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‘Myst’ 2021 remake is heading to iOS devices
Just in time for Myst’s 30th anniversary this fall, Cyan Worlds announced this week that it’s bringing the recent 2021 remake of the classic point-and-click adventure game to iPhones and iPads.
Classic puzzle game 'Myst' is being turned into a VR mini golf course
An expansion for 'Walkabout Mini Golf' will arrive later this year.
Apple's 2021 App Store Awards highlight 'connection'
Apple's 2021 App Store Awards include games like Among Us and social networks like Peanut.
Apple's MacBook Pro M1 is $200 off, plus the rest of the week's best tech deals
This week's best tech deals include $200 off the Apple MacBook Pro M1, $59 off the Apple Watch SE and $50 off the August WiFi smart lock.
'Myst' Oculus remake hits PC and Mac this year, no VR headset required
Ready to buy yet another copy of Myst?
Classic adventure game 'Myst' is being reimagined for Oculus Quest
After making its way to every other platform out there, Myst is making the jump to VR.
Stunning visual puzzler 'The Witness' arrives on iOS
After months of teases and rumour, striking 3D puzzle game The Witness has finally landed in the App Store, for both iPhone and iPad. Likened to a modern-day Myst, the open world game sees players wake up on a strange, colorful island with no memory of who they are or how they got there. Only by exploring the vast island, discovering clues and completing curious puzzles can they hope to regain their memory and somehow find their way home. With dozens of locations to discover and more than 500 puzzles to solve, The Witness is a beautiful beast of a game, available now for $10/£10.
'Myst' studio's crowdfunded 'Obduction' hits PS4 August 29th
If you're a die-hard Myst fan, you've probably at least heard of Obduction, the new game from Cyan. You may have even supported its Kickstarter. Today, CEO Rand Miller took to the PlayStation blog to announce that the game will be available for the PS4 on August 29th; it will include a PS VR update, though that may not be available at launch time. You can preorder it now. Obduction is much like the worlds of Myst and Riven. It centers on solving puzzles, and features a gorgeous, immersive and intricately crafted world. You are essentially kidnapped from Earth and taken to an alien world called Hunrath, which features a strange mix of Earth tech from different periods combined with unrecognizable pieces. There's also a message that this has happened to people before; you're not alone on this world. The developers of Obduction are intent on making it one of the most extensive VR games available. You can currently purchase it for Oculus Rift, as well as the HTC Vive and Touch. It's also available on PC and Mac. The company promises that, while this is the first VR game from Cyan, it certainly won't be the last.
Classic puzzle adventure 'Myst' comes to Android
Myst needs little introduction. The puzzle adventure game was a smash hit when it originally released on the Macintosh in 1993. Now, it's available on Android too. The latest port, developed by mobile studio Noodlecake, is called realMyst and features a bunch of improvements, including "dynamic environments," a built in hint guide and "bookmarks" for saving and restoring your progress. You will, of course, have to put up with touchscreen controls, or hook up a Bluetooth gamepad for some analog stick action. Otherwise, it's classic Myst, with the iconic island and devious puzzles faithfully restored. Can you remember all of the solutions?
Explore indie puzzler 'The Witness' on Xbox One in September
"Ideally we want the game to be in as many places as we can get it, but since we are a small developer and it's a complicated game, we can only do so much at once." That's The Witness developer Jonathan Blow describing to us his desire for the indie puzzler to be available on more than just PlayStation 4. All the way back in February 2013. Now those dreams are coming to fruition as The Witness will make its way to Xbox One on September 13th -- two and a half years after that interview with my coworker Jessica Conditt and six months after its debut on PS4 and PC. In a post on Xbox Wire, Blow lays out what new players should do when they get their hands on it.
Hulu is reportedly making a TV series based on 'Myst'
It's a good day for point-and-click fans. After the news that you can now play Grim Fandango Remastered on your morning commute, it seems like the '90s classic Myst is getting its own TV series. According to Deadline, a drama series that explores the origin of the game's eponymous island is coming to streaming service Hulu. For those that don't know, Myst was a huge hit in its day; its innovative storytelling methods and stunning graphics made it the best-selling PC game of the decade.
Point-and-click classic 'Myst' is getting a TV show and a new tie-in game
Need a shot of early-'90s nostalgia? The classic PC adventure game Myst is getting a TV adaptation. The game's creators at Cyan Worlds have signed a deal with Legendary TV and Digital Media (a branch of the film production company) and the show will apparently bring a tie-in game to go along with it, according to Deadline. The companion game sounds very much like it'd be appearing on tablets, considering Legendary cites a statistic that 70 percent of slate owners use their device while watching TV "at least several times" per week, something Cyan sees as a way to expand its interactive narrative. Variety points out that Legendary has yet to decide whether the show will be a traditional broadcast program or if it'll be a digital project (its movie based on the Dead Rising series is a Crackle exclusive).
Myst creators ink deal to turn adventure game into TV series
Legendary Entertainment and Myst developer Cyan have reached an agreement that will see the seminal adventure game leap from the PC (and a dozen other gaming platforms) to your television. Variety claims Rand and Robyn Miller - the duo most commonly cited as the creators of Myst - will be directly involved with the creative direction of the TV series. Their goal is to not only create a "compelling TV drama" but to also expand Myst into a "true transmedia franchise" that might include tablet support and a tie-in video game. Yes, that would be a video game based on a TV show based on a video game. Lacking from Variety's report is word on whether the series will debut on a traditional TV network, via digital distribution or on a streaming service. Likewise, it's unknown what part of the Myst universe the series will be based on. With numerous sequels and spin-offs (including a defunct but rabidly beloved massively multiplayer online game) there's a wealth of material within the Myst mythos to include in the series, and that's assuming the show doesn't create a wholly unique plotline within the Millers' complex universe. [Image: Cyan]
The Game Archaeologist: Myst Online: Uru Live
The impact of Myst in 1993 was akin to an atomic bomb going off in the PC gaming world. The leap forward in graphical fidelity (aided by the large storage capacity of a CD-ROM and all of the full-motion video and gorgeous images tucked into it) captured gamers' imaginations and made this adventure title the best-selling PC game of all time, at least for several years. Brothers Robyn and Rand Miller's story about a stranger who had to solve puzzles through a good-looking (if deserted) landscape was devilishly difficult, yet that challenge kept players coming back for months and even years. The Myst franchise surged forward at that point, with several sequels, remakes, and ports selling like hotcakes through the final game's release in 2005. Yet something interesting happened along the way when an offshoot of the series -- Uru: Ages Beyond Myst -- evolved into an MMO. With a focus on multiplayer exploration and puzzle-solving instead of non-stop combat, it may be one of the very few MMOs out there that eschews fighting for brainpower. It's an oddity, no doubt, and despite it being an incredibly niche title, it has fascinated me enough to pull me into a research rabbit hole. So let's take a look at Myst Online: Uru Live!
Myst and SimCity enter the History of Electronic Games collection
Broderbund Software's legacy is sure to live on through ports, sequels and source code, but what about the game developer's behind-the-scenes history? Thankfully, it won't be fading away any time soon. Company founder Doug Carlston has donated Broderbund's software and corporate records to The Strong, a museum dedicated to all forms of play. The move should help illustrate the creation process behind every title that Broderbund published, including classics like Myst, Prince of Persia, the original SimCity and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. The collection isn't limited to game assets -- Carlston is donating correspondence, photos and other material that reveals the studio's culture. Few people will get to see this treasure trove of gaming nostalgia in person, but it should preserve Broderbund's accomplishments for a long time to come.
Rise and Shiny revisit: Myst Online: Uru Live
I'm just going to get this out at the beginning: I absolutely adore adventure games, and honesty above all honesty, I think adventure gaming is almost the perfect genre. I wish MMOs would play like adventure games. I wish that adventure games had multimillion dollar budgets so they could go on forever and ever, patch after patch of head-scratching puzzley goodness. I wish that adventure games were not as rare as they are. But I also wish I were actually good at adventure gaming. I have a hard time with puzzles. Gollum would have had me for lunch. I've been enjoying my time in Lilly Looking Through and Memoria so, so much, all the while becoming extremely depressed each and every time I look up a walkthrough that made me feel like a complete and total three-year-old who could barely assemble one of those funny multi-colored donut toys. The thing is, I'm smart, right? I was in those funny advanced classes that taught me languages and told me my IQ was high and were separate from the muggles. At one point they even did experiments on me that made me put together odd puzzle-thingies and attempt to control a primitive computer. Yet here I am now playing Words with Friends and trying to spell words like "THURK" or "ZSATS." Why on earth did I subject myself to the tough puzzles of Myst Online: Uru Live?
Rise and Shiny: Genia Brain Storm
I love it when I come across a game that surprises me. I usually load up MMOs well before I commit to writing about them just to test out whether or not it's worthwhile. I've covered too many duds to know that if I don't check the game out, I could be stuck with a game that literally doesn't work. So I signed up for a free Brain Storm account, picked out where my city should be located (based on a real-world map), and started the tutorial. At first I thought that an MMO that is essentially one part quiz-show, one part MMORTS, and one part SimCity-ish builder would come off as hokey and much too easy. But I was wrong on a lot of fronts. This game is clever, clean, and a lot of fun.
Massively's Third Annual Frindie Awards
It's time once again for me to throw out my awards for the best of free-to-play, indie, and oddball MMOs, a real niche-within-a-niche. It might seem that I am assigned many of these titles as though I were some modern day Mikey, but the truth is that I get a huge thrill out of finding a new game but get even more of a thrill when I realize that no one is covering it. I had to really think hard about the criteria for the awards this year, mainly because "indie" is quickly becoming one of those often hard-to-define words, alongside "MMORPG" and "free-to-play." Fortunately, I think I know it when I see it. I kept my choices to games that I have actually played this year. I wanted to avoid games that appear to be really cool. If you want a more broad batch of prizes, check out Massively's best of awards. (Side note: I voted for Defiance as my game of the year.) These awards are for games that are being created on a shoestring or independent of massive budgets. Some of them are connected to some money, of course, but instead of trying to define "indie," I will only repeat: You'll know it when you see it.
Myst creators reach $1.2 million funding goal for Obduction
Obduction, the upcoming first-person adventure game from Myst creator Cyan Inc, has reached $1.2 million with its fundraising campaign. The project is being built with the strengths of Myst and Riven in mind - players will be abducted by an artifact and placed upon a bizarre world with a minimalistic explanation. Answering questions beyond that is up to the players. The project's Kickstarter page explains that "even the toughest puzzles should be designed so that you know that all the pieces to solve it are there in front of you." Those pieces may indeed be present, but if Obduction is to be anything like Cyan's previous works, grabbing a notebook and forming a team amongst friends to persevere might not be a bad idea. Windows and Mac users will be among Obduction's targets, once it begins kidnapping people in "mid-to-late 2015."
Myst, Riven studio reveals new PC adventure game Obduction
Cyan Inc, the studio behind the landmark multimedia adventure game Myst, announced that it is working on a new first-person adventure game for Windows and Mac. The team has turned to Kickstarter to fund the project, and seeks $1.1 million in pledges. Obduction promises the same sort of exploration-driven gameplay that defined Myst and its sequels, dropping players into an unfamiliar world filled with environmental puzzles. Contrasting the pre-rendered, path-based approach adopted by Riven, Obduction's varied landscapes will be presented via Unreal Engine 4, aiding player immersion. Obduction is set for release in mid-to-late 2015. If you yearn for the first-person puzzle-solving days of old, it might be worth kicking a few bucks toward Cyan, assuming that you haven't yet had your fill of '90s revivals after backing the new Boogerman game.