The Starry Expanse

The Starry Expanse Hood

cho102997 — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:56:25 +0000

There is now a Starry Expanse Hood in MOULa. If you’d like to join, catch someone from 59 Volt Entertainment online (like Zib or ironmagma), or find someone who’s already a member. If nobody’s online, just send us an e-mail, and one of us will hop online to help you out. Spread the love!

Some Small Updates

cho102997 — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:01:22 +0000

Hey there – Just wanted to let you guys know that work is continuing, despite our silence. I’ve posted a couple of things to our forum in the last week, and I figured I’d repost them here. They depict (very preliminary) work on the new sky system, and some rigging work on Catherine:

We’re not dead! We haven’t given up! Thanks for continuing to believe in us!

That being said, we could really use another experienced programmer or two. We’d like help developing both the engine, and some backend tools for us to manage the project. If you’re interested in helping out (in this or any other way), just send us an e-mail, and we’ll let you know if we can use you.

The Reddit Effect

cho102997 — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:52:13 +0000

We don’t usually do this sort of thing, but we got such a big traffic boost from Reddit the other day, we just had to share. We’ve never seen such a drastic spike – those horizontal bars are counting thousands of unique hits, and all of the non-Reddit days still average in the hundreds – still nothing to scoff at.

We got about $55 in donations, over 100 beta signups, and some other interesting side effects. More news soon!

And another thing!

cho102997 — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:28:37 +0000

We’re feeling generous, so here’s a re-shoot of the Prison Island walkthrough that was posted before. We tried to capture video from a newer build, but none of the results worked properly, so this video is from the same build as the last video was, so it lacks the newer features that we’ve completed since Mysterium. Still, it’s a much smoother demonstration of what was done at that point – and it has sound, which I think really adds to the experience.

As with before, this is very much a work in progress, particularly the sky, water, and firemarble dome.

Enjoy!

A little something

cho102997 — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:30:59 +0000

Ok, so yes, we’ve been pretty quiet as of late, and that sucks. It’s not because we don’t like you guys, it’s not because we have given up, so stop it with all that nonsense. No, in actuality, there are a number of factors contributing to our current downtime, one being the fact that almost all of us are students. That means, of course, that we’re incredibly busy during the fall. We are still working on the project whenever we can, it’s just much slower going than it was during the summer.

There are a few other things holding us back at the moment, but in some ways, it’s a good thing. Don’t worry, everything will be fine in the end.

All that being said, here’s a little treat, to show you that we’re still alive and kicking:

Come talk to us!

cho102997 — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:57:04 +0000

Still no awesome reward for reaching the funding goal, although this is pretty cool, too.

We’ve noticed an increase lately in discussion in the comments section on our posts, so we decided to look into alternative methods of discussion. We had a forum set up, but it was causing us all sorts of headaches. Instead, we found a service we like a lot, called Convore. It’s kind of like a hybrid between a forum and a chatroom, in that it’s live-updating, but it’s topic-based, like a forum. It’s very cool.

So come talk to us! You know you want to.

$2000!

cho102997 — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:33:21 +0000

As of this morning, we’ve achieved our primary funding goal of $2000! Thank you so much to everybody who’s donated so far, you’ve really made this project a viable possibility. If you haven’t yet donated, please don’t let this deter you, we could always make use of extra funds. The more we have, the faster we can work, in theory. We’ll keep updating the progress bar on the right, until it hits the edge of the page.

In the meantime, we’re working on pulling together a treat for you guys to show our appreciation. We went from 90% to 100% a little faster than we expected, so we don’t have anything quite ready yet. We’ve got something coming, though!

Thanks again, everybody.

Edit: There have been a couple of recent instances of people, for whatever reason, accidentally donating twice. If this happens to you, we’ll fully refund the second donation as soon as we notice it. If we don’t contact you, please don’t hesitate to contact us and point it out.

Journal Prototype II

cho102997 — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 23:15:44 +0000

We just passed the 95% mark on our journey to the first funding goal, $2000. That means we now have over $1900 raised! To celebrate, here’s another sneak peek at the journal system, this time with Catherine’s journal. Remember that these are not necessarily final graphics or animations. It’s not in-game footage, just a prototype.

Update: Here’s the Prison Book, as well:

Mysterium 2011 PowerPoint

cho102997 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:15:38 +0000

Some of you might already know this, but one of the 59 volters gave a surprise presentation at the DutchMystCommunity gathering this weekend. It was quite a success, and we’re working on getting some footage of the event.

In the meantime, there have been some requests, from both english-speaking and Dutch communities, for downloadable Powerpoint slideshows, so you can all relive the magic of being at a Myst gathering this year. Here they are!

(These should both work whether or not you have PowerPoint installed. If not, let us know and we’ll do our best to fix them up for you)

These are for personal enjoyment only, if you’d like to present either of these at some kind of a gathering (like Mysterium or DutchMystCommunity), please let us know first.

Journal Prototype

cho102997 — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:22:06 +0000

Here’s another not-in-game prototype of an element from Riven. This time, it’s Atrus’s journal. Enjoy!

In other news, we just passed the 90% mark on our journey towards our first funding goal. We’re almost there, guys!
Note that we’ll of course continue accepting donations after the first goal is reached, and the more donations we get, the faster we can work. Just some food for thought!