
The lucid dreams of Cylne
Can a videogame be a poem? Does it matter?
Can a videogame be a poem? Does it matter?
Submerged, from the little-known Australians at Uppercut Games, is a very pretty exploration game about sailing a small fishing vessel through a tropical city that is half, well, submerged. The devs posted on their development blog that they are going for a kind of “destroyed beauty,” which we so often see in these games about exploring ramshackle solitary worlds, like Vane and Cylne. But this one stands out in that the disaster seems to be caused by modern geological tragedy. Intentional or not, the theme brings to mind the rising sea levels brought on by the warming global climate—the islands of…
You know the ones. No, not those of Cindy Crawford and the cast of Baywatch, but the ones you’d eventually get to if you kept on flipping, which portrayed wilderness scenes with vaguely new age or pagan imagery. That pretty much describes the look of the surreal exploration game Cylne, currently on Steam Greenlight, created by a mysterious individual named Cylne. From the artist’s description, this is one of those games where you walk around and take in the scenery, like Tangiers, or going to the mall without any money, except that wasn’t a game. But this totally makes me…