Mysterium 2012 Recap

Mysterium is still ongoing, but we thought we’d post a brief outline of what we announced during our presentation just a few minutes ago.

First, we showed the gameplay as it stands now. You can watch a condensed walkthrough of that, including our brand-new sky, here (it had to be re-run since the video didn’t go through the first time), or by watching the video below.

You can also watch (or rather, listen to) the first attempt at showing the game (actual presentation starts at 4:07), which didn’t go so well because of streaming issues.

Then, we announced the exciting news that Cyan Worlds, Inc. has agreed to allow us to proceed with our project! We also showed a short video of Boiler Island as it stands now (shown in the video linked to above), and we have just recently added a new post to our dev blog for your enjoyment.


23 Responses to “Mysterium 2012 Recap”.

Team members' usernames are in red.
  • Merijn Says:

    Effort to beat Ahlisendar to commenting first.

  • Marein Says:

    Great news about Cyan, and the lighting/cloud system looks amazing!

  • Eduardo Says:

    I cant wait for this to get to a playing state.
    I think its time to rally up the troops for another funding drive…

  • flake100 Says:

    Wow the boiler island looks very good at the moment, keep up the good work – thanks guys ! 🙂

  • Floydman Says:

    This post over at the Myst Online forums:

    http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=388014#388014

    Is very interesting. It’s supposed to be fully integrate-able into Unity, so would it be easy to implement in the Starry Expanse?

  • Iman Says:

    Thanks for the video, and congratulations on the official Cyan blessing! Having the original source files for Riven must be incredible.

  • t Says:

    Hi, I’d be very happy if you could continue the Q&A with these questions!

    1. Will you open source the work you do? Much like the original was limited by what was possible on a home PC in 1997, your game will be limited in many ways by what today’s computers can do (and by your tools and skills and time). Will you be able to release your work in some way that allows other people to continue to refine and expand the experience in the future?

    2. You pretty much answered “no” to this in the video, but I still think it’s something to think about; have you considered doing a version with new puzzles? The same story, setting and puzzle concepts, but just rejigging the puzzles enough so that there would be a little head-scratching for all us old fans. Done right, I think this could be wonderful.

    3. What files have Cyan been able to supply you with? Is there any modern software that can open those models with their original textures, lighting, animation data, etc? Do you have stuff like music multitracks, original video, illustrations, fonts, uncompressed stills? I’ve often wondered what Cyan still has and what shape it’s in, so I’m very curious (I can only imagine the fangasm of looking through those files)!

    4. I hope you’re not doing all of this work completely for free! I seem to recall you saying something about donating any and all profits to Cyan. I realize you’re big fans and do this because you love the game, but I really hope there’s something more in it for you guys in the end. But, this is of course a question between you and Cyan.

    • zib_redlektab Says:

      *ahem*

      1) We have only discussed the possibility of open-sourcing our work very briefly. Much of that decision would be on Cyan’s shoulders, as it’s their property and their assets we’re using. We do know that they are against the distribution of the original assets. That being said, it may be possible for parts of the codebase to be open-sourced. Open source is something we’d be interested in, but I can’t really say more than that at this point.

      2) We haven’t really considered tweaking the puzzles, the plan so far has been to completely duplicate all of the original puzzles as they were in the original. It would be interesting, however, to change them a little bit here and there, to keep it fresh for old players.

      3) Cyan is still working on putting together the package of assets they’re going to give us. Last we heard, they were looking through their tape archives. Keep in mind that they are running on a skeleton crew, and so it’s very difficult to assign people specifically to this project.

      4) We haven’t talked about distribution at all with Cyan yet. Profit just isn’t the goal for us. We want to be able to play the game, that’s reward enough.

  • Jack Says:

    Any chance we can get version of this walkthrough similar to what was shown before? A high-res demonstration of everything would be amazing, and I’d love to see that boiler render in all its glory!

  • Jordan Says:

    Whoa, wait a second! Cyan has said before that they can’t get to the Riven assets or something like that… Do you know what’s changed, or am I just losing my mind?

    • zib_redlektab Says:

      Cyan has previously stated that it would be a ton of work to get the assets to a working state, and they aren’t entirely sure even of the state of those assets.

      That’s where we come in! We can put in the time and effort that Cyan cannot afford.

  • Dan Says:

    Awesome news!! Good luck!

  • Michael Says:

    If you have a mac running 10.6 10.7 or 10.8 you can play the original riven game right now if you go to rivenonintel.weebly.com

    There you can download an application that will install the files from the riven DVD or CD’s and allow you to play them on your new Macintosh computer. Its awesome!

  • Captain Awesome! Says:

    Shut up and take my money!

  • Josh Says:

    I actually cannot contain how excited I am to play this. Or even to get a deep look into it.

    My mother played Myst, Riven and all their follow-ups as they came out.
    It was only last year that I found her old disks.
    I played them all straight through. They’re incredible games!
    I loved Myst, but Riven took the cake.
    I have since been scouring the internet, looking for a promising Riven remake and wondering why there were none for such an amazing game.

    So thank you. Thank you.
    Now I get to see the nostalgic look on my lovers face when I present her your video.
    Any ideas when this’ll be done? I mean, 2013? 2014?

  • Nathan Says:

    I am really happy to hear about this project, great work so far! I think the graphics look very stunning. Riven has always been my favorite game of the Myst series. Unfortunately it won’t work on my computer anymore because it’s very old, so I’m really looking forward to play this game one day.

    I have a question, how are you guys going to put the characters in the game (Atrus, Gehn, etc)? The recordings from the actual Riven are old and wouldn’t fit the environment of the remake due to the low quality. Are you going to animate the characters or will you hire real actors to play the roles?

  • Arthur Says:

    I am so excited for this remake to be made and I will definitely buy it as soon as it comes out!

    If i had a million dollars to spare I would donate it right away just to have this thing done this year!

    Please don’t drop this project, keep up the good work!

    Amazing stuff you are doing

  • Tincup2 Says:

    Wow!!! looking forward to this in no uncertain way!

  • Ramon Says:

    I wz speaking abt the LOADING. Yeah i guess its the one after the doanlowd, the Press the Key stage, now its at 45 percent, long way to go i guess. MY connection is like 512kps, but i remember the earlier alphas loading much faster, maybe its the Extra content , also my PC is kinda slow. I jus hope im not missin too much of the fun

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