a leader, pick an edge
Every expedition flies a sponsor’s colours under its leader, and every leader brings a doctrine: a standing advantage that changes what is cheap, what is strong and how you should play. Doctrines are on by default and can be switched off for a level field. Rival leaders play to theirs.
ChatNPC
Keeper Aven
Open Archive
- Gear upgrades need 1 less experience per tier (never below 1)
- Camps yield 1 more Shard a turn
Grow wide and turn recruits into veterans fast.
Came to catalogue the Cloudfall. Already certain what it is. Revising.
The Order of Clawed
Surveyor Rook
Measured Stone
- Wardens cost 2 Shard less
- Walls cost 5 Salvage less
- A 10 Shard bounty for every rival unit defeated
Wall up, hold the line and make every fight pay.
Planned this expedition before the land fell. Will not say how.
The Twin Minds
Cartographer Venn
Forking Paths
- Strider-riders cost 5 Shard less
Field more riders than anyone and be everywhere at once.
Sent two expeditions with opposite orders. Considers both a success.
The Herd
Waykeeper Mallow
Survived Together
- Each ally alongside adds 8% to strikes and counters
- Units beside an ally recover 10 health a turn
Move as one; a crowd is stronger than its parts.
Nobody is in charge. The camps go up faster than anyone else’s regardless.
The Oracle of Sparks
Sparkwright Tavi
Unfinished Diagram
- Lens-archers cost 5 Shard less
- Gear upgrades cost 70% of the usual Salvage
Out-range and out-equip: cheap archers, cheaper upgrades.
Here for the wreck cores. Has been asked, repeatedly, to stop touching them.
05 — Your expedition
Three roles, four tiers of gear
Units earn experience and upgrade their gear from timber and hide, through copper and bog iron and veinstone, to starmetal. You read a unit’s tier from what it carries. Below, each one as it looks in the game, first tier on the left and last on the right.
Warden
Melee · holds ground
The line. Wardens take the hex and keep it, and they are who you want standing on a wall.
Lens-archer
Ranged · punishes approach
Sights ground through salvaged lenses. Fragile up close, decisive from two hexes away.
Strider-rider
Mounted · covers distance
Rides an antlered strider. Three hexes a turn: fast enough to snatch an undefended camp. Not built to stay.
Timber & hide→Copper & bog iron→Veinstone→Starmetal
Earn your colours
57 feats, from your first lesson to the campaign’s last seal, and a track of 93 rewards that unlock as you play: Expedition ranks, mastery rewards for each sponsor, feat trims and Ledger titles. Liveries, trims, banner cloth, crest rims, portrait frames and titles are earned by playing and never sold, and they never change the rules. Signed in to Google Play Games, your feats are achievements too.
06 — Platforms
Where you can play it
Cloudfall: Expeditions comes to Android and Google Play Games on PC on 19 November 2026, with Steam and the Microsoft Store to follow. Each store sells its own copy: buying it on one store does not unlock it on another. Plans can change; the newsletter hears about each new store first.
-
Out 19 November 2026
Android
Phones and tablets on Google Play: Android 8 or later, with 3 GB of memory recommended. This is the first release.
Pre-register on Google Play → -
Planned
Google Play Games on PC
Google Play Games on PC is part of Google Play, so a copy bought on Google Play plays there too, and your progress carries across through Google Play Games. The game already speaks keyboard and mouse, with shortcut hints on screen. It is there from launch day, 19 November.
-
Planned · after Android
Steam & the Microsoft Store
A Windows desktop edition after the Android launch, built for the desk: controller and Steam Deck support. The Microsoft Store edition arrives with Steam or shortly after. Each store is a separate purchase. No date yet.
-
Planned · later
Epic Games Store & GOG
These take more work to support, so they follow Steam and the Microsoft Store. Each is a separate purchase. No date yet.
-
Playtest first · after Android
iPhone & iPad
An iPhone and iPad edition comes after the Android launch, starting with a closed playtest. Join the news list to hear first when it opens. The App Store will sell its own copy.
Join the list for the iPhone & iPad playtest → -
Not planned
Consoles
There is no console version in the plans right now. If that changes, the newsletter will say so.
07 — The deal
Buy it once. That’s the whole business model.
One purchase
No in-app purchases, no subscriptions and no battle pass. Every livery unlocks through play. Bought on Google Play, it covers your phone and Google Play Games on PC; every other store sells its own copy.
No ads, ever
No adverts between matches, no ad networks in the game and nothing to watch for a reward.
Google Play Games built in
Sign in with Google Play Games and your feats count as achievements, and your progress is saved to the cloud, so a new phone or Google Play Games on PC carries on where you left off. Signing in is optional: every mode plays the same without it.
Plays offline
Solo matches and the campaign work in airplane mode. Leaders also fill empty seats online and take over for anyone who drops.
Device-to-device multiplayer
Share a room code and play directly with up to three friends, with no game server in the middle. When a network blocks a direct connection, an encrypted relay can carry the match, and a manual QR exchange is built in too. Playing online means the other players’ devices can see your IP address, as with any direct connection. The game privacy policy has the details.
Made to be comfortable
Portrait and landscape, graphics from Low to Ultra, adjustable text size, a colour-vision mode, high contrast and reduced motion. The game’s text is in English, German, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.
The closed playtest
Playtest sign-ups have closed
The closed playtest on Android no longer takes sign-ups. If you are already a tester, nothing changes: you keep your access and the free launch copy we promised. Want to test on iPhone or iPad when that opens? Join the news list below. Playtest openings are announced there first.
Join the Discord to discuss the games and share feedback.
08 — Launch
Out on Android and Google Play Games on PC on 19 November 2026
Pre-register on Google Play and Google Play tells you on launch day. On iPhone or iPad? Join the news list here: the iPhone and iPad edition starts with a closed playtest, and the list hears first when it opens. The newsletter also hears first about each new store.
News from all our games
Game news, launches, playtests and offers, covering all our games. Confirm your email to join. Unsubscribe any time.
Secure sign-up by Brevo. After you send the form, confirm your address from the email we send. See the privacy notice. Form not showing? Open the form in a new tab ↗
Another adventure in the same world
The Great Cloud™ — the MMORPG
Explore The Great Cloud, our browser-first 3D MMORPG, with a living, player-driven economy, deep crafting and the same five factions arguing about the same Great Cloud.