Your mission in Cryptark, should you choose to accept it...

I did it! I hit the factories as hard and as quickly as possible while avoiding conflict until things settled down. On one of the derelicts before I reached the Cryptark I had a choice of getting two more technologies or trying to get the time/money bonus. I decided to leave the money on the table and go for the tech: nuke rockets and autocannon. Yusss!

I also managed to secure Fix-10 repair packs which saved my bacon. My first run on the Cryptark ended with me getting mobbed down a dead-end but my second run was much cleaner as I watched out for the red dots and tried to steer clear. Final loadout: Salamander chassis 6HP, zip smart gun, vulcan laser, nuke rockets and autocannon, all Fix-10s.

Screenshot or it didn’t hap

… Dang it. I am the only one who still got to do it!

I’ve seen your scores on N++, you can do it Left!

So, uh, this is unexpected and cool:


Only discovered it because I saw @BrianRubin wishlist it on my Steam activity feed!

I wants it. I wants it so badly.

I just watched this video about Cryptark’s coop mode, and I would love the game to have a more fully fledged one.
But it seems they are moving onto new horizons, horizons that my computer probably won’t be able to render!

Yeah, I was exactly the same krok. If you want a few tips to give you a footing look a bit further up thread where we discuss our approaches. Of course, there are a lot of variables but it’s mostly about… well, I’ll not spoil it just in case you’re happy on that hill :-)

Just did the first ship and really liking this, also did you see their next game is very similar but a FPS?

small edit, I saw geggis just linked it above a few posts…

I wish I could play Cryptark. I can’t even manage to beat a single ship. I’m just too old for this :(. There’s something about the “noisiness” of the graphics that make it hard for me to see what’s going on in action. When I melee-spike the feeling is that of closing my eyes, pressing a button, and hope it works out. I mean the graphics look great when not in combat.

An oldie-example is Warcraft 3. The crazy graphics in big battles in War3 caused my brain to glitch out - with all those buffs and AoE spells I pretty much couldn’t see what was going on at all. When playing 2on2 or larger games I couldn’t even watch the screen, I just looked at my unit icons and hit spell buttons and hoped it all worked out because it was all so loud and hard to see and fast.

Heh. It reminds me of me playing Void Bastards. I couldn’t survive a single encounter.

Ha, I had about 50% of that problem when playing. Fighting the little knife-head drones is the worst, they have a sort of uncanny-valley movement pattern that makes them very difficult to hit. It might help to change your weapon loadout; anything that is melee based is going to be more difficult to track I think. I remember liking dual machine guns as a default loadout, since they are fairly precise and do enough damage to quickly take out drones. You can then sort of inch forward through the ship, hopefully only taking on 1 or 2 foes at a time. Combine that with something with more punch for stationary targets like the ship sub-systems. You can also try out different chassis; there is one that has a time slow effect which is nice at the start, and there’s another that has a mini-teleport which was my eventual favorite. It’s a life saver in so many situations, and lets you just blip right through many sections of the ships.

Anyway, just wanted to re-commend the game. Once you get the hang of it Cryptark is a genuine joy.

I keep waiting for this to appear in a Humble Monthly. One of these days…

A very simple work around is to turn performance mode “on”: it disables all the lightning, and gives an almost art-nouveau, flat look to the game. This is how I enjoyed it.

You’d need to unlock them first!

Good point, I’d forgot about that.

Man I suck at this game.

Stop bumping the thread for my little heard: I clicked it hoping for the announcement of the Switch version ;_;

It’s hard as nails but stick at it!

I can barely beat the level 1 derelicts. As with all twin stick shhoters (Which I also suck at) the trick may be to play more defensively.

My biggest piece of advice with Cryptark is: plan plan and plan. Cryptark is all about tight margins and trying to make as much bank with as few a resources as possible, so that means you’ve got to plan ‘a path of least resistance’ through each derelict to knock off as many objectives as possible/feasible. Untangling systems and trying to work out quick (‘safe’) routes is key. It’s very easy to bite off more than you can chew as well, and early on you’ll be spending a lot of time learning what the different enemies are, how the systems work and interact (and the nasty combos that can emerge) and what the deal is with most weapons and abilities. Kitting your gunhead out is exciting and the pyrotechnics are so satisfying but it’s expensive and overspending can be a problem. That said, underspending can be too! This is why planning is so important :-D

I would recommend this early until you start getting a better feel for the enemies, defence systems and your arsenal!