Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Encyclopedia
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an adventure video game
developed by Cyan Worlds
and published by Ubisoft
. Released in 2003, the title is the fourth game in the Myst canon
. Departing from previous games of the franchise, Uru takes place in the modern era and allows players to customize their onscreen avatars
. Players use their avatars to explore the abandoned city of an ancient race known as the D'ni, uncover story clues and solve puzzles.
Cyan began developing Uru shortly after completing Riven
in 1997, leaving future Myst sequels to be produced by third party developers. Uru required five years and $12 million to complete. Uru was initially conceived as a multiplayer game; the single-player portion was released, but the multiplayer component, Uru Live, was delayed and eventually canceled. The online video game service GameTap
released the multiplayer portion of Uru as Myst Online: Uru Live
in February 2007, but the service was canceled again the following year due to a lack of subscribers. GameTap passed the rights to Uru Live back to Cyan, who announced their intention to resurrect the game.
Uru was not as well received as previous Myst titles. Critics admired the visuals and new features of the game but criticized the lack of multiplayer in the retail version and clunky controls. Uru sold poorly, while the first three games had sold millions of copies each. The game was a critical and commercial disappointment for Cyan, causing the company financial troubles; nevertheless, it has attracted a cult following.
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is a puzzle-adventure game that takes place on worlds known as Ages. Gameplay can be viewed from first-
and third-person
perspectives, a departure from other Myst titles. Players navigate Ages from the third-person perspective, but can switch to the first-person view for closer inspection of clues and objects. Players in Uru can neither pick up objects nor carry an inventory of items; puzzle items must be pushed or kicked into place. The onscreen interface is minimal, having no health meters, maps, or compasses to distract from exploration.
Players create their own avatars
when beginning the game. Different skin tones, facial features, clothing, and hairstyles are available for customizing these player representations. Players also receive a special linking book, a volume that serves as a portal to a personal world or Age, known as Relto. The main objective of the game is to explore and restore power to other Ages; players must also find seven "journey cloths". These cloths serve as save points
in lieu of a game-saving option; characters are transported to the last cloth they touched when they restart. As in previous Myst games, player characters cannot die. For example, falling off a cliff sends characters back to Relto. The personal Age serves as a hub in Uru, containing a bookshelf with linking books to Ages players have explored, as well as avatar customization options and game information.
During the course of the game, players uncover clues about the D'ni, an ancient civilization, and the archeological group dedicated to learning more about them, the D'ni Restoration Council. Aspects of the D'ni civilization such as social structure, marriage, and how Ages came about are also imparted as players progress through the Ages. Players may collect Relto pages, which offer cosmetic customization to the player's personal Age—for example, making it rain or adding a waterfall.
Uru was originally to ship with a massively multiplayer online
component, which was delayed and never integrated into the retail release. Initially branded Uru Live, the multiplayer portion was designed to allow two or more players to work together to overcome obstacles or complete puzzles. Players would be able to chat in real time and cooperate in specially-designed puzzles. In previews of the multiplayer component, there were three distinct types of Ages. The personal Age provided links to other Ages, which were unlocked by solving puzzles in prerequisite worlds. Neighborhood Ages were analogous to an invite-only party, and City Ages provided places for players to congregate; IGN
called the Age "a giant lounge".
. The caves led to an ancient abandoned city built by the enigmatic D'ni civilization. The D'ni practiced an ancient ability known as the Art. By writing a description of another world, the D'ni created "linking books" which served as portals to the worlds described, known as Ages. Soon after making contact with a single human, the entire civilization suddenly disappeared two hundred years ago. In Urus story, the video game Myst
was created when the archeological leaders approached a development studio, Cyan
, and asked them to create a game to educate the public about the D'ni. Myst sold millions of copies, and Cyan continued to produce games based on D'ni findings. In the present day, a group known as the D'ni Restoration Council or DRC reopens the passages to the D'ni caverns and begins to rebuild the abandoned cities.
Players begin Urus story in New Mexico near the Cleft, a deep fissure in the ground that leads to the D'ni caverns. A man who introduces himself as Zandi sits in front of his trailer by the Cleft, encouraging the player to discover the environment and join the exploration. The player stumbles across a hologram of a woman, Yeesha, who tells him or her the story of the D'ni and requests for help to rebuild the civilization. The player must solve puzzles in and around the Cleft to find seven journey cloths, which enable a path to the Age of Relto. The plot is unresolved at the end of the single-player game; later expansions and online content continue the game's story.
began development on its next project after the company finished 1997's Riven
, the sequel to the bestselling Myst
. The game that became Uru would take more than five years and $12 million to complete. While under development, Uru was codenamed DIRT ("D'ni in real time"), then MUDPIE (meaning "Multi-User DIRT, Persistent / Personal Interactive Entertainment / Experience / Exploration / Environment"). Uru was officially announced as Myst Online, before being renamed Uru in early 2003. Myst co-creator Rand Miller
released a statement along with an outline of the game:
Miller considered Uru a major departure from Myst and Riven in that Cyan wanted to create a persistent world, where actions occurred while the player was not online. Miller did not consider the game a true massively multiplayer online game
, saying "there is not leveling and skills and monsters and experience in any artificial sense. The 'leveling' is finding and exploring and owning new Ages that are released regularly; the experience is what you really learn while exploring that will help you later—not points on a scale." Miller considered two benefits to such a system: first, that players care more about being part of the story, and second, that even new players could make discoveries and be part of the community. The game was designed as more of a spin-off than a sequel to previous Myst games, due to the merging of items from the contemporary (traffic cones and t-shirts) to the fantastic (books that transport the user to new worlds).
The game was originally conceived as a multiplayer-only game, where players could meet and solve new puzzles that would be added monthly. At the request of publisher Ubisoft, Cyan eventually developed a single-player portion as well. Cyan announced players would be invited to participate in a multiplayer beta test, which drew 10,000 to 40,000 participants. Uru was released on time, while the multiplayer portion was delayed. Small groups of players were allowed to come online, and journalists were told they would be invited to play soon after, but Uru Live was canceled before being released. Cyan stated that there were not enough projected subscribers to support the service.
After Urus release and Uru Lives demise, Cyan announced that new content would be added via expansion packs. The first, Uru: To D'ni, added the never-released Uru Live online content, thus focusing on the past of the D'ni. Uru: The Path of the Shell, extended the story of Uru in the present and added multiple never-before-seen Ages. Unlike the first expansion pack, Uru: The Path of the Shell was not free, but was boxed and sold in stores. Uru, To Dni, and The Path of the Shell were also packaged together and sold as Uru: The Complete Chronicles.
, who had started his career at game publisher Broderbund, and lobbied hard to be included on Rivens development team. Larkin worked on creating different sound effects for Riven and was chosen to score Uru after composer and Myst co-creator Robyn Miller
left Cyan in early 1998. The music for the game was collected as a soundtrack, Uru Music, that was released in 2003.
Larkin chose the instrumentation for each track based on the various digital environments in the game. When the player is in the game's representation of New Mexico, for example, Larkin used a resonator guitar
and flutes, creating what he called something "indigenous to a southwest type of feel that's very contemporary". In other areas Larkin described the game's music as being "less typical than what you would find in most games" because of the exotic landscape the developers had created. To create contemporary and exotic types of music in the game, Larkin employed a combination of real and synthesized instruments. Sometimes Larkin replaced synthesized performances with those of real musicians, as in the track "Gallery Theme", where a synthesized vocal part was eventually discarded in favor of soprano
Tasha Koontz. To create an exotic feel, Larkin used a group of Maasai tribesmen's chanting, who were recorded during their visit to Spokane, Washington
, where Cyan Worlds
was located at that time.
The Uru soundtrack received two Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) nominations in 2004—one for "Best Original Vocal Song (Choral)" for the "Gallery Theme" (which won), and another for "Best Original Soundtrack." Beyond its use in Uru, "Gallery Theme" was later used in the theatrical trailer for Steven Spielberg's film, Munich
. The Uru soundtrack comes on an enhanced CD
, containing a (nearly) four-minute music video called "Uru: The Makers" and an audio-only interview with Rand Miller and Tim Larkin.
In April 2006, GameTap
announced it was relaunching Uru Live as Myst Online: Uru Live
. A major reason for the resurrection of the game was the fan support. According to GameTap's vice president of content Ricardo Sanchez, "One of the reasons [GameTap was] so attracted to Uru Live is that it had this persistent group that kept it alive during the dark days of it not being a product." While Cyan devoted its time to Myst Online, it promised not to shut down Until Uru in the meantime, although it would offer no new authentication keys. GameTap released Myst Online in February 2007. A Macintosh version, using the Cider translation layer engine so that Intel-processor Macs did not need a Windows installation to run the game, was released in March. At the time, Myst Online was the only Mac-compatible game on GameTap. New content for the game was released in the form of online "episodes", adding new Ages, puzzles, and plot continuation with each episode. Due to business reasons, GameTap announced in February 2008 that the game would go offline in April; Cyan reacquired the rights to the game and announced that it would give the Myst Online source code and tools to the fans, making the game an open source project
.
and Game Rankings
, respectively. Though Uru was a departure from previous Myst titles, the differences were usually praised. Game Informer
s Lisa Mason said Uru "successfully updated" the adventure game genre. The visuals and music were highly praised, and GameZone
called the world of the D’ni beautifully rendered and brilliantly designed. Newspapers appreciated the contrast Uru offered from violence-filled contemporary games.
Reception to the game's third-person controls and the addition of instant failures by falling were not well-received. Denise Cook of Computer Gaming World
called the third person option "choked" and "quirky". While Cook appreciated the added depth and immersion provided by the real-time rendering, she found incidents such as slipping off rocks, falling into lava, and plummeting into canyons irksome additions to the previously stress-free Myst formula. GameSpy
's Carla Harker found several puzzles highly difficult solely due to the poorly implemented control scheme which "never becomes intuitive". Computer Gaming Worlds Robert Coffey and Cook considered the plot of the single-player release minimal and forgettable.
A major critic complaint about Uru was that the game did not ship with the multiplayer component. GameSpot's
Andrew Park questioned why the game shipped with the multiplayer element open only for select players when the component had previously been beta-tested. GameSpy was disappointed that the feature advertised on the box and in the game manual was not available in the product. Reviewer Bob Mandel found that the most disappointing part of the dropped multiplayer game was that "as you progress through the game, a number of tantalizing clues emerge of places you can go and activities you can undertake only through the promised online mode."
Urus sales were considered disappointing, whereas the first three Myst games had sold more than 12 million units collectively before Urus release. Time
magazine pointed to the game's relative failure as evidence the franchise had lost its touch, a notion the developers of Myst IV: Revelation
sought to dispel. Urus poor sales were also considered a factor in financially burdening Cyan, contributing to the company's near-closure in 2005. The title's original graphics and story nevertheless attracted a cult following.
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
developed by Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
and published by Ubisoft
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....
. Released in 2003, the title is the fourth game in the Myst canon
Myst (series)
Myst is a franchise centered on a series of adventure video games. The first game in the series, Myst, was released in 1993 by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller and their video game company Cyan, Inc...
. Departing from previous games of the franchise, Uru takes place in the modern era and allows players to customize their onscreen avatars
Avatar (virtual reality)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
. Players use their avatars to explore the abandoned city of an ancient race known as the D'ni, uncover story clues and solve puzzles.
Cyan began developing Uru shortly after completing Riven
Riven
Riven is a puzzle adventure game and the sequel to Myst. Developed by Cyan Worlds, it was initially published by Brøderbund. Riven was distributed on five compact discs and released on October 29, 1997, in North America; it was later released on a single DVD-ROM, with improved audio and a...
in 1997, leaving future Myst sequels to be produced by third party developers. Uru required five years and $12 million to complete. Uru was initially conceived as a multiplayer game; the single-player portion was released, but the multiplayer component, Uru Live, was delayed and eventually canceled. The online video game service GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...
released the multiplayer portion of Uru as Myst Online: Uru Live
Myst Online: Uru Live
Myst Online: Uru Live is an open source massively multiplayer online adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds. The game is the multiplayer component to the 2003 video game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. Like Uru, Myst Online takes place in 2000's New Mexico, where an ancient civilization known as the D'ni...
in February 2007, but the service was canceled again the following year due to a lack of subscribers. GameTap passed the rights to Uru Live back to Cyan, who announced their intention to resurrect the game.
Uru was not as well received as previous Myst titles. Critics admired the visuals and new features of the game but criticized the lack of multiplayer in the retail version and clunky controls. Uru sold poorly, while the first three games had sold millions of copies each. The game was a critical and commercial disappointment for Cyan, causing the company financial troubles; nevertheless, it has attracted a cult following.
Gameplay
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
and third-person
Third-person shooter
Third-person shooter is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting.-Definition:...
perspectives, a departure from other Myst titles. Players navigate Ages from the third-person perspective, but can switch to the first-person view for closer inspection of clues and objects. Players in Uru can neither pick up objects nor carry an inventory of items; puzzle items must be pushed or kicked into place. The onscreen interface is minimal, having no health meters, maps, or compasses to distract from exploration.
Players create their own avatars
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
when beginning the game. Different skin tones, facial features, clothing, and hairstyles are available for customizing these player representations. Players also receive a special linking book, a volume that serves as a portal to a personal world or Age, known as Relto. The main objective of the game is to explore and restore power to other Ages; players must also find seven "journey cloths". These cloths serve as save points
Saved game
A saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game. This saved game can be reloaded later, so the player can continue where he or she had stopped...
in lieu of a game-saving option; characters are transported to the last cloth they touched when they restart. As in previous Myst games, player characters cannot die. For example, falling off a cliff sends characters back to Relto. The personal Age serves as a hub in Uru, containing a bookshelf with linking books to Ages players have explored, as well as avatar customization options and game information.
During the course of the game, players uncover clues about the D'ni, an ancient civilization, and the archeological group dedicated to learning more about them, the D'ni Restoration Council. Aspects of the D'ni civilization such as social structure, marriage, and how Ages came about are also imparted as players progress through the Ages. Players may collect Relto pages, which offer cosmetic customization to the player's personal Age—for example, making it rain or adding a waterfall.
Uru was originally to ship with a massively multiplayer online
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
component, which was delayed and never integrated into the retail release. Initially branded Uru Live, the multiplayer portion was designed to allow two or more players to work together to overcome obstacles or complete puzzles. Players would be able to chat in real time and cooperate in specially-designed puzzles. In previews of the multiplayer component, there were three distinct types of Ages. The personal Age provided links to other Ages, which were unlocked by solving puzzles in prerequisite worlds. Neighborhood Ages were analogous to an invite-only party, and City Ages provided places for players to congregate; IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
called the Age "a giant lounge".
Plot
Unlike previous games in the series, Urus story mixes fictional plot elements with real-world events. According to the game's fictional history, archeologists found an entrance to a vast underground cavern in the 1980s near a volcano in New MexicoNew Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. The caves led to an ancient abandoned city built by the enigmatic D'ni civilization. The D'ni practiced an ancient ability known as the Art. By writing a description of another world, the D'ni created "linking books" which served as portals to the worlds described, known as Ages. Soon after making contact with a single human, the entire civilization suddenly disappeared two hundred years ago. In Urus story, the video game Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
was created when the archeological leaders approached a development studio, Cyan
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
, and asked them to create a game to educate the public about the D'ni. Myst sold millions of copies, and Cyan continued to produce games based on D'ni findings. In the present day, a group known as the D'ni Restoration Council or DRC reopens the passages to the D'ni caverns and begins to rebuild the abandoned cities.
Players begin Urus story in New Mexico near the Cleft, a deep fissure in the ground that leads to the D'ni caverns. A man who introduces himself as Zandi sits in front of his trailer by the Cleft, encouraging the player to discover the environment and join the exploration. The player stumbles across a hologram of a woman, Yeesha, who tells him or her the story of the D'ni and requests for help to rebuild the civilization. The player must solve puzzles in and around the Cleft to find seven journey cloths, which enable a path to the Age of Relto. The plot is unresolved at the end of the single-player game; later expansions and online content continue the game's story.
Development
Cyan WorldsCyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
began development on its next project after the company finished 1997's Riven
Riven
Riven is a puzzle adventure game and the sequel to Myst. Developed by Cyan Worlds, it was initially published by Brøderbund. Riven was distributed on five compact discs and released on October 29, 1997, in North America; it was later released on a single DVD-ROM, with improved audio and a...
, the sequel to the bestselling Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
. The game that became Uru would take more than five years and $12 million to complete. While under development, Uru was codenamed DIRT ("D'ni in real time"), then MUDPIE (meaning "Multi-User DIRT, Persistent / Personal Interactive Entertainment / Experience / Exploration / Environment"). Uru was officially announced as Myst Online, before being renamed Uru in early 2003. Myst co-creator Rand Miller
Rand Miller
Rand Miller co-founded Cyan with brother Robyn Miller and became famous from the unexpected success of their computer game Myst, which remained the number one-selling game for the remainder of the 1990s...
released a statement along with an outline of the game:
Uru is a revolutionary adventure game that takes the best qualities of the Myst franchise and makes them even better. The single-player experience will eclipse the beauty, grandeur, and mind-challenging elements of previous titles. Plus, with the option to join a constantly updated online universe, the adventure never has to end. From new machines and puzzles to special events and entirely new Ages, players will find more to do, more to see, and more to explore each time they return—and this time, they can discover everything with old and new friends.
Miller considered Uru a major departure from Myst and Riven in that Cyan wanted to create a persistent world, where actions occurred while the player was not online. Miller did not consider the game a true massively multiplayer online game
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
, saying "there is not leveling and skills and monsters and experience in any artificial sense. The 'leveling' is finding and exploring and owning new Ages that are released regularly; the experience is what you really learn while exploring that will help you later—not points on a scale." Miller considered two benefits to such a system: first, that players care more about being part of the story, and second, that even new players could make discoveries and be part of the community. The game was designed as more of a spin-off than a sequel to previous Myst games, due to the merging of items from the contemporary (traffic cones and t-shirts) to the fantastic (books that transport the user to new worlds).
The game was originally conceived as a multiplayer-only game, where players could meet and solve new puzzles that would be added monthly. At the request of publisher Ubisoft, Cyan eventually developed a single-player portion as well. Cyan announced players would be invited to participate in a multiplayer beta test, which drew 10,000 to 40,000 participants. Uru was released on time, while the multiplayer portion was delayed. Small groups of players were allowed to come online, and journalists were told they would be invited to play soon after, but Uru Live was canceled before being released. Cyan stated that there were not enough projected subscribers to support the service.
After Urus release and Uru Lives demise, Cyan announced that new content would be added via expansion packs. The first, Uru: To D'ni, added the never-released Uru Live online content, thus focusing on the past of the D'ni. Uru: The Path of the Shell, extended the story of Uru in the present and added multiple never-before-seen Ages. Unlike the first expansion pack, Uru: The Path of the Shell was not free, but was boxed and sold in stores. Uru, To Dni, and The Path of the Shell were also packaged together and sold as Uru: The Complete Chronicles.
Audio
Urus music was composed by Tim LarkinTim Larkin
Tim Larkin is the audio director for Cyan Worlds, a software company that produced the Myst series of computer games. While working at Cyan, Tim worked as a sound designer for Riven, and as a composer for realMyst, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Myst V: End of Ages.He has twelve years experience in the...
, who had started his career at game publisher Broderbund, and lobbied hard to be included on Rivens development team. Larkin worked on creating different sound effects for Riven and was chosen to score Uru after composer and Myst co-creator Robyn Miller
Robyn Miller
Robyn Charles Miller co-founded Cyan Worlds with brother Rand Miller. After releasing a number of children's adventure "worlds", the brothers finally hit on a success with the computer game Myst, which remained the number one-selling game for the remainder of the 1990s...
left Cyan in early 1998. The music for the game was collected as a soundtrack, Uru Music, that was released in 2003.
Larkin chose the instrumentation for each track based on the various digital environments in the game. When the player is in the game's representation of New Mexico, for example, Larkin used a resonator guitar
Resonator guitar
A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar whose sound is produced by one or more spun metal cones instead of the wooden sound board . Resonator guitars were originally designed to be louder than conventional acoustic guitars which were overwhelmed by horns and percussion...
and flutes, creating what he called something "indigenous to a southwest type of feel that's very contemporary". In other areas Larkin described the game's music as being "less typical than what you would find in most games" because of the exotic landscape the developers had created. To create contemporary and exotic types of music in the game, Larkin employed a combination of real and synthesized instruments. Sometimes Larkin replaced synthesized performances with those of real musicians, as in the track "Gallery Theme", where a synthesized vocal part was eventually discarded in favor of soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
Tasha Koontz. To create an exotic feel, Larkin used a group of Maasai tribesmen's chanting, who were recorded during their visit to Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
, where Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
was located at that time.
The Uru soundtrack received two Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) nominations in 2004—one for "Best Original Vocal Song (Choral)" for the "Gallery Theme" (which won), and another for "Best Original Soundtrack." Beyond its use in Uru, "Gallery Theme" was later used in the theatrical trailer for Steven Spielberg's film, Munich
Munich (film)
Munich is a 2005 historical fiction film about the Israeli government's secret retaliation attacks after the massacre of Israeli athletes by the Black September terrorist group during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The film stars Eric Bana and was produced and directed by Steven Spielberg...
. The Uru soundtrack comes on an enhanced CD
Enhanced CD
Enhanced CD, also known as CD Extra and CD Plus, is a certification mark of the Recording Industry Association of America for various technologies that combine audio and computer data for use in both Compact Disc and CD-ROM players....
, containing a (nearly) four-minute music video called "Uru: The Makers" and an audio-only interview with Rand Miller and Tim Larkin.
Uru Live
To compensate for the cancellation of Uru Live, Cyan published all the developed online content as single-player expansion packs. Meanwhile, a small group of dedicated fans, many of them the Uru Live beta testers, were allowed to maintain their unofficial servers, called "shards". Cyan released binaries of the original Uru Live servers and coordinated with the fan shards so that players could verify their authentication keys, necessary to play the game. The shards were often unstable and no new content was released; rather, they provided a place for fans to socialize. In February 2006, Cyan opened their own official shard, called D'mala, open at no charge to Uru owners, though an invitation from the community was required. Miller revealed in a letter to fans that Cyan had received "limited funding from a third party that allows us to breathe some refreshing new life and optimism into all things Uru." As with the fan-operated servers, D'mala would feature no new content, instead allowing Cyan staff called "surveyors" to interact with fans and gather information.In April 2006, GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...
announced it was relaunching Uru Live as Myst Online: Uru Live
Myst Online: Uru Live
Myst Online: Uru Live is an open source massively multiplayer online adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds. The game is the multiplayer component to the 2003 video game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. Like Uru, Myst Online takes place in 2000's New Mexico, where an ancient civilization known as the D'ni...
. A major reason for the resurrection of the game was the fan support. According to GameTap's vice president of content Ricardo Sanchez, "One of the reasons [GameTap was] so attracted to Uru Live is that it had this persistent group that kept it alive during the dark days of it not being a product." While Cyan devoted its time to Myst Online, it promised not to shut down Until Uru in the meantime, although it would offer no new authentication keys. GameTap released Myst Online in February 2007. A Macintosh version, using the Cider translation layer engine so that Intel-processor Macs did not need a Windows installation to run the game, was released in March. At the time, Myst Online was the only Mac-compatible game on GameTap. New content for the game was released in the form of online "episodes", adding new Ages, puzzles, and plot continuation with each episode. Due to business reasons, GameTap announced in February 2008 that the game would go offline in April; Cyan reacquired the rights to the game and announced that it would give the Myst Online source code and tools to the fans, making the game an open source project
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
.
Reception
Initial reception to Uru was generally positive, but less so than previous games in the series. The game has average critic scores of 79% and 77% from aggregate web sites MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
and Game Rankings
Game Rankings
GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...
, respectively. Though Uru was a departure from previous Myst titles, the differences were usually praised. Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
s Lisa Mason said Uru "successfully updated" the adventure game genre. The visuals and music were highly praised, and GameZone
GameZone
GameZone is an American multiplatform video game website. GameZone's daily coverage includes reviews, previews, news, hints & cheats, and editorials. Additionally, GameZone offers downloads, a child-targeted website and in association with GameStop, hosts GZGameShop, an online retailer...
called the world of the D’ni beautifully rendered and brilliantly designed. Newspapers appreciated the contrast Uru offered from violence-filled contemporary games.
Reception to the game's third-person controls and the addition of instant failures by falling were not well-received. Denise Cook of Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
called the third person option "choked" and "quirky". While Cook appreciated the added depth and immersion provided by the real-time rendering, she found incidents such as slipping off rocks, falling into lava, and plummeting into canyons irksome additions to the previously stress-free Myst formula. GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
's Carla Harker found several puzzles highly difficult solely due to the poorly implemented control scheme which "never becomes intuitive". Computer Gaming Worlds Robert Coffey and Cook considered the plot of the single-player release minimal and forgettable.
A major critic complaint about Uru was that the game did not ship with the multiplayer component. GameSpot's
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
Andrew Park questioned why the game shipped with the multiplayer element open only for select players when the component had previously been beta-tested. GameSpy was disappointed that the feature advertised on the box and in the game manual was not available in the product. Reviewer Bob Mandel found that the most disappointing part of the dropped multiplayer game was that "as you progress through the game, a number of tantalizing clues emerge of places you can go and activities you can undertake only through the promised online mode."
Urus sales were considered disappointing, whereas the first three Myst games had sold more than 12 million units collectively before Urus release. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine pointed to the game's relative failure as evidence the franchise had lost its touch, a notion the developers of Myst IV: Revelation
Myst IV: Revelation
Myst IV: Revelation is the fourth installment in the Myst computer game series, developed and published by Ubisoft. Revelation was the first game in the series released exclusively on a DVD-ROM format; a multiple CD-ROM version was not produced as it would have taken twelve compact discs to fit all...
sought to dispel. Urus poor sales were also considered a factor in financially burdening Cyan, contributing to the company's near-closure in 2005. The title's original graphics and story nevertheless attracted a cult following.
External links
- Official Uru Live website
- Uru: Ages Beyond Myst website (UbisoftUbisoftUbisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....
site)