The creators of Myst announce Kickstarter for new project

Myst  and Riven  were precious parts of my childhood. More so than any other games, reminiscing on them has the tendency to fill me with emotion and nostalgia. So you can imagine how ecstatic I was this morning to learn that developer/publisher Cyan had launched a Kickstarter program to fund the development of their new game, Obduction.

The Kickstarter is already off to a good start by breaking the $100,000 mark (of their $1.1M goal) within a matter of hours. It’s clear that there is a huge demand for the beautiful and hauntingly mysterious experience that is a trademark of the Myst  series.

Powered by Unreal Engine 4, Obduction  will not stray from the original gameplay formula of exploring and solving puzzles from a first-person perspective. Indeed, you could easily label this the spiritual successor to Myst. It’s important to point that out because, while development of games in the series after Riven were either partially or fully outsourced to other development teams, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst  was made by the core Cyan team and was a big departure, at least mechanically, from the original games.

Obduction promises to tap into Cyan’s ability to craft highly immersive worlds with gorgeous scenery, alien architecture, an evocative musical score, and challenging puzzles. My personal wish is for them to take the same approach with the narrative and make the player feel like the protagonist.

The target release date for Obduction  is mid-to-late 2015.