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Obduction from Cyan Worlds: http://cyan.com/games/obductio...

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News of Cyan's death is greatly exagerated...
http://www.cyan.com/

When I discovered DOOM (a year after it actually came out), my gaming world changed. For me, gaming went from Atari console games to PC-Based games because of DOOM.

However, come to think of it, I really enjoyed Myst. I think it was Myst that got me to the place where I really enjoy exploring, finding hidden things, and solving puzzles - even more than I enjoyed emptying a rail gun into Imps and Mancubi (plural of Mancubus?)

So, for me, it was two different years that were the best.

Posted by Zonk on Friday September 02, @08:21PM from the later-folks dept.

ComputerSherpa writes "Cyan Worlds closed it doors today.Cyan was the creator of Myst, the game that was partially responsible for popularizing the CD-ROM format. Until it was recently overtaken by The Sims, the Myst series was the most popular computer game series of all time. The last game in the Myst series, End of Ages, is scheduled to be released September 20th by UbiSoft."

Now less than 24 hours later we have a Slashdot story with a link to:
http://www.thegreydragon.com/2005/09/time-of-your- life-almost-all-of-cyan.html

Hey, my manual strcmp is returning 0 on this one. It might be a dup! Just a thought.

But as Scuttlemonkey says in his own "Who is Scuttlemonkey?":

...the topics that I try to post are usually ones that I feel would interest or impact the open source/linux/IT/geek/etc population as a whole.

I think all the editors should take a two week vacation in Tahiti, and appoint a few guest editors to take their place while sunning with CmdrTaco et al.

I volunteer. I'll drive you to the airport, too.

Graphics and Construction tools:
HyperCard (Apple)
Think Pascal (Symantec)
Photoshop (Adobe)
Premier (Adobe)
Illustrator (Adobe)
Painter (Fractal Design)
Morph (Gryphon Software)

Images and animations were modeled and rendered on six Macintosh Quadras using StrataVision 3d by Strata, Inc.

HyperCard was colorized using a proprietary version of Symplex System's HyperTint, written by John Miller.

As a student working on a graphic adventure game, I agree completely with the statement on lack of standards.

Right now I am faced with the issue of game engines. Since I'm doing the 'slideshow of images and video' approach, the only commercial tool out there is Director [Flash doesn't handle long videos]. The school has Director, but only educational versions which are branded as educational and legally not allowed to be seen outside of the classroom. I have been trying to find an engine that will allow me to create a game [technologically] like Riven, that's portable to MAC and PC. It's either that or make a brand new engine, which I don't have time to do with-in the scope of the project.

So far there are not any OSS/Low cost solutions that I have found. Any pointers are appreciated and welcomed!

Cyan's's products are works of art. Myst and Riven are beautiful places to visit. Some gamers criticize them for this.

Pff, what are you talking about? They came out with Myst in 1991!

Microsoft is responsible for making sure that only quality software (err ... let's ignore stuff like Kabuki Warriors, eh? All consoles have to have their share of stinkers ...) is released for their console. Otherwise, we'd be right back in 1984 and the last video game crash. A major contributing factor was Atari's lack of certification for games, and the subsequent glut of pure crap. Do we want to go back to that? I know I don't.

Egad, hopefully that won't happen. Picture what would happen if there was a successful gaming system that anyone could write games for? What would that be like? Oh, yeah. Just like modern PCs. Sure, there is a lot of crap, but it is ignored and the good stuff rises to the top.(Obviously good marketing can help a good game, but ultimately crap sinks, and quality succeeds.) The PC game industry seems to have done pretty well given that it really demands at least a $600 "console" to play and only caters to people willing to purchase a $1,200 "console".

No, Microsoft's only interest in restricting who can publish is based on simple greed. Microsoft makes money from publishing their own games and from licensing fees from other companies. Microsoft isn't going to be interested in companies making games without paying them. Microsoft doesn't really care about "quality software" for the X-Box, but they are interested in controlling the market and limiting their own competition. This is an old console-monopolists trick (Nintendo regularly delayed approval on competitors games so that their in house product could be on shelves first). This is a stunning example of the dangers of a monopoly and why console manufacturers work so hard to keep monopoly control over their systems. The fear becoming the PC game market, where games have to succeed or fail on their own strengths and they have to compete fairly.

Hypercard was an interesting system, weighted down by a terrible scripting language. Hypertalk was painfully similar to COBOL-60, ("add 1 to a") and had terrible data access ("field 3 of item 4 of card 9341"). Hypercard also turned out to be a ripoff of Zoomracks for the Atari, so Apple had some problems there.

Hypercard's "component model" was weak; you couldn't write components in Hypercard. It was more like a plug-in system, and in fact most Hypercard plug-ins were to provide access to something Hypercard didn't support, like networking.

Hypercard didn't really lead anywhere. Still, Cyan's Manhole and Cosmic Ozmo, the 2D black and white predecessors to Myst, were written in Hypercard, an impressive achievement.

--

Cyan is doing these Myst-copies (3D and Masterpiece) not only cos the tech is there but for alternative funding for the big project codenamed "Mudpie". It will be something like Q3 but with a ...story. Read here.

See here for info: http://www.cyan.com/info1.html

Basically, besides Myst Masterpiece for Mac and Myst3d, they're working on a project codenamed "Mudpie" which will be a massively multiplayer D'ni online roll playing game (aparently using a later version of the Myst3d Engine). And they've also licenced Presto Studios to make Myst III

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The following sentence is true.

From this page we learn that Presto Studios is making Exile. Presto is owned by Mattel, which of course will mean that the game will make maps of our phsychological profiles, upload them to Mattel's HQ and subsequently help them in their plans for world domination by producing dolls and action figures incorporating mind control devices.

Now Mudpie, there's a concept I can subscribe to. Hope I have sufficient broadband when it is released to play it. I will never log off...

http://www.cyan.com/arachnid/sneakpeek. html has a video (though in Quicktime) of realtime Myst. These are older videos, and the image quality of it may have gotten better... but there is some kinda idea what it will look like.

http://www.cyan.com/arachnid/jpgs/scre en.jpg An older screenshot of it.

http://www.cyan.com/arachnid/sneakpeek. html has a video (though in Quicktime) of realtime Myst. These are older videos, and the image quality of it may have gotten better... but there is some kinda idea what it will look like.

http://www.cyan.com/arachnid/jpgs/scre en.jpg An older screenshot of it.