Blast Miner

By: Derek Yu

On: October 16th, 2006

I have a conjecture as to why this game got made:

Even though Edmund McMillen struck gold (no pun intended) with Gish, his partners still don’t trust his ideas. Maybe it’s because he wears all black to the office, or maybe it’s just the natural distrust of marketing people and programmers for artists. In any case, they promise him that they’ll let him make The Book of Knots if they get to pump out a few Tetris clones and bridge-making games first. (After all, we all know that casual games are where the real money is!) Edmund, remembering that he had to bitch and moan like a broken record for many months to get Gish made, acquiesces. Blast Miner is conceived because studies show that physics, explosions, and Tetris are “in” right now. Confusion ensues amongst Gish fans.

I don’t know, see the website. Try the demo for yourself. This is not – CANnot – be Edmund’s game. I just don’t believe it. It’s like the Blast Miner website doesn’t even believe it.

Also, see attached photo for one of the most confusing menu screens I’ve ever seen. Try and figure out what you can and can’t click and where the options are.

Or maybe I’m just dumb and the game is brilliant.

EDIT: My conjecture was completely wrong, not surprisingly. The game isn’t brilliant, but I am dumb!

Posted in Action, Physics, Puzzle, Windows

Cycle

“Iâ€™m just dumb and the game is brilliant.”

They should put that on the press page.
johanp

“see attached photo for one of the most confusing menu screens Iâ€™ve ever seen”

Well, chronologic isn’t really famous for interface design either. All those bridge building games and gish too totally sucked in that department.
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

Oooh, I get the feeling we agree on this one, Derek. I don’t “get” it, either. It seems really close to a good idea (if you could effectively use the stone blocks to dig through the dirt and therefore undermine some gold and stick dynamite there) but it seems overly reliant on luck rather than judgement to me. I need to play it some more, but I’d be amazed if I suddenly discovered a winning strategy in it.
Cube

I’m with you guys on this one: It’s just kinda stupid.

I thought it was gonna be fun, too. I didn’t have high expectations, but it definitely didn’t meet those.
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

Thing is that it could’ve been good if they’d just allowed more strategy in it by allowing you to tunnel. But you’ve always got so much excess dynamite sitting above where the gold is that any explosion forces it down and the only stuff to fly upwards are the grey rocks which block up your machine.
mushu

Taken on its own, the physics code is pretty nifty… but overall the game feels unfinished.
Marvin

Maybe I’m just dumb too, but I think it’s fundementally broken. Once it gets closer to the top, it becomes nigh impossible to trigger explosions, meaning there’s no way of coming back. The balance of incoming types seems wrong too, as gas cans hardly ever seem to turn up.
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

So we’re agreed. We match on Cryptic Sea’s headquarters tomorrow with flaming torches and pitchforks?
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

March, dammit! MARCH!
Cycle

Maybe Edmund McMillan was a one hit wonder. Gish was incredible and all, but all his other work has been a bit meh.
http://www.tscreative.net BMcC

Ooh, I’m _always_ up for a drunken, angry mob!

I wouldn’t write off McMillan because of this, though.
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

Gish was incredible, I think, because it was a bit of a first-of-it’s-kind in using physics so completely in a platformer. I suspect that people will come along after it and make other physics-based platformers which solve all of Gish’s many foibles and at that point Gish’ll look a bit amateurish. Gish was kind of inevitable, really, given the development of physics engines.

Not that I don’t still adore the game.
Cycle

I dunno, I think if it was a case of first-of-it’s-kind, no one would have really given a shit about the game. Kinda like Trespasser vs Half-Life 2. The first game did physics much earlier, but the second didn’t completely blow.
Wolverine

I dunno what to make of this one but I didn’t like Gish much at all. Yeah, was interesting at first with the physics but I usually found the game too annoying to play and not much fun at all.
Teeth

Get Triptych instead.
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

Not all “first of their kinds” fumble the ball, cycle.
Cycle

That was kinda my point! It just wasn’t wored well because I wrote it at 3am after suffering from insomia :(
Moose

Um. You blow stuff up. And that seems to be it.

I like the bit where the website doesn’t even tell you what you get if you register. I guess they just gave up and threw out what they had.
http://web.mac.com/shinjisixteen Shinji

Um… I don’t know if I’m the only one thinking this but…

What the fuck is wrong with you people! “Oh my god, he didn’t make another fantastic game – he must be a trendy sell out and a one shot wonder!”

For fucks sake people, even some of DaVinci’s and Michaelangelo’s works were shit and hated by others.

Give the guy a break. Granted, the game isn’t great – there are a lot of broken aspects but the idea is solid. With a few patches I’m certain it will be fine. But to then go on and assault his credibilty and use the line “one hit wonder” and just bash the hell out of the game with little actual critical review.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of constructive bits posted here, in regards to the drop patterns, weak menus, but what I’ve read here has me pissed. It takes some work to do that.

One last time – shut your faces. I’d love to see you guys pull off better. If anything it give us something else to praise or crucify.

Derek, thanks for apologizing, but honestly watch your mouth. Last I checked TIGSource was an indie games news site, not your game related Live Journal and other hangers on posters. Way to lower the standards.
Derek

“Derek, thanks for apologizing, but honestly watch your mouth.”

Well, I will and I won’t. I still won’t NOT say a game is bad if I think it is, but I do think I’ve gotten carried away with trying to make this site entertaining, and in the process have started becoming more brutal than I ever really wanted to. So I’m going to tone it down. Edmund, in any case, doesn’t deserve to get slammed so hard for making games he believes in. I was disappointed, but I’m also probably not the audience he’s aiming for.

Regarding TIGSource, the site was never a news site in the traditional sense that we felt a need to be objective about a game. It was actually created (not by me) to be a place where people could express honest opinions about games. It’s an opinion-based site and also a news site.

But yeah, I think I’ve said what I want to say about this. :)