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Cyan Worlds Closes
ThPhox writes "Several former employees are reporting on their blogs that Cyan Worlds, the creator of the Myst series of games for Macintosh and PC, has apparently closed. Myst was the best selling PC game of all time, until The Sims, and inspired four sequels, three novels, and a spin-off MMORPG. In 1993, it had amazing graphics, and was one of the first games to be released on CD-ROM. Riven, released in 1995, stunned the world with unparalleled graphics and story. Cyan, you will be greatly missed. But, as they say; 'Perhaps the ending, had not yet been written...'"
I remember playing Myst back in the day. I'd make some progress, then somehow end up back where I was, going in circles the whole time. There was this spot where you could read about the news, but when you returned years later, it was always the same ...
I remember taking a tour of their "studio" way back in the early Myst days... I worked at a similar shop, and we'd been talking about doing stuff like that for months, and then BOOM! there it was... better than we could have imagined. They used all the common tools of the day in fantastic ways... after I got that game, I spent the rest of my workdays playing it. Research, y'know. But they weren't just crazy minds, they were very nice guys, too.
Then again, it's not like they've died or anything... but it's still sad to see them go.
Maybe all the employees are just trapped in a book somewhere.
"Lead my skeptic sight."
The reason that studio existed was for Myst. Now that the Myst series has ended, the closed. I'm greatful that they made sure to finish up the series (I don't think it was selling so great, so I'm surprised they were able to finish it). I read the Myst books too. Good reading.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Way to go, editors.
No shit. Even Slashdot's piss-poor search engine found it with a simple search of 'cyan'. Though I suppose it can be explained as Google's fault because they haven't indexed yesterday's Slashdot articles yet.
Help Wanted:
Slashdot Editors Needed.
No skills required, lack of preferred.
Broccoli for brains a plus.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Hate to say it, but I bought Myst, my wife and I played it, and we thought it was dull, dull, dull.
OK puzzles (Seventh Guest's were good too), but didn't save it for us.
To each.
Magenta, Yellow, and Black Worlds are doing just fine.
Cyan, you will be greatly missed. But, as they say; 'Perhaps the ending, had not yet been written...'"
Actually, yes it has. Myst and the Cyan studio are unfortunatly part of the dying 'adventure genre' that saw it's peak years ago and has yet to be embraced in a world of games that require fast paced, gun-toting crime lords set on City X. The inability for the PC to be seen as anything else as a MMO/FPS platform in recent years hasn't exactly helped sales either.
Myst was top dog for a long time as the highest selling game, with Sims alone as the only game to have displaced it. For a small studio like Cyan, they've already engraved themselves in video game history. Today, that's about the best you can hope for.
These days, any one of us could crank out Myst classic inside a month on our desktop.
Let me guess... you have never written a pro-grade level, have you?
What I don't get, is why this genre is so often praised and so seldom successfully imitated?
Maybe because it's not as easy as you picture it?
Sorry about the cynicism, couldn't resist. Writing games is hard -- by downplaying its difficulty, you sound very naive. In most games, programming is not the hardest part, and even that is not easy to pull off "just right". Having the tools to do the art is one thing; the artists' work is another -- and that's very time-consuming and takes a lot of talent.
The filesystem is the package manager
Myst was also the last amazing game to premiere on (and for a time only ran on) Macs first. I saw a demo of it at an old Macworld Expo and it blew me away. I knew it would be something special.
When I saw the first PC versions of it in the early 90's, my little geek heart sank.