Cyan launches Kickstarter for spiritual successor to Myst

Cyan, developer of the Myst and Riven adventure games, launched a Kickstarter campaign this morning for Obduction, a spiritual successor to Myst.

Obduction — which the page notes means "the act of drawing or laying over" — will be a first-person adventure focused on player immersion that "harkens back" to the spirit of Cyan's Myst and Riven and builds on what the creators learned during development.

Cyan is asking for $1,100,000 to develop Obduction and is currently planning to publish the title to Windows PC and Mac, with a mid-to-late 2015 launch window. The title is being developed with a "flexible scope," meaning the developers will add more content and allow the game to grow in scale if the appropriate funding levels are achieved.

"This year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of Myst, one of the best-selling computer games in history," reads the page. "The Myst name is widely recognized as uniquely defining a new kind of gaming — amazingly immersive worlds where the point is to understand your environment rather than test your reflexes. The Obduction project will take what Cyan knows about creating deeply immersive worlds and apply it to an entirely new game with fantastic scenery, incredible architecture, compelling story, and exceptional challenges."

Obduction will borrow design elements from Myst, but with a few minor tweaks, the page notes. Players will have scores of puzzles to conquer and the story will be unraveled through exploration rather than "shoveled out in cinematic form." Funding will be spent only on development of Obduction, although Cyan is hoping to hire a handful of new team members if the project meets its funding goal.

At the time of writing, Obduction has made just over $20,000 of its goal.