TIGSource: Cryptic Sea

Cryptic Sea

Derek Yu — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 13:51:00 +0000

So yeah, for this week I’m going to grab some of the more interesting finds from Tim’s blog and post them over here! Unless, of course, you wanted to do it yourself, Tim… hint hint!

I was wondering what artist/game designer Edmund McMillen was up to after finishing Gish. Apparently he ran off with a few Chronic Logic members to start up Cryptic Sea.

Their first game, Blast Miner, looks pretty lackluster for someone with an imagination like Edmund’s. I mean… it’s Tetris, right? With physics and stuff. I dunno, I’m not interested at all and combining Edmund’s super-unique art style with some pretty generic casual gameplay sounds like a marketing disaster, if you ask me. (Of course, nobody ever does.)

On the other hand, project number two – Book of Knots – sounds freaking awesome and I wish they’d stop working on Blast Miner and get going on that! C’mon now!

"Cryptic Sea" by Hunty

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:19:22 +0000

er… “Book of Knots”, rather.

"Cryptic Sea" by Hunty

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:18:55 +0000

it looks like Cryptic Sea is part of the “Badlands” series that McMillan created for New Grounds, which are collected here:

http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/thebadlands.html

"Cryptic Sea" by failrate

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 09:11:38 +0000

Is there any back story why they left Chronic Logic?

"Cryptic Sea" by Moose

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 08:50:43 +0000

By the look of it, Blast Miner is Triptych but with the gameplay modified. It looks from the video like there’s something more there than just making up lines. Triptych was fun but 90% of the time the trick was to just ignore the physics entirely and try to build lines like a regular Tetris game, so the main feature of the game wasn’t used. Blast Miner seems to have rejigged the game play a bit to make the physics aspect more relevant.

"Cryptic Sea" by Teeth

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 07:36:40 +0000

Yeah, that’s right. A few extra elements but it’s basically the same.

Personally I’m not massive fan of Edmund’s work, it’s got a good style to it in principle but overall everything’s just too dark to be interesting. Both in terms of luminosity and mood.

"Cryptic Sea" by dessgeega

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 06:24:03 +0000

actually, i’m pretty sure blast miner is triptych - a chronic logic game - with explosions.

"Cryptic Sea" by tim

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 04:48:25 +0000

great stuff sergie!

feel free to grab anything from the site. i’m not a particularly good writer but pretty adept at finding them gems. :)

"Cryptic Sea" by Sergio

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 21:25:20 +0000

I’m looking forward to Cereus Peashy. http://www.diverge.ws/index2.php?page=viewpreview&id=2

"Cryptic Sea" by Albert Lai

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:45:57 +0000

I agree completely Derek - Book of Knots will definitely be a hit, judging soley by the concept art.

This is probably jumping the gun, but the fact that they bothered to flesh out the internals bodes well for gamers. Or they could just be having fun.