Jeff

Cyan has a strong history of pushing the boundaries visually with each game we produce, and the work we’re doing with our latest project- Firmament- is no exception. This often means that we have to engage in a fair amount of Research and Development to add functionality to the tools that we use. Here’s a video we recently put together with our Art Director Eric where he shows us some of the behind the scenes work it takes to make the world we’re building look as fantastic as possible!

Firmament is an entirely new property – the beginning of another exciting new Cyan universe. It is a deeply immersive narrative adventure game for both VR and PC that is delivered using the state-of-the-art power of Unreal Engine 4. Firmament will be designed for VR on the Rift, Vive, PSVR, and Index, but will be completely playable on normal flat monitors on Windows, macOS, and PS4 as well.

As an aside, if you haven’t had a chance to back our campaign to help support the creation of Firmament, it’s not too late! We are still offering everyone a chance to get the game as well as the exclusive backer rewards we offered during the Kickstarter over at Fangamer. These rewards won’t be available once the game is released, and if you’re the sort of person (like us) who digs having a physical boxed version of the game (We see you! We hear you!) this is the ONLY time you’ll be able to get your hands on one!

realMyst: Masterpiece coming to the Nintendo Switch!

Last year we mentioned that realMyst was coming to the Nintendo Switch. Well the time is near and you can order a limited edition, starting February 28th! 

https://limitedrungames.com/products/switch-limited-run-63-realmyst

Remember, this is a Limited offer: Preorders close on Friday, March 27th at 11:59PM Eastern Time.

The e-shop digital release will be available soon. When we have more information on the digital release date, we will let you know. 

Cyan Ventures publishing a new game: AREA MAN LIVES

Numinous Games, the award winning studio that created “THAT DRAGON, CANCER”  is creating a new game called “AREA MAN LIVES” based on their previous release of a title named “Untethered.” 

For those unfamiliar with the project, “AREA MAN LIVES” sets the player in the hot seat as a small town radio show DJ. As the game begins, the on-air sign lights up, and the producer reminds the player that they have to speak, out loud, to begin the show. The player continues to interact with their voice, recording commercials and interviewing callers. They play records and pass the time with their odd-duck producer until their shift ends. Only when local townspeople start calling in does the player discover just how strange their coastal community can be. When the stakes are raised, can the player do anything to prevent the death of the area man who insists on saving the day?

Check out the full article, press release  and our merch page! 

Cyan Ventures will be at PAX East – Indie Megabooth

If you happen to be in Boston this coming weekend, come see us in the  INDIE MEGABOOTH section of PAX EAST!  We will be showing off an early version of AREA MAN LIVES and giving away some really fun items. Hope to see you there!

Upcoming Changes to the Myst Online Forum and Cyan Forum

Shorah Explorers!

Cyan has been going through a bit of a refresh lately and as a result, we have a few announcements to share with you regarding the future of the Myst Online forums, the Cyan forums, and future community discussions.

Rand recently handed me a stack of papers he thought I might be interested in…

‘You should put this in the newsletter. It’ll blow people’s minds!”

“Old invoices? Really?” I think…

“Not just old invoices. It’s the invoice for the dagger!”

Turns out Cyan commissioned M5 Industries to build the dagger that graces the lobby of Cyan HQ… and the prop itself was built by none other than one of our favorite makers in all the land: Mr. Adam Savage.

Here’s a link to Adam briefly talking about it during a podcast recording! [Very slight Riven ending spoilers by Adam!]

As he mentioned, the original intention was for the final scene of Riven’s “good ending” (where the giant dagger plummets into a newly opened rift) to be filmed live.

The work order contains the plans for not only the dagger, but the rift which was going to be built as 2 tables that could be pulled apart at the proper moment- letting the dagger plunge into the depths while cameras rolled.

In the end it was actually easier to create the final plummet in CG, but you don’t spend $4,000+ on a prop just to throw it away… so the full-sized dagger was re-purposed as a striking greeting for our HQ entryway!

One other bit of esoteric fun that we noticed was that it appears the folks at M5 Industries used a Mac to create their fax cover sheet… that’s very clearly the iconic ‘Chicago‘ font, created by the legendary designer Susan Kare being used. Amazing!

As an aside, this is no longer the location of M5 Industries (and the phone numbers are all disconnected as well), so if you have any notions of making a pilgrimage… please leave the poor folks that currently reside in the location now alone!

Jeff: Welcome to Fan Cave! Where Cyan introduces you to a fan… and their Cave! Today I’d like to introduce you to Jean.

Ahhh, 1996… 23 years ago.

It was the year that actors Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Hailee Stenfield were born. It was also the year that spawned the Macarena, gave us Jerry Maquire, Independence Day, Fargo, and ushered in the Tickle Me Elmo doll. AOL.com was the biggest destination on the internet with 41% of folks checking the site regularly.

Also? It’s the year Cyan moved into our headquarters just outside of Spokane, Washington. Which, according to our website is: “about 119 trillion miles from the nearest habitable planet.”

Nintendo Life Article

Recently the team responded to a handful of written interview questions for Alan Lopez writing over at Nintendo Life who was putting together a piece about the company Fangamer. The full article can be found here.

Since he was using many different sources he was (understandably) unable to use some of our responses within his article, but we thought you might find the unabridged answers interesting.

What’s it like to develop products for a property that’s a few decades old?

We are very fortunate we’ve always had an incredibly loyal and enthusiastic fan base. Our fans are still excited about the games and the products we create related to those games. If anything, they are usually the ones encouraging us to produce more! Refreshing the Cyan brand, we have had a chance to think about the legacy of Myst and what it evokes in the fan community.

Every fan has a story about how they were introduced to the worlds that Cyan created. As the fan base grows older, we find a lot of the products that were hits nearly 30 years ago are items current or newer fans want, too. We hear stories all the time from fans who had a treasured collectible destroyed in a move, or a collectible that was lost when their mom threw it away, and fans who wanted some specific item when they were a kid but just couldn’t afford it, etc. Rejuvenating our brand has given us the opportunity to reach out to those fans and make available some of these iconic items via Fangamer as well as our recently opened Cyan store.

Are you or anyone on your team directly involved, or do you simply sign off on what is created by Fangamer?

Obduction Updates

Latest Obduction update now available on all platforms!
We’ve recently released the PS4 / PSVR update for Obduction, which brings the game in line with the released versions for Mac and Windows! This major update contains bug fixes along with improvements made to overall performance and VR in general.

Welcome to Fan Cave! Where Cyan introduces you to a fan… and their Cave!

Cyan: Thanks for showing us your Fan Space! Please introduce yourself…

Gabe: My name is Gabriel, I go by Gabe and my gamer tag is “Rustm0nky”. Mainly I’m on Xbox.

C. What do you do for a living?

G. My occupation is “Project Performance Analyst” I work for the department of defense. I’ve been with them for 13 years.