Cloudburst

A cooperative tabletop board game

  • 1-4 players
  • Ages 12 and up
  • 10-15 minutes to play
  • FREE to download, print, and play!

Can you stop the gunk?

The rain begins falling — and falling and falling. Plants and trees love when it sinks into the ground and finds their roots. But when the stormwater hits streets, driveways, farm fields, and construction sites, it doesn’t sink in. Instead, it picks up fertilizers, chemicals, grass clippings, and more gunk, and then starts running toward the river! Can you and your team protect the rivers and stop the gunk from spreading?

Cloudburst Stop the spread

2022 International Serious Play Awards Silver Medal Winner

Cloudburst received a silver medal in this year’s International Serious Play Awards. It was one of seven tabletop/board games honored in this year’s competition.

The International Serious Play Awards annually recognize outstanding commercial or student products which incorporate game elements for education or training. Entries are judged on overall design, support for educational/training outcomes, player engagement, overall playing experience, and other areas. The best digital and tabletop/board game entries across seven categories receive awards.

gameboard

How to play

Cloudburst is a cooperative tabletop game for 1-4 people. All of the players work together to protect the rivers by stopping the stormwater from spreading the pollution it picks up. But watch out! If an area gets too much pollution, it becomes blighted. Get five blights and your team loses the game.

It takes about 10-15 minutes to play a game. Pollution always starts on the two red spots on the board. On your turn, flip over the top card of the deck and follow the instructions. Some cards add rain or storms that spread pollution in one or two directions. Other cards add new pollution to a single space somewhere on the board from things like spilled chemicals, grass clippings in the street, or extra fertilizer on yards or farm fields.

After the stormwater moves the pollution around the board (and checking to see if any spots got blighted), you get a chance to protect some spaces from pollution or clean a polluted spot. And if no new pollution was added to the board that round, you get to protect or clean double the number of spaces! Everything you need to know is right on the card.

Be a water winner!

You win if the stormwater can’t spread any more, but if too many spaces get blighted then your team needs to try again. Once you get good at protecting the rivers, you can make the game harder by decreasing the number of blights that trigger the end of the game.

Watch for stormwater educational materials for parents, educators, and everybody else coming soon!

Printing Your Game

You can make your own copy of the Cloudburst game by downloading the Cloudburst PDF files and taking them to a local copy shop. (You can also print them at home, but you may need to play with the printer settings a bit to make everything come out right.)

You’ll need to make these copies (preferably in color because it makes the game easier to play):

  • One copy of the Cloudburst board on 11×17 paper or cardstock
  • One copy of the 28-card deck on letter size cardstock (8.5×11”) printed single-sided
  • One copy of the Cloudburst rules on letter size paper (8.5×11”)

The card pages have cut lines to help you finish trimming them. When they’re done, they should be 2.5” x 3.5” (about 63mm x 88mm), the same size as standard poker-sized playing cards.

Tip! To make your cards last longer and play easier, buy a package of deck protectors (or “card sleeves”) from your favorite local game or department store and put your cards in them. Deck protectors come in all kinds of colors, so get whatever appeals to you. (We used light blue ones, but we’re really into water.)