Designer Tim Walsh discusses turning A Daily Cloud into an award-winning board game

I’m thrilled to see you, Tim… Here you are: game inventor, writer, speaker – genius, perhaps! We’re tying in because you just picked up the 2025 Play Creators Award for Game Designer of the Year – Licensed Product. Congratulations! Pleased?
Oh, hugely! On the night of the awards, I got a text from Mindware’s Emily Ruether… She was there representing all of us. I just felt this overwhelming feeling of gratitude for all the hands that touched this game along the way. My first text was to Chris Judge – the artist behind A Daily Cloud on Instagram. It was fun to share the moment with him. We’re both very excited for this recognition!”

For those that don’t know the Daily Cloud brand, how do you describe the game?
Well, it’s a creativity sketch game; one in which you each get dealt a photo of a cloud… Of course, we all see images in clouds: it’s a human universal; we can all look up at the sky and think ‘Oh! That cloud looks like an apple!’ or whatever. In the game, you put your cloud image inside a small, wipe-clean frame and sketch something onto it…

Turning the cloud photo into whatever it is you imagine it looks like…
Exactly. Then, because the frames are inset, you can put them all face down and mix them on the table without erasing the images. When you turn them all face up, no one knows who drew which image! So you use little cloud tokens to vote for the most interesting drawing. Whoever gets the most votes wins that first round.

Love it! But then there’s a second round which flows straight from the first one…
Right! You mix and distribute the same drawings again, only now you have to add a caption to the drawing you randomly receive. Of course, because the frames are small, you’re not going to write a long paragraph! It has to be a short comment or sentence. Again, no one knows whose comment is whose, so you now get to vote on the most interesting caption. And I love how the voting in both rounds is blind! That has some great surprise moments when you find out who got the most votes.

Perfect… And having played it and seen it played, I’d say this has the potential to not only be funny but also moving and charming and outrageous… I love it! And it’s built on a license! Tell me about that; how did it come about?
Well, I originally had the idea for the game because I take a walk every morning here in Florida… One day, I just noticed some interesting cloud formations and thought that clouds might make for a fun game because, as I say, people see shapes in clouds no matter where in the world they are. It’s universal.

Of course, you don’t want to start working on a drawing game based on clouds until if someone’s already done that! So I started doing my research… I couldn’t find any cloud-based drawing games, but I did find Instagram account for Chris Judge – an artist in Ireland – called A Daily Cloud, or @adailycloud… Either way, I felt sort of dejected at first!

Because – what? You felt like you’d being beaten to the punch?
Yes, someone already had idea of adding fun sketches over the image of a cloud. But I still really liked it, and – at that point – Chris had something like 513,000 followers. Today he’s got 640,000 – it’s growing fast! So I messaged him, explained that I’m a game designer and that I had an idea for a cloud-based drawing game. We chatted some more and he loved the idea!

That’s fantastic! And in terms of fitting your original idea to Chris’s brand, what needed to change?
Well, I think my prototype was probably more edgy – his Instagram account is a lot more wholesome. He loves getting kids to be creative and – because he’s an illustrator – his sketches are great; the drawings are all spot on. And he doesn’t caption his… In fact, he told me that he often gets messages from people saying, “What’s the backstory of this character?” and he’s quick to say, “You tell me what the backstory is!”

Oh, that’s fun! He wants you to create your own backstory and meaning?
Exactly right. So yes, the game became a bit more wholesome. Then, when we struck a deal, we also changed the name to fit his brand: originally, I called it Head in the Clouds. And, of course, the frames on my prototype were just foam-core boards that I’d cut with a blade. There was a slot at the top and a dry-erase surface.

So Mindware added the folding frames?
Yes, they came up those to make it easier to put the cards in and take them out. And actually, Mindware did a great job executing the whole thing. Chris is thrilled!

I can well imagine. And in terms of the license, it’s spot on because you’ve gamified exactly what the Instagram account does, then added a little. I just want to check on something… You said earlier that you “…noticed some interesting cloud formations.”
Right. I take a walk most mornings and let my mind wander!

Well, that’s what I was going to ask. As you wander along, are you asking yourself how the things you see could relate to a game?
Yes, I think so… I like to pay attention and look at what’s around me because you never know what might come up. And that’s not just with inventors… I have a buddy who’s a comedian. He tells me he’s always overhearing conversations in a grocery store where some turn of phrase could become part of a funny joke. I have another friend in Nashville that’s a singer and a songwriter. He does the same thing: he’s always listening for some turn of phrase that could hookup for a song…

So yes, I think game designers can do something similar. I had another moment with a game I did called MegaMouth. That came from a trip I made to Taiwan. Over there – even before COVID – you must wear a shield over your mouth if you’re serving food in a grocery store. One day, I happened to see this woman with a plastic shield curved in front of her mouth, and going up over the ears.

So you’re just in a shop, and an employee is handing out samples?
Yes. And for some reason, just as I was looking at her, I wondered what it would be like if the plexiglass shield was actually a magnifying lens… Because that would be hilarious; her mouth would look huge and her head would be normal! So there again I thought maybe it was an idea for a game. The supermarket very kindly let me have one of those masks. I brought it home and mocked it up using a flexible magnifying lens. It was perfect!

I’m so glad you’re speaking about this; I think of this as a technique one can use… To get into the habit of asking, “How could this be a game?”
Oh, yes! As you may know, I work with the Young Inventor Challenge at People of Play. When kids are trying to come up with ideas, I tell them to pay attention to what’s around them… Because if I was on my phone in that Taiwanese grocery store, or if I was texting while I was walking and I didn’t look up at the clouds, maybe those two ideas would never have happened.

Love it! Now that you mention it, I think this is one of the reasons why Londoners are increasingly creative. There’s so much street crime here, nobody dares look at their phone as they walk along… Now everyone’s having ideas! Ha! To wrap things up Tim, what’s next for you?
What’s next… Well, I can’t say too much about it yet but I’ve got a product coming out with Crazy Aaron’s. Do you know Aaron?

I do! Love that guy. I’ll link to the interview we did with him here. Funny you should mention him, actually, I just popped a card in the post to him!
Aaron’s great! And we’re hopeful we’ll be launching our thing at Toy Fair. Then there’s another game coming out with Mindware… I’m excited to be getting stuff to market – it’s a challenge with the tariffs, but I do think that – in difficult times – people tend to stay in more… And I think games are a good way to bring people together.

Certainly with games like A Daily Cloud: straightforward, reasonably priced and joyful. Alright! Thanks for making time, Tim. Let’s catch up at New York Toy Fair and talk about the new stuff. Always a pleasure to see you.

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