Sometimes, you hear about a game and wonder exactly how much there could be to it. Take Rain on Your Parade from Unbound Creations. The whole concept is that you’re a cloud that is a jerk. At a glance, it seems like something along the lines of Untitled Goose Game. But in execution, it’s something far more charming. While the whole point is to cause a little chaos in Rain on Your Parade, it’s a game that uses unorthodox measures to do so.
Rain on Your Parade begins with a The Princess Bride sort of setup, where a child is being told a story about a mischievous cloud named, appropriately enough, Cloudy. Cloudy gets to go to the great, fabled city of Seattle, where they could rain on everyone all the time. Though there is a Professor Dryspell determined to stop that sort of progress.
But what makes Rain on Your Parade a genuinely enjoyable adventure is how well the game handles these situations. Yes, precipitation is your main tool. But as you follow Cloudy around Seattle, you aren’t just raining or snowing on things. It’s a puzzler with a wide assortment of situations. For example, in one situation you rain on people trying to defuse a bomb so it blows up. In another, there is a room with 90 items that have to all be set on fire. When you go to school, you have to wake up a sleeping teacher, usher kids into a classroom, and cause chemical reactions by getting the correct sorts of liquids to rain down onto an area. In another area, you head to a farm and instead of helping things grow, must find the corrosive liquid to destroy crops and vehicles. The general mechanic is the same, since you’re “raining” havoc, but the methods and motivations change.
What also helps is how the trappings surrounding Rain on Your Parade make it more whimsical, especially when a level references another game. Early on, you’ll be helping a frog known for crossing roads restore a park. (Which ends up being a rather clever level too, since one goal is to avoid raining on humans.) Another references Metal Gear, complete with appropriate intro, outfit, and stealthy objective.
Perhaps the only downside is one that might really only be an issue on the Nintendo Switch. When I was going through Rain on Your Parade, I went between docked and handheld modes. In each one, I’d sometimes find it difficult to find characters required for objectives. The aforementioned farm level is a good example. One optional goal is to rain down on the crows and humans in the level. (If you complete every objective, you earn a cosmetic item.) Because of the size of the crows, overhead perspective, and general design, I had the most trouble hunting each one down. It’s an issue that came up a few times in various levels. Playing on a larger screen helps, but it’s something to be aware of.
Rain on Your Parade is more than people might expect. Yes, you’re mostly there to ruin virtual people’s days. But sometimes when you do that, you’re also making things better for someone else. And it really is quite clever about things, with levels that can have puzzles that really make you think about how to achieve goals or with concepts that are silly fun. Rain on Your Parade is definitely in the same sort of vein as Untitled Goose Game and a fun filler between more serious affairs.
Rain on Your Parade is available for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC. It is also on Xbox Game Pass.
