Cyan

The Obduction Kickstarter was a success.

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Cyan’s Obduction survived the kickstarter. They have met their goal and can now get to work. Here is a video celebrating their success.

Their latest post discusses some interesting features. For example, a roadtrip mode:

The Roadtrip Mode needs a bit more explaining. As we’ve mentioned before, we’ve found that our previous games – in spite of the fact that they were single player – were usually played by more than one person. Many times it was a big advantage for two people to explore together in front of the computer, or share clues over the phone. We thought it would be fun to support that idea! Roadtrip Mode allows two people to share the exploration via the internet. One player would be the “driver” – moving and interacting, while the other player would be a “passenger” – following where the “driver” goes, but able to freely look around on their own computer. They will be able to talk with each other, offering advice or pointing out highlights. And the players can switch the “driver” and “passenger” whenever they want. It seems like a great way to facilitate something that happens naturally – and let players share the journey.

You can vote up Obduction on Steam Greenlight

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If you haven’t heard via Cyan’s Kickstarter for Obduction they have recently announced that they would like to distribute Obduction via Steam. If you have an account on Steam you can login and vote them up of you want to support their project. Here is a link to the Steam Greenlight page.

We want Obduction to be distributed through Steam. As the first step in that direction, we have officially submitted the Obduction concept to Steam Greenlight. Greenlight is not just about getting Obduction approved on Steam, but it also helps more people find out about Obduction. But we need your help with this. To get the word out and show your support, head over to Greenlight and rate or favorite Obduction.

They also plan on selling their new IP through GOG and Humble Bundle. Also it will be DRM free, so no hassles. 😀

MagiQuest online to shut down.

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The online MMO known as MagiQuest will be shutting their doors on December 31, 2012 according to their website.

Creative Kingdoms with our development partner Cyan Worlds, has expanded the world of MagiQuest into the online world with its MMO MagiQuest Online since March 2010.

While all involved are immensely proud of MagiQuest Online, we have decided to discontinue MagiQuest Online on December 31, 2012. This decision was not made lightly, but was determined to be the best plan of action after much investigation.

For those Magi who have not yet had a chance to experience the magic of MagiQuest Online, the game will remain available on the MagiQuest website and at select MagiQuest locations until October 29, 2012.

For existing Magi, we invite you to return and enjoy MagiQuest Online until the game shuts down on December 31, 2012.

Note that this shutdown only covers MagiQuest Online services. The MagiQuest live sites, website, online retail shop, and online customer support system will continue to operate as usual.

For questions or concerns, contact us at http://magiquest.com/contact-us/.

Thank You

The MagiQuest Online Team

So for those who know of Cyan’s track record, does anyone else see a pattern here?

Shutting Down Descent

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Relating to the Myst Movie post I did earlier. it seems both the website and the thread at the MOUL forums have been removed. Link to Chogon’s post.

I’m removing this thread because I was requested by both sides of this issue to do so. At least until they have worked things out. And it is not because of what any of the fans have posted.

I would like to also ask that y’all please do not post copies or links to copies of what was posted in this thread or in reference to this thread or deleted blogs about this thread… Ok, that is a worded a little strange but you get the idea. Please let them work things out.

Thanks,
Mark

Edited for grammar.

Nothing like silencing a thread to get more people to speak. I wonder if anyone will follow suit.

The Myst Movie aka “The Great Shaft”

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When it comes to making movies based on games, Hollywood seems to have no issues with sacrifice. Sacrificing people or even storyline just to make a quick buck.

In this case, two fellows by the name of Patrick A. McIntire & Adrian Vanderbosch started a project to make Myst into a big movie deal.

In October of 2009, Mysteria Film Group was approached by Roserock Films (headed by Hunt Lowry) to discuss a partnership.  A meeting in December of 2009 sealed a partnership not only with Roserock, but also with Gran Via Productions (headed by Mark Johnson).  The three companies have been working together to further develop the property in preparation for pitching to studios.

Well, they would be anyway. If they didn’t resign from the project. An announcement was made over at the MystOnline forums, posted by Isaac Testerman.

I don’t think this is the time or place to get into the details, but Cyan ultimately came to the decision that the best thing for the property was to have Adrian step down as MFG’s lead producer, and have me step into those shoes.

Their own idea that they presented to Cyan Worlds, and they end up not only changing the original story but they also end up getting rid of the people who originally spent years working with them on it?

This has generated quite a mixed set of emotions in what’s left of the Myst fanbase. Some fans who have been dedicated to Cyan Worlds are now questioning them, accusing them of throwing Adrian and Patrick under the bus just so they can make a profit, some fans don’t know what to think, then there are the fans that still back Cyan 100% no matter what, and then there are some who don’t blame Cyan, but rather Hollywood as an influence.

We may only have two posts to go on regarding what happened. But from either side it seems that two dedicated fans that wanted to see something come to life, met their own version of “The Great Shaft” as quite a few others in the Myst/Uru community have met in the past.

Update

You can now sign a petition to support Adrian and Patrick here.

You Can’t Do That On XBox Condensed! The Tsar’s Tour (Gehn Shard)

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Coverage of the Tsar’s Tour from June 29th 2012.

To check out more of their stuff go to check out The Guild Of Writers website.

As an aside, this is a good time to point out that we have our own youtube channel now! All of our videos in the future will be posted through here.

realMyst finally gets support forums!

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Well, it looks like Cyan has finally realised that easy to access support is a prerequisite of success rather than an eventual result of it, and has reopened its iOS and other mobile devices forums, as the “Cyan World’s Other Games” forums.

‘Bout bloody time, I’d say.

Prior to this, it was suggested by Cyan’s forum moderators that iOS users should post their support queries in the “Off Topic” section of the forums, and that only if realMyst for iPad was successful would they consider opening a section for those users to get support.

Welp, good to see Cyan has listened to the fans, at least once in their existence. 😉

realMyst for iPad

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So, Kaelis here with a review of Cyan Worlds’ latest iOS release: “realMyst for iPad”. You can grab it from the Apple App Store here. I’d recommend reading this review first, however.

My first experience with Myst was playing a friend’s copy of realMyst for pc, so realMyst has a certain nostalgia value, and well, to be honest, Cyan’s iOS port of this beloved game disappoints.

On loading it up, I was feeling rather positive, the opening was good, the new loading screens really added a nice feeling of how disorienting linking must be, I really, really like them. Its not a flyby, but having been in Uru for quite a while, it works,and it’s a huge improvement on those screens.

Ok, all looks cool, the water looks pretty decent, I thought as I wandered along the dock, I turned and walked into the imager room… And what’s this? A small loading bar as I wandered into the room. It yanked me right out of the world of Myst, and right back into my hotel room in Sydney. I thought to myself, surely they could’ve managed to at least have parity with the engine they had so many years ago – at least, I’d hoped, their new realMyst could page in content at least as well as plasma 1 did for the original realMyst

It was then that I wandered up to check out the library, and the observatory… More loading bars. I went ok… Let’s have a look at the books in the library… Well, yeah. The book pages were incredibly low-resolution, and grainy. They are actualy barely readable.

I went back over Myst Island and noticed more and more low-resolution textures, bad seams on the animated textured objects used as ripples in the water around the mast of the ship.

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but in general, the whole game is rather laggy, on a iPad3, and the control scheme is slow, clunky, and counterintuitive… You touch to move, any movement in that touch is interpreted as a swipe, and will turn you instead and you also touch to interact. I would’ve much preferred dual thumb/joystick style spots on the screen, and then touch objects to interact.

At this point, I realised that the “Epic Citadel” tech demo, that supports the first generation iPad had better performance (even on the aforementioned 1st gen iPad), looked significantly better, sounded better, and controlled better. The epic citadel demo had roughly the same amount to render, as Myst Island, if not more, infact.

As much as realMyst had a great deal of nostalgia value for me, that was about when I closed it in disgust. What exactly had Cyan been spending their time on? I know that the engine they used supports day-night cycles… Yet they removed the lovely ones from realMyst. I later tried to reopen it, only to be met with a massively long loading screen, it was about that point that I decided that this was no longer worth my time.

All in all a massive disappointment, I’d really recommend people steer clear of this one.