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Myst Obduction from Cyan (Myst, Riven)

Crooked Bee

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Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cyaninc/obduction

https://obduction.com




https://af.gog.com/game/obduction?as=1649904300

Cyan is back -- with a $1,1 million Kickstarter campaign:

An all-new, immersive adventure game from the award-winning creators of Myst and Riven.



Obduction is an all-new, real-time, first-person adventure that harkens back to the spirit of Cyan’s earlier games Myst and Riven. Obduction resurrects that incredible feeling of suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a new world to explore, discover, solve, and become part of.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of Myst, one of the best-selling computer games in history. The Myst name is widely recognized as uniquely defining a new kind of gaming - amazingly immersive worlds where the point is to understand your environment rather than test your reflexes. The Obduction project will take what Cyan knows about creating deeply immersive worlds and apply it to an entirely new game with fantastic scenery, incredible architecture, compelling story, and exceptional challenges.

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Obduction will be built with the same framework that made Cyan's earlier games such a wonderful experience: stunning landscapes, deep storyline, engaging characters, dramatic soundscapes, and challenging yet intuitive puzzles. Obduction is an entirely new property, delivered using one of the most powerful game development technologies available today. Obduction is an adventure game for the new millennium that stays true to the concepts that made the genre great.

At the base funding level, Obduction will be developed for both Windows and MacOS, with a targeted release of mid-to-late 2015.

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And, as anyone who ever played Myst or Riven knows, exploring everything around you allows you to read between the lines and to begin to answer your questions. Why is there an old, abandoned farmhouse - complete with white picket fence - in the middle of an alien landscape? You'll find out. From this point on the story becomes your story.

Game Design

Obduction has a few game design elements in common with Myst and Riven, and it skews into new areas as well. Cyan's basic design philosophy is simple:
  • Build every element of the experience to make you, the player, feel like this virtual world has become your world.
  • The interface should be intuitive and transparent.
  • The story should be revealed through exploration and not necessarily shoveled out in cinematic form.
  • The puzzles should range from easy to difficult, but even the toughest puzzles should be designed so that you know that all the pieces to solve it are there in front of you.
  • The sound and music should be balanced; they should add emotion but not become distracting or annoying.
Environmental Immersion

Cyan has a proven history of delivering visually stunning environments that immerse players in our games. We plan to continue that tradition, leveraging Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4. Today's modern realtime engines have plenty of horse-power to produce zillions of bullets per second, but they can also be used to make remarkable landscapes and architecture that approach and even surpass the pre-rendered days of Riven. Unreal 4 is an amazing resource that enables us to build a world that you can lose yourself in.

10467.png


Why Kickstarter?

Cyan has done it all. We started with self-publishing, hand-stuffing 3.5-inch floppies into boxes. We've done full-blown publisher models, where they get 88%. And we've even done all kinds of hybrid publishing models between the two.

Currently, we are independent, and it feels right. It's not the Myst heyday - money has come and gone, but we've managed to stay alive as a small, independent studio through times when indie studios were falling by the wayside. And now it seems that times have changed, and indie studios are making a comeback thanks to some interesting new publishing platforms and models - including Kickstarter.

The funding will be spent solely on Obduction. It's very straightforward: we'll spend the funds that you invest on making Obduction the best possible experience.

We already have a team here - a few who've been here since the Myst days, and some who are more recent. We'll be adding to the team after we get funding, so we can flesh out our design and then get started on all the new art, modeling, texturing, sounds, music, lighting, characters, interface, technology, and more.​


I know that Cyan is but a shadow of its former self, I know there's a very slim chance of them getting the money they're asking, and I'm fully aware Robyn Miller isn't on board. And yet...

Me wants! Me pledges $25 :oops:
 
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Zed

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the myst games being as big as they were was always a profound mystery to me, but I think I could appreciate them today.
 

Aeschylus

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I know that Cyan is but a shadow of its former self, I know there's a very slim chance of them getting the money they're asking, and I'm fully aware Robyn Miller isn't on board. And yet...
Well, based on past projects and given their start, I'd say that they have a better than even chance of making it. It'll probably be one of those final-week things though.
 

DalekFlay

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Never played their games after Riven. Always meant to get around to it. Good luck to the campaign but I'll probably wait.
 

Spectacle

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There are a lot of old fans of Myst/Riven around, and most of them probably don't follow the regular vidya game news closely, so I expect this KS will see steady growth over the next few days as the word spreads in their target market.

So I'll be quite surprised if this doesn't get funded, the question is, how high can it go?
 

KazikluBey

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Rather weak pitch, I thought. "We made Myst and Riven over 15 years ago - give money, plox!"

And none of the Myst games except Riven had that sense of actually being a world rather than a collection of puzzles.

Will probably back any way though.
 

Pyke

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For some reason, on my side, you guys (and girls) all have the same avatar..and it REALLY confused my over-tired brain for a second..

Im pretty sure this will get fully funded, although the fact that the Pitch Video was 3 minutes of logos was a little frustrating! I would have loved to see some actual in game content from them.

Im sure that the environments and worlds will be awesome to look at. Myst and Riven were VERY influential on me as an artist - I hope they can continue that tradition!
 

Boleskine

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Looks amazing, and at nearly 1/3 funding after 24 hours I think this will make it.
 

Whisky

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It's honestly amazing that Cyan is still around.

I'm gonna wait a bit longer, but it's pretty obvious to me that I'll up end up donating. Myst is just too nostalgic for me.
 

Jaesun

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Backed! Fuck I hope this makes it! oooh and I can actually drive out and meet these people if they do a backer open house. :D
 

Jaesun

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pledged of $1,100,000 goal

17
days to go

This better fucking make it, or I am going to be pissed!

:(
 

Boleskine

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It's going to make it. 2/3 funded with 2+ weeks left is a good position to be in.

In a week or so the home stretch will start and more backers/funding will pour in at a greater rate.
 

Bitcher1

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Ugh, you people never learn, do you? I've heard the same said about Armikrog, Satelite Reign, Jagged Alliance: Flashback and God knows how many else, and I'm sure I'll hear it said about Stasis as well. So to make it clear, the're dead certain to reach the goal and if 1,3-1,4 M $ (the amount they'll end up with, not counting the KS/Amazon cuts) isn't enough for them to make a decent adventure game, then they'll only have themselves to blame.
 

toro

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Nostalgia goggles are strong in this one. For whatever reasons I could never play Myst even after several tries and a pestering friend raving about it. The entire concept sucks and the games were boring as hell.

Wasted money.
 

tuluse

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Maybe I never learn because I never cared enough to closely follow a kickstarter $ per day progression before? And I still don't, I just opened Obduction's page and saw that they still need tons of money in a week.

Also I don't think it's "their fault" the budget won't do, as many other kickstarters before had like 1000% more than they asked for a varied number of reasons (one being the popularity of the people involved/previous games related), it may sound quite idiot that people are doing kickstarters already assuming the money will surpass the goal, but in reality that's probably what many famous devs are/will be doing.
The first few days and the last few days are always the biggest times, in every successful kickstarter. Most get around 40% of their money in those times.
 

Spectacle

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Also I don't think it's "their fault" the budget won't do, as many other kickstarters before had like 1000% more than they asked for a varied number of reasons (one being the popularity of the people involved/previous games related), it may sound quite idiot that people are doing kickstarters already assuming the money will surpass the goal, but in reality that's probably what many famous devs are/will be doing.
The majority of successful kickstarters just barely scrape past the funding goal, even those run by well-known people. So if these guys have done no research and are assuming they'll get many millions, they are idiots and nothing else.
 

Crooked Bee

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By the way, the other Miller brothers will also be working on Obduction, according to one of the recent updates:

As you may know, Rand and his brother Robyn made Myst and Riven together. Robyn just wrapped up his first movie, “The Immortal Augustus Gladstone,” which is slated for release in February 2014. Robyn wrote and directed the film and composed the soundtrack. What you may not realize is he also played the role of Augustus.

Which leads us to some exciting news!

Robyn will be playing one of the lead characters in Obduction! And Rand will be joining him! They’ll both have acting roles in the new game - something they haven’t done together since the original Myst!

And there's even more exciting news!

Robyn and Rand's brother Ryan also worked on Myst - including writing the books in the library. After Myst, Ryan worked with Rand for many years at Cyan - where he helped with design and writing on many of Cyan’s post-Riven projects. Ryan then moved on to other things - including authoring several books. (Check out his latest book “Everything Breathes” here!)

Ryan will also be helping with Obduction - in both a design and writing role! He’ll be writing much of the supporting text that appears in the game - as well as offering his services to the design team, which Rand is heading up.​
 

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