I recently sat down to talk—at length—with Rand Miller, co-creator of Myst and head of development studio Cyan Worlds. Beneath you’ll find half-dozen,000 or and so words on everything from his new game, Obduction, to exploring New Mexico, motion sickness, the Oculus Rift, Jonathan Blow’s new game The Witness, the death of first-person adventure games, and more.
The tape clicks on just every bit Miller begins to talk about how even swingsets make him motion-ill these days.
RAND MILLER (RM):
…a swingset. You lot know, this old fashioned kids swingset, and I start to get nauseous and information technology’southward like “Come on, what is going on, how tin this be?”
That’s gotta be pretty bad for a videogame dev.
RM:
[Laughs] Or maybe it helps me consider aaaalll audiences.
So now you’re getting this easy-going audience in there and you’re like “Eh, you lot won’t be sick if I’m not sick. You’ll be fine.”
RM:
Exactly. Well, okay, I’ll tell y’all a piffling funny thing. I’m personally answering a bunch of the Kickstarter questions and I actually only answered probably less than fifteen minutes ago a question where someone said, “My wife gets sick using 3D dynamic games. I do fine simply she gets sick. Are you going to address that in Obduction? And I said, “Crazy matter, I go sick also so we’ve got a few ideas for at least helping a petty with that.”
That’southward my dad’due south main problem as well. My dad played a lot of 2nd games back in the day merely now he’ll only watch me play them and later on almost half an hour or forty minutes he’s like “I’ll be back,” then he walks off to try and settle his tummy.
RM:
Exactly, sounds familiar. Or merely move back far enough. If I’m dorsum far plenty, it’s okay.
So it’south a field of view type of affair?
RM:
Correct. And I actually did okay with the Oculus. Nosotros had it working with RealMyst, this version of Myst that nosotros’re updating, and we hooked it up and y’all’re able to wander through Myst Island. It was actually pretty cool; I did
non
go to the bath and throw up afterwards.
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Are you releasing that to the public? Is there going to be a mode for me to play RealMyst on the Oculus shortly?
RM: Hopefully. I don’t accept whatsoever announcement still, only obviously it’due south something we want to do. Information technology takes a little bit of work to make sure you’ve covered your bases for the Oculus Rift, but the timing’due south perfect because we have this update nosotros’re doing and Oculus is looking for cool stuff, then we’re working on that. Whatsoever sees the light of 24-hour interval, I’m not sure, only we’re definitely trying.
What’s going in to the update?
RM: We but freshened information technology for the 20th
ceremony. We’ve been working on it for a while. We don’t want to mess with Myst that much, Myst is a classic. But RealMyst? It’s applied science driven and it was kind of showing its age with the old engine and the one-time textures and stuff. Nosotros’re updating that with a lot of new stuff and a day/night cycle and a few other bells and whistles that are kind of fun.
Is in that location any plan to get back and update Riven at any point?
RM: Riven’s catchy. That’southward the same thing, we don’t want to touch the classic version of Riven either. It’due south so classic and skillful, and building it in real-fourth dimension 3D at this point is a little…it’s a
lot
to bite off, I’ll put information technology that style. Correct now nosotros don’t have whatever plans. There’s kind of a crowd…
mysterium.ch
H: Yeah, there’southward a fan project right?
RM: Right, fan project. They’re attempting to exercise that with Riven and we’re trying to support them only information technology’due south a big job and money-wise we don’t have the resources to exercise it and I’m not sure how big the audience would exist for that, so we’ll see what the fans can do.
Yous raised a 3rd of your Kickstarter goal in less than a mean solar day. What would you exist doing if Kickstarter didn’t be?
RM: Honestly I think we’d be concentrating on smaller projects. The thing that’s been keeping us alive is a lot of our legacy products and the mobile marketplace. And the mobile market not merely as a platform for development but as a platform for publishing equally well. Information technology’south frankly spoiled us because nosotros scrap our teeth with the publisher model and it’s proficient if you get a good publisher.
Nosotros had our Broderbund days and that was a pretty adept publisher as far as that goes, but we also had horror stories with a few other ones. Anyway, long story short, the whole idea of being in control of your destiny and publishing yourself and being able to do things this fashion is a breath of fresh air fifty-fifty if they’re not equally big of projects every bit a publisher might fund, they’re more efficient because the publisher can sometimes filibuster a project. They’ll say, “Can you lot guys exercise this?” or “Tin can you guys modify this?” or “Can you put more guns in it?” or something similar that.
Exercise yous call back Cyan would’ve eventually buckled to publishers or tried to detect a publisher that supported you more?
RM: At this betoken, I don’t really call up so. Not, at to the lowest degree, the traditional way. I think we would’ve merely stuck with the smaller things and tried to build ourselves up past the bootstraps. It’southward almost like what we did when my brother and I started the company. Nosotros started with small projects and then took the coin from those and put information technology dorsum into larger ones and dorsum into larger ones. Frankly that’s what allowed us to do Myst. We didn’t have necessarily a publisher that was interested at the fourth dimension. We had a Japanese company and we actually took it to several publishers and they said, “Eh, I don’t get this. I don’t think we want this.”
And then in many ways it was that bootstrapping that immune us to do Myst. It’s a lot of work and you lot don’t build mansions and buy yachts with that, just it’due south really satisfying to command your own destiny.
How does the meg you’re request for on Kickstarter compare to the budgets of Myst and Riven?
RM: It’s betwixt them. We actually got nigh $250,000 from a Japanese company for Myst…I call up it was $250,000. Information technology may have been more than that. Information technology may have been closer to $400,000. And then we really funded the other half ourselves—some other $400 or $500,000 ourselves. So it was actually nether a 1000000 for Myst.
Riven was…Yeah, [Obduction] is between the two but it’south definitely closer to the Myst budget. Riven was a lot higher and I don’t even know the concluding number because we were basking in the Myst royalty checks at that point. They’d come in and nosotros’d spend them basically on Riven at that point. It was probably several million.
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You’ve mentioned there were a number of larger projects you lot were kicking effectually at Cyan and pitching around to publishers. Is Obduction one of those ideas that was floating around for a while or was it something new just for the Kickstarter?
RM: It’s an interesting story. I recollect Obduction started
right
after. In fact, Obduction was ane of the commencement ideas we had for a not-Myst game after Robyn left—went one management and I went another direction, it was “What are we going to do?” In the back of my mind was this Obduction thought just information technology had a lot of possible paths in its implementation. Over the years we’ve tried a few of those, fleshed out a few of those options, and some of them have been more satisfying, some of them less satisfying. And nosotros really tweaked some of them just to entice publishers and those didn’t experience correct.
Anyway, when information technology came time to the Kickstarter, it was like, “Well let’s go back to its roots. What nosotros wanted Obduction to be at the offset.” Kickstarter’s what allowed us to go back to the source.
So no rolling of ideas together? This is pretty much what yous originally set up out to exercise?
RM: Yeah! At present, like whatsoever of the ideas we practise hither we outset with a seed idea and we have a grouping of people who churn on it. It’south not a ane-homo pattern thing. Even when Robyn and I were designing it was good to accept the people to play off of because you lot go that opinion, you feed information technology through the filter and you lot become great ideas. You know how that works. You play stuff of people and they give you lot a seed for some other little trail you tin go down. So even though we jumped back to the source idea for Obduction, simply the team we’ve got now working on this has already gone down some new paths and it’southward already evolved into its ain really unique menses. It’s got a different feel from even the source information technology started at.
Is there anything you’d point to as an inspiration for Obduction? Any films, books, etc?
RM: Hard to point to one in particular, but it’southward the same affair that inspired Myst to a certain extent. Information technology has to practice with going to interesting places. For heaven’due south sake, I simply explored New United mexican states and information technology’s the same feeling I have exploring New Mexico that drives me to desire to explore or
build
these places to explore that are actually foreign and unique and they
experience existent
but they’re so odd and strange y’all’re just not sure where they came from.
Then New Mexico I can most of the time explain where things come from. In Obduction? Information technology’ll be a niggling more than circuitous to fill in those blanks.
Only the inspiration comes from that. I love science fiction. I’ve loved information technology since I was a kid, and then it’southward a natural leap to take the idea of being abducted, wondering how you got to a item place—and frankly, I dearest that idea. That idea’s been effectually forever. The idea of being abducted. And it merely lends itself and so well to interactive. What would you lot exercise? What do you practise if you lot’re abducted? If yous’re not watching it in movies—if you’re
really
the one who’s abducted.
The Kickstarter page is pretty light on story details. How are you balancing that with the need to make a pitch, talk to press, the fact that you’re opening upward development to backers and show them what’s going on in Cyan’s office—how exercise y’all rest that with wanting people to not know anything going into the story?
RM: Yes, it’southward tough. It’s non an easy residue and honestly we had the aforementioned problem with Myst. Trying to pitch Myst to people is non-picayune considering yous get into the game and you prepare information technology down in front end of them and they click effectually and say, “Okay, what’s information technology most?” and you become, “Well, I tin can’t really give y’all likewise much data. You just take to explore because if I give you too much information yous’re ruining your exploration.”
We have the same problem, only we realize we’ll accept to feed some stuff out. Even with the Kickstarter, we realize that nosotros may be withholding information from our development, from the blueprint, that other people would exist able to put out in that location and we’re a little concerned that we become dinged for information technology or people will think, “Oh, they don’t take anything.” Like the Rock Newspaper Shotgun stuff—“Oh, they’ve got aught.”
There’south always that risk, but we besides desire the feel to be gained when people play it, so we decided to take the adventure, concur our cards a picayune flake closer than perchance most Kickstarter games do, and see how public responded. So far it’due south been nifty. I call up people sympathise the kind of entertainment we do, and they realize information technology’ll be a meliorate experience for them if they don’t know.
Now with that said, I think we don’t take the all privilege of Myst or Riven. With Myst we did it on our own and nobody knew about information technology so we didn’t have to reveal very much. With Riven information technology was completely paid for, then we didn’t have to reveal very much. So we will have to figure out where that line is and we’re going to be trying very hard to proceed people satisfied with piddling teases and at the same time not requite abroad too much. And I hope nosotros come up away on the right side of that.
Going into the game itself: how do you balance an emergent story with the fear players are going to miss something, specially in the current land of games where games concord your paw more than when Myst originally came out?
RM: I think it has to practise with—without getting into all the details—I think it has to exercise with psychological spaces. I recall Myst did ane of the best jobs with that with the psychological spaces it was divided into. It felt like when you went to explore an Age, you lot were pretty reassured that the puzzles and the story and the elements in that age were independent there and your mind could kind of block off the other places you’ve been or the other places y’all’ve seen or fifty-fifty the main Myst Island and y’all could simply explore that area. Choice up all the story in that location, feel like you had information technology done, solve the puzzles at that place, get the pages there, and then lock it up and permit information technology get.
I recall that’s a huge, huge chemical element. You give people areas that have a lot of story in them, and every bit they’re solving it, as they’re wandering around that controlled area, the story reveals itself and you let them out so they don’t feel like they accept to come back in that location. It’s done. That one’s wrapped up. I think that works great with story likewise.
guildofarchivists.org
I assume since this is congenital in UE4 information technology’s a 3D costless-roam game.
RM: Right. That’ll exist the primary method. I mean…yes. That’ll be the primary method. We also accept some fun things. We may try and cover a larger audience with a few other ways to explore that aren’t the gratuitous-roam method.
That’south what you hateful past the intuitive and transparent interface on the Kickstarter page?
RM: Yep. I hateful, this is not-petty stuff, merely information technology’s interesting. For instance, in the latest version of RealMyst we actually went into every—and by the way, this is kind of driven considering we’re paying homage to the original Myst—we went into the real-fourth dimension 3D version models and mapped every location from the original Myst that in that location was a shot. Nosotros put a node in there, and so y’all can play the new RealMyst version exactly the style you played the original Myst but it’due south all in real-fourth dimension and so you flow from place to place and when y’all turn effectually information technology’s in real-time 3D and everything is dynamic similar information technology should exist.
It’due south kind of the best of both worlds in a lot of means. It’s very inclusive, then. Most gamers are going to play in gratis-roam, but I can sit my mom in front of it like she was able to play Myst considering it’southward so simple. Here’due south a mouse. Indicate. Click. Oh there y’all get. She tin play a real-time version of RealMyst now, which is kind of satisfying.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Does that change the mode you design puzzles in Obduction? Knowing that there’s a gratuitous-roam version and—I don’t want to read as well much into what you’re maxim—just a more than static point-and-click version?
RM: It could modify them a bit but for the virtually part we’re going to exist designing for the free roam. I think the point-and-click version will be things nosotros’ll have to adjust. We’re going to be designing all of it and everything nosotros’ve thought about is going to be taking full advantage of the real-time 3D so we don’t want to cripple it or compromise it by constraints that are tied truly to the indicate-and-click version. In that location’s lot of ways effectually—we’re finding this with other stuff we’ve done—there are ways around the puzzles fifty-fifty if they’re designed for gratuitous-roam.
In Myst and Riven information technology was important that y’all were basically on your own for those games. You occasionally take interactions with the blueish pages and red pages or a few characters, but it was fairly lonely. On the Kickstarter folio for Obduction there’s concept art of another woman; is Obduction going to exist more than like Myst and Riven where there’s an empty environment we’re exploring, or are there people we’re interacting with?
RM:
I call back we should await something more than similar Myst and Riven. I besides recollect with a real-time 3D environment we have a picayune more power to populate it. The plans are—there are some characters in there. I simply want people to feel similar they did in Myst and Riven. It’southward going to feel similar it’due south their adventure, and they’ll run across people every now and and then. The biggest problem, frankly—and this is something my brother and I discovered even when nosotros were doing Myst—characters in games tin can be notoriously spell breaking. In the terminate, information technology’due south actually hard to collaborate with a non-real grapheme. Y’all tin’t really have a chat with them and you lot can’t really discuss the weather and enquire them how their kids are. You just can’t do those things, so it has to be very controlled in guild to try and exist realistic, and we’re designing with that in mind.
Are we going to see more FMV? Will nosotros run across you creeping around the environment, or are there going to be 3D models?
RM:
Everything volition be 3D models as far as what our plans are right now. That doesn’t mean there won’t exist animated textures that are captured and done in unlike ways, we’re still trying to lock down how we want to do certain things, and so. Information technology won’t be full-motion video probably on top of things. Well, I say that, but I don’t want to lock out anything at this signal. We’ve got plans, and by the fourth dimension it comes to practice that we desire to brand certain we’re doing it the best way possible.
Is Obduction a epitome still or by and large concept art and plans?
RM: Information technology’south concept art and plans.
Why non make some other Myst game? Is there a reason?
RM: Yeah, you lot know, we had large discussions near this when nosotros were talking near Kickstarter. Information technology’s been a long time finalizing all this. The early discussions we started down a Myst path doing another Myst game and in some means I just…I came to one of the meetings and I just said, “Guys, I don’t think I tin do this.” And the reason is the very thing that gives y’all the rich history of story for Myst also starts to press in. The sides commencement to close in when you’re doing a new blueprint and new development. You lot try to push button back on those walls endmost in, and with Myst in particular they don’t
give
very well. There’southward the canon you have to picket for, and there’s the fans that know the story and they’re not going to be forgiving if you intermission lots of rules. Information technology felt smothering.
When nosotros switched gears and said let’south just commencement from a bare slate, from the white paper on the table, and we brought up the Obduction idea, it’s like the air cleared. The fog was gone, the walls opened support, and it felt like the correct thing to do.
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Volition nosotros run into any Myst/Obduction same-globe crossovers?
RM: It’s two different worlds, just that doesn’t mean we tin can’t have a little fun with it. Non necessarily in an official manner. We’ve always kind of crossed our worlds. Even in the kids games we had references to Myst and we had some references to the kids games in Myst itself, like the Osmoian Age I think at one signal was mentioned in one of the journals. Then nosotros would dear to practice our little Easter eggs but I don’t call up annihilation in an official form.
How big is Cyan these days?
RM:
We’ve got about 15 people here these days and a lot of people—frankly, a lot of people watching the Kickstarter hoping they’ll be getting a call pretty quick.
Is this a reassembling of the dream team matter? Are you trying to bring back people who worked on old Cyan projects?
RM: Yep, sure! I’ve worked with and so many amazing people, it’s crazy, and we’re on good terms with everybody I know of. I mean, I’ve actually enjoyed working with so many people. Nosotros’ve tried to lay off people carefully, tried to make sure they institute other stuff gradually, our size goes upward and down like any company. Only we really have stayed on not bad terms, and I think—well, I
know
there’s a lot of people who want to come back, and I recollect at that place’s fifty-fifty more. I’m not certain that we’d even be able to rent all the people who would
desire
to come back for this projection.
How many of the original Myst/Riven squad is still effectually in that fifteen?
RM: We’ve got…let’south see, if you include me there’s ane…two…three…Iii of us who really worked on—well, four…Let’due south see, permit me continue going here. Yeah, four of usa who worked on Myst and Riven.
Ellen Rockett
And how big was Cyan at its peak?
RM: Let’southward see, at the end of Myst we had six people. And I think in the peak of Riven, towards the very end, nosotros were probably between xxx and forty.
At IndieCade you mentioned there was a point where y’all stopped knowing anybody in the company. Was that the peak at Riven?
RM: Yeah, when it starts getting close to forty it gets complicated. Nosotros’ve washed some other things too where we’ve gotten bigger, where we had fifty or more when we were doing the Myst Online stuff, and it feels so inefficient. It feels like I don’t know people, information technology’s complicated, communications start to break down, I’m not sure how efficient actually edifice things is, people don’t have plenty ownership. Information technology’s much more satisfying with a smaller team. I didn’t mind Riven equally much, getting into 30 and xl, but much above that starts to feel not right. Permit’s face up it, with the tools we’ve got I call up we can exercise some incredibly astonishing things with a group of people that’due south between what we had for Myst and Riven.
I don’t know how much you actually play games yet. Do you play games these days?
RM: On occasion.
It seems like we’re going through a first-person chance Renaissance. Have you gotten to play anything—I’m thinking of Gone Habitation in particular. That game seems to embody a lot of what Cyan espouses, where you were only wandering around a house exploring a infinite.
RM: No, I haven’t! There’s a few games I’ve looked at—bluntly, the games I’ve looked at [laughs] accept mostly been FPSes and I just drool at the landscapes. I wish in that location wasn’t the fiction of the bad guys for me to kill so I could wander effectually and explore a little more. Merely Gone Home, I actually hadn’t heard of Gone Abode, and then I’ll check that out!
How about Jonathan Accident’s The Witness? He’s come up out in interviews and said it was sort of inspired by Myst.
RM: Oh yep. I’m honored. He’s a genius with his design, so I’m excited to requite it a shot. I love his work, and honestly I don’t know what to expect. I’ve heard the same thing, that it was kind of inspired, but I’ve seen screenshots with some of the puzzle-based stuff so it’ll be fun for me to plunge in. It’due south always fun for me to spring into something that people says is inspired by Myst and explore.
Why do you call up the first-person chance genre never took off? Obviously at that place’s a niche that is still excited for this, so what happened?
RM: Aye I—boy, I practise non know. I’m sure we could postulate, merely it feels similar—to be honest with yous, I actually did think that the success of Myst would drive publishers to put a
lot
more than money than we had put into Myst into other games that explored other areas.
I but idea it would happen. Not that it would dry up whatsoever of the other genres; there’s plenty of movie genres and television genres. It just felt like Myst was one of those pivot points that would add a branch to the tree of interactive. And it felt like that whole branch just withered, to a certain extent. There’s still people who hold onto it, but it feels very much similar information technology’southward just an indie path.
So I only don’t know; I don’t know whether it was only easy money to go down the already thicker paths, then why accept the risk on something big considering information technology was going to have more and more than money to do better and better hazard-style games, and maybe information technology was just risky money.
Practice you think any of it has to do with the fact that we telephone call them “video games.” Do y’all recollect the term alienates people who are looking for something with a high skill-ceiling?
RM: I don’t remember that term necessarily alienates people. We just throw that in the box and I don’t call up people even think about the term. Technically it’s non exactly accurate, just I call up some of the best selling games that we call video games didn’t fit into that—I’m thinking of The Sims or Myst—those don’t fit in, necessarily, in “video games” just the public seems to be okay thinking of them in that way. I merely don’t know; information technology’due south confusing and I bet in that location are some people who’ve written some slap-up doctoral theses on how this all works merely I only can’t figure it out!
Maybe it’s merely a timing matter. Maybe the fact is that we’ve got a generation that grew upwards with FPS games and they’re maybe growing a little chip weary.
They’d like something a picayune deeper and a little more interesting, they’re tired of shooting people because the merely thing that changes is the person they shoot and how much blood and guts and what it looks like. There seems to exist a little of a—at least from my buzz meter, from my email meter—a little fleck of a pushback that says “Boy, I certain would like to meet the technology make a actually interesting place I could explore and not have to worry about killing everything first.” Not saying ane goes away, but perhaps it just needed time to run downwardly the path a petty further before they come back and try another one.
So perhaps this’ll be the fourth dimension where the first-person adventure game takes off and we get our little Renaissance?
RM: That’d be alright with me. I’d love to encounter some—there’southward some really big projects where people are doing some amazing stuff. I’d like playing them.
Back at IndieCade y’all talked a lot nearly Hypercard and Hypercard development. If you were starting off making games today, evidently Hypercard is not actually an option these days, do you have whatever idea what software you’d end upwards coming in on?
RM: Oh human being. I think information technology would depend on what nosotros were doing, but if I was giving advice to somebody? Information technology feels like these days if y’all want to become started Unity is a good one to start on just considering even if you’re not making a 3D game having that experience in a 3D surround is kind of what you need to know.
Nosotros’ve done even some 2nd games, some little mobile games, in the Unity engine and even though they’re 2nd having that 3D environs is cracking feel. Information technology gives you options you wouldn’t take otherwise. It’s not easy—I don’t know that kids can get started, though kids are always smarter than I think they are. It seems like a good place to start. At least it gives you lot a starting time for where to go from there. Y’all can branch off into more powerful things and I call up the learning curve helps if you’ve got your anxiety on the ground in a 3D engine.
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Exercise yous think yous and Robin were lucky because at the fourth dimension Hypercard
was
such an easy choice where you guys could make it at that place and start doing things with minimal programming knowledge? Because Unity, as you said, is non actually an like shooting fish in a barrel engine still. There’s a barrier you take to get over before you start making stuff.
RM: To a sure extent, yes, I think we were lucky—well, I think nosotros were
very
lucky on a lot of different levels. Right place. Right time. Just in a lot of ways—I recollect I touched on this at IndieCade—some of existence successful is merely edifice within your constraints. Knowing your constraints well and edifice inside them.
We see that all the fourth dimension, and I think it’s exemplified in, like, Minecraft. Nosotros’re blown away by what people exercise in Minecraft simply really information technology’s limited and people just learn and design inside the limitations and it’south downright amazing. I call back as humans that’south what creativity is proficient at. You learn what the limitations of your paintbrush are and the colors of your paint are, and if yous only have ii colors sometimes it’south amazing what people tin practise. And so you can sit there and mutter or be worried that you lot have too many colors or you lot demand more colors or “Boy, if I only had another paintbrush” merely really if you know what your limitations are and you go along that in mind you tin make a masterpiece.
There’s a lot of people who struggle with, “Boy, if I only,” and the fact is sometimes a pencil and paper is a skillful fashion to get-go. You don’t need more than that. Exercise the all-time you can with your pencil and newspaper and so come across where yous can get from in that location.
I noticed on the Kickstarter page there’s a boxed copy you can get if you meet a certain tier. Why the boxed copy, and are nosotros getting a return to “feelies” in this? Obviously a boxed re-create of a game today is very unlike from a boxed copy of a game twenty years ago.
RM: Information technology has more to do with Kickstarter than anything. Information technology feels similar there are people who would beloved to have the atoms rather than bits, so we want to make something that in some ways feels like a collectible thing and is
but
for the Kickstarter. Nosotros don’t plan on putting boxed copies on a shelf anywhere.
This is probably a unique to Kickstarter—definitely
a unique to Kickstarter thing. I retrieve people have responded well. It’s interesting because if you practice the tier that has the boxed copy, you become the downloadable version every bit well. I think people probably wait at it like, “I’ll just have the boxed re-create and put it on my shelf as a cool antiquity, and I’ll just download and play the download version.” That’due south kind of cool. That tactile or feeling of value you lot get by having the actual atoms, that’due south real value.
Are nosotros going to see any non-game necktie-ins to Obduction? Will we get three Obduction books?
RM: I don’t remember and then. There’ll be some tactile things, but I don’t think we take whatsoever novels or comic books associated with it at this point.
Oculus Rift support is being considered for a stretch goal on this?
RM: Definitely. There’s a lot of questions you lot have to ask yourself with Oculus Rift. Nosotros want to make certain we do it well, and nosotros want to brand certain we understand the requirements and nosotros design it then we’re driving framerates right on the Oculus Rift and non compromising design on the chief version as well, so we’re going over all those fiddling details to make sure nosotros recollect out things correctly. We haven’t gone into any of this lightly. We’ve thought out
so many
of these options, and it’d exist piece of cake to just go “Oh, allow’s throw a stretch goal in at that place for Oculus Rift,” but we’ve been doing all this stuff long plenty that all those little butterfly wings have plenty of effect on the other side of the world here.
I presume you’ve scoped out everything.
RM: Let’s put it this manner: we’ve got lots of stretch goals lined upwards. We’re not certain at this signal that nosotros’ve got the club lined up correctly. We’re seeing how things go, we’re listening to people’southward feedback to run across—information technology was interesting, even with the questions, to run into which ones we were getting the nigh of, which ones nosotros were getting fewer of, and that’ll drive us to a certain extent. We don’t want to just throw the stretch goals up without seeing what people are commenting.
Any examples of what people have been request near most?
RM: Yep, Linux. That’s probably the biggest past far is people want a Linux version and we want a Linux version. The biggest issue right now with Linux is Unreal Engine iv, but not knowing for sure where they’re coming downwards on it. They would like to do Linux just they’re not committing to information technology notwithstanding so that’s a “look and run across.”
Well I promise the Kickstarter goes well.
RM: Yup, we’re hoping it goes proficient likewise. So far so good. We had no thought what to expect, and I think the word around here is regardless of the outcome, as much equally nosotros would love it to go great guns and give us way more than we need, it has been
really
satisfying and gratifying—and
humbling—to see the comments. Nosotros kind of sit here in the bang-up inland Pacific Northwest and a lot of times I recollect we’re not certain if people fifty-fifty have fond memories of Myst that much. That alone has been really, really encouraging and energizing to meet that we got then much support and kind comments from people. That’s been actually absurd.