I have certain things that I’m into with a passion, and I drift in and out of these phases when such things have new developments. Ever since 1994 I’ve been a fan of the game Myst. I’ve read The Book of Atrus, and The Book of D’ni, and I own the audio version of the Book of Ti’ana. I’ve played Riven and Exile. I at one time in my life wanted to learn to model 3D worlds myself, but I’ve decided that I need to just develop a story of my own and leave the actual production up to others with my supervision.
Recently Cyan Worlds (previously just Cyan) has released Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, and so I’ve purchased it and I’m getting all back into the story and thirst for exploration and discovery.
They previously released realMYST, a real-time 3D version of the original Myst game with a new addition called the Rime age. realMYST used an engine previously dubbed Headspin, now Plasma, which they purchased from a company named Headspin Technologies. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, uses a newer updated version of that same engine called Plasma 2.
There are some puzzles in the game which I do not think I would have found without consulting a walkthrough, so I try to solve them without help, but I consult the walkthrough when its necessary so I don’t go mad playing the game. I’m in it just for the sights, sounds, and storyline.
I see that there is a lack of overhead maps for the game when it comes to creating walkthroughs. It looks like people will have to hand draw maps to provide such a nice guide to solving the puzzles, even though this is a real time 3D game and hand drawing these maps aren’t 100% completely necessary.
In realMYST I’ve seen vario! us configuration file changes that have been made to alter the gravity even the realMYST developers did not intend.
I’m trying to do this right now with Uru, but it looks like they’ve tightened down on the possibility of a game hack so people don’t cheat (more importantly online).
All I really want to do is get an overhead screenshot to use as a map for plotting the location of various resources in Photoshop.
I’ll continue my hunt.
On another note, I’m going to start using Saturdays as my free time day, and Sundays as my chores/business obligation days. Lets see if I actually stick with that plan. Today is Sunday and I’m doing this crap…I really shouldn’t but I do. :(