Cyan creates worlds not yet imagined. Drawing on 30 years of experience, we continue to look for new ways to share unexpected stories via the medium of video games. Our journey has had ups and downs, but we’re grateful to still be building the kinds of worlds our fans say they want to live in!
A tiny history: - Cyan began in 1987 with three kids games: The Manhole, Cosmic Osmo, and Spelunx. - Next was Myst. Sales for Myst and its sequel, Riven, now exceed 15 million copies and Myst holds the honor of being the best-selling video game of the 20th century. - Four Myst sequels followed, then Obduction became Cyan's first game to leap into VR. - In 2020 the definitive modern version of Myst was released for Oculus Quest, with PC and PCVR versions released in 2021. - Cyan's Kickstarter-backed game, Firmament, releases in May 2023. - RIVEN, a remake of 1997's Riven: The Sequel to Myst, releases in Summer 2024.
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Myst and Riven are pure magic, and being able to play full 3D recreations of these masterpieces is a joy. I wish I could personally shake hands with every single person who made this a reality, and tell them they are blessed with true brilliance. Having this, especially now in VR, is one of the greatest joys to me, having played the original on my school's Apple computer back in 1999.
One complaint I have here is that riding up on the shackles is no longer an improvised solution. Before, the "proper" way to get to the prison was for Gehn's acolytes to pull down a ladder and climb up (which we couldn’t do, since we don’t have a long hook to pull down the ladder), but now riding on the shackles is the _only_ way Gehn's people could have accessed the prison. This is especially weird when you consider that prisoners would need to be crammed into the small submersible with the driver, then forced to ride up the shackles to the cell, where they would be held until the execution. Personally, I think the old access system made more sense. At the very least, there could have been a path leading to a hole with a grate in the cell's ceiling, the idea being that prisoners could be led to the cell, thrown in, and have the grate locked behind them to keep them locked in. (Also, I miss the wahrk in the original version that would bang into the cage, trying to knock the player into the water.)
Just want to say awesome work on the journals, Claire!! I noticed pretty quickly that they were actually hand written and weren't just a font. Seriously excellent, so much characterization comes through each character's handwriting and I feel like it's generally overlooked.
Rand and co, thank you so so SO much for all the hard work and love you put into all your games, and particularly Riven. Riven was and is my favorite game of all time, and has been a constant influence in so many different areas of my life. As an indie dev myself (working in a different but related genre), Riven is still probably my biggest source of inspiration. I've been telling all my friends about the remake and trying to get as many people to experience it as possible, because it's special in a way that very few games are. There really is something magical about it - that magic was there in 1997, and it hasn't gone away. I can't begin to describe how giddy I was to boot up the remake and then just...be back. Finally. After so many years. So thank YOU. Rand, I wish you the very best on your retirement, and hope you get up to some good shenanigans. As for everyone else at Cyan, I have total faith in y'all and cannot wait to see what games (both in the D'niverse and elsewhere) await us.
This new version looks so great! Really hoping it’ll come to consoles like the Switch someday soon! I would love to play it again like this. My dad introduced me to it and it changed how I saw video games
What a great time to stumble upon this! I've struggled finding my game dev motivation after a year of being really sick with mold poisoning/allergies. Listening to your exitement and pride over the interconnectedness of the worlds is so inspiring! And also makes me wanna go looking for blind playthroughs of obduction to watch 😂
Totally this. Actually, nothing belongs there. Vertical aspect content is typically straight from hell anyways. No need to push that format even further.
@@trapez77 Options are always great. The main gripe with vertical content is that it's just hard to watch in the typical landscape layout, which is nore natural.
It just sucks to see how dead in the water the PSVR2 is. Would be a ton better if it had the whole back catalogue of games that are on PSVR1, they basically would just need to combine a few things that made it run on PS in the first place and how the controllers are mapped on Quests and most PCVR headsets that have controllers that match the de facto standard, like the Index knuckels or the WMR G2 controllers from HP. The games would be great even without haptic trigger and head rumble support. Even more so need new releases to be on that platform. It's such a missed opportunity really, wasted potential.
Yeah, the original. I don't know why they chose to put in animated NPCs that look so much worse than the recordings in the original, but I'm not pleased. It would've been easy to just freeze the player during cutscenes like all other games.
@@Omega-EP I haven't played this version yet, but they have 2D recording projections in both the Myst remake (that I played in VR) and Obduction. I guess the best thing they could do is add a switch and let us decide if we want it old school or not.
@@Omega-EP I'm just guessing here but it could be that original video recordings are lost and to remake new ones with old characters is impossible. Also it would be much more hassle to film new live characters than for some one to make 3D ones. I do agree that video recordings did give some unique charm.
Technically yes we did go back because 1. Riven is the sequel to Myst. The character of “you” has already met Atrus before due to this. 2. This is a recreation of Riven which is an old game now (but even the old version is worth playing!)
well done for looking after the fruitcakes that can't figure out how to rotate their phone. other than that this is a bit pointless unless said people also have their monitor rotated to match their phone.
This newest Myst is amazing. Between ease of movement and the graphical and audio environment, perfectly done👍And this walkthrough with THE experts / creators, is awesome.
Riven & Myst are some of the greatest computer games ever made. Both of them especially Riven seem so real. Different but familiar at the same time. In my opinion, the real time live video characters made me care about what was happening and made me want to know more about them. The graphics and the new Riven are more beautiful than ever. However after investing all that time and effort in to the new version, it is shocking to see the characters replaced by cheap cardboard cut-outs. The characters replacement by these graphical things really hurts what otherwise is a fine production. Actors and production too expensive? What about some AI characters?
