NewsCategory Archive

New realMyst: Masterpiece Edition Now Available

Spokane, WA, February 11, 2014 — Celebrating 20 years since the original release of Myst, Cyan, Inc. announces the availability of realMyst: Masterpiece Edition – a completely updated version of realMyst for MacOS and Windows. realMyst: Masterpiece Edition delivers the rich story and gameplay of the original Myst in a visually and aurally stunning, dynamic, realtime 3D experience updated for today’s computers and graphics cards.

Myst was originally released in 1993 to both critical and popular acclaim. Its storyline, environments, graphics, music, and interface created an award winning experience that made it the best-selling game of the last millennium. realMyst: Masterpiece Edition shakes that original adventure forward – updating the journey to a state-of-the-art experience. The realtime 3D environment allows for complete freedom of motion and viewing – with seamless movement from place to place. And the new, easy-to-use Classic Mode navigation option provides a simple point-and-click exploration that works just like the original Myst.

“This Masterpiece Edition of realMyst provides an amazing experience in a dynamic 3D world that’s as easy to explore as the original Myst,” said Rand Miller, cofounder of Cyan. “To explore the islands and Ages of Myst in realtime… it’s an amazing feeling. We wanted to recreate the Myst experience of 20 years ago but with the sophistication that today’s computer can deliver.”

The ease of the “classic” Myst interface was not an easy thing to implement. “We located and marked every still image location and angle from the original Myst in 3D space in realMyst.” said Jason Calvert, Sr. Software Engineer on the project. “The idea was to provide an uncompromising 3D experience with the simple point and click interface that made the original Myst accessible to anyone.”

The realtime version also makes possible visual enhancements such as day and night cycles, rippling water, waving branches, falling rain, moving clouds, setting suns, and more. And since exploration can take place at night, realMyst: Masterpiece Edition offers a unique new addition – a flashlight. The audio also benefits from realtime with sounds that emanate from specific locations and react realistically as the player explores. The addition of the Rime Age provides a reward for completing the journey.

realMyst: Masterpiece Edition is being launched at a price of $17.99US. It is available immediately for MacOS and Windows on Steam and the Mac App Store. For current owners of the original version of realMyst on Steam, there is a 33% loyalty discount.

About Cyan:

Cyan is an entertainment company located in Spokane, Washington. They are best known for Myst, Riven, and Myst Online: Uru Live. Cyan got its start in 1987 with the whimsical worlds for children – The Manhole. They currently maintain and update the Myst family of games, create mobile apps of all sizes (including realMyst, Myst, Riven, Stoneship, Bug Chucker, and The Manhole), and run the Myst Online server on a donation basis.

Click here for more info.

realMyst: Masterpiece Edition is looking amazing! And… well… it’s so close, but not quite ready. We’ve decided to hold on for another few weeks to clean up a couple things and polish a couple new features.

Sorry we didn’t make 2013, but we know you’ll be happier with the results. It’ll be worth the wait.

We’ll be teasing with a few things as we lead up to launch. Stay tuned!

Our longtime fans (and friends) at InkWorks Production have launched a Kickstarter campaign for a tabletop RPG set in the D’ni universe. Here’s the description in their own words…

Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages of MYST and Beyond combines the lush worlds and history of the Myst franchise of video games with the story-focused RPG mechanics of the Fate Core RPG system.

We’re excited to announce that they’ve fully funded within 24 hours, and they’re now working on stretch goals. Click over and take part in the ongoing adventure.

And be sure to stay tuned for more from Cyan as we finalize our own Kickstarter campaign for an epic new project – coming soon!

For Myst’s 20th anniversary, we’d like to give you a glimpse of what we’ve done with realMyst. Here’s a list of a few features we think you’ll look forward to.

• Deferred Dynamic Lighting with realtime shadowing.
• Day/night cycles… including Channelwood.
• Updated water effects with realtime reflections.
• Classic Controls. Explore every inch using standard 3d controls, or choose to relive the experince using classic point and click controls.

Thanks to all our friends and fans for their continued support over the years. We appreciate everything you’ve done for us. Stay tuned for more information.
-Rand

You may have noticed that in the last week we’ve managed to sneak in a brand spankin’ new Cyan logo to a few of our sites. That’s just the start of the changes. We’re happy to announce that we’ve also done a major update to our website – redesigning, reorganizing, refreshing, & rebuilding. We hope you like the changes.

With the logo, as well as the website, we’re going for a cleaner look with a subtle harkening back to our roots. The new simpler logo, has elements from every logo that we’ve had over the years – starting from our very first blue ball and continuing all the way through our most recent metallic, planetary, wireframe extravaganza.

Feel free to explore around the site. We’ve managed to keep things light and fun, and we’ve even thrown in a few things to make our long-time fans chuckle. If you manage to find any issues, please let us know at [email protected], and we’ll try to get it fixed.

Thanks again for all the support. We’re looking back, and looking forward. We know some of you may get tired of hearing this, but…

“Perhaps the ending has not yet been written.” – Atrus (Myst)

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MoMA’s design exhibition opens to the public tomorrow! Here’s a promo video from MoMA that has a bit of Myst!

We’ve updated and cleaned up realMyst for iPad. If you haven’t tried it yet, there is no better time to see what you’ve been missing. Here are a few comments from the App Store…

“Best game on iPad” (5 stars)
“Get this game!!!!!!!!!!” (5 stars)
“Phenomenal Graphics” (5 stars)
“Excellent!!!” (5 stars)
“Great Game!” (5 stars)
“Awesome!!” (5 stars)
“GREAT APP!!” (5 stars)
“Best ipad game ever!” (5 stars)
“Amazing.” (5 stars)
“Amazing game!” (5 stars)
“Better than the original” (5 stars)
“iPad was made for realMyst” (5 stars)

Here’s what we did to make realMyst even better…

– Updated Sirrus and Achenar book behavior
– Fixed generator room door button issue
– Worked on the Mechanical Age elevator
– Cleaned up the Channelwood Age elevators
– Fixed fall-through condition in Mechanical Fortress stairs
– Fixed Selenitic Maze auto-save corruption if quitting in Maze
– Cleaned up endgame state when returning to D’ni after finishing
– Fixed the generator room when saving while changing
– Fixed the crystal solution as provided in Rime journal
– Cleaned up interaction with a ladder while engaged in a puzzle
– and bunches of other smaller bug fixes and clean up

Click here for more info.

We’ve updated Myst (iPhone & iPod touch) – in English, French, and German! Here’s what we did …

– Fixed crash in Selenitic maze when skipping movies
– Cleaned up iOS 6 compatibility
– Improved iPhone 5 compatibility
– Cleaned up Help & Hint
– Fixed bunches of other small issues

Myst (English) App Store
Myst (French) App Store
Myst (German) App Store