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?” 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.
[Slight Riven spoilers follow] 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. In the end it was actually easier to create the plummet in CG and so the full-sized dagger was re-purposed as a striking greeting for our entryway.
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?
The Cyan Vault
Down a secret staircase. Through a hidden hallway. Around an unexpected corner. Through a locked door… lies the Cyan Vault. A treasure trove of history about Cyan, the games, and the folks that have made them. Oh, my friend! The wonders that I have seen…
This week I stumbled upon a stack of early work that the Riven team did to explore the logo and brand that eventually became the Riven logo and brand we all know and love!
As a “branding guy” myself. I always find looking through this sort of work fascinating and seeing how things developed over time, and I hope you do too!
Do you want to see more from the vault? Let me know what you think on Twitter and if y’all are as curious about all this stuff as I am, I’ll do my best to get some of these things into your hands!
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.
