Cyan Worlds via PolygonSusana Polo is a senior entertainment writer at Polygon, specializing in pop culture and genre fare, with a primary expertise in comic books. Previously, she founded The Mary Sue.In honor of the 31st anniversary of seminal puzzle adventure game Myst, Cyan Worlds has a new Humble Bundle sale, “Enter the Mysterium.” Through Oct. 2, players can pay $20 and pick up 13 games, which run the gamut from Myst’s earliest 1989 predecessor, to its modern progeny, and every mainline Myst game in the franchise, with part of the proceeds going to Active Minds, a nonprofit dedicated to equipping teens and young adults with the tools to advocate for mental health advocacy and suicide prevention.Enter the Mysterium$20$19290% off$20$20 at HumbleOr, you could pick up any of four smaller, cheaper bundles. But in the opinion of me, Polygon’s foremost Myst-pilled weirdo, here are the titles you should make certain to grab, in order of importance.Myst: Pick your poison! The bundle offers Myst: Masterpiece Edition, which attempts to replicate the experience of playing the original 1993 game; realMyst: Masterpiece Edition, the first attempt to render the game in 3D; and Myst (2021), which supports both 2D, 3D, and VR play.Riven: The Sequel to Myst: This is the intricately cut crown jewel of Cyan’s puzzle games, in its original form. If you get really fed up with it I would also recommend their recent 3D remaster, which improves on perfection (but was released way too recently to be included in a discount bundle just yet).Myst IV: Revelation: Pretty much a direct sequel to Myst. Unequivocally the hardest Myst game, but my personal favorite for its story. It’s got an unskippable Peter Gabriel cutscene. Please, please, please play this game.Myst III: Exile: By no means easy, but still the easiest Myst game. The villain is played by Brad Dourif (The Lord of the Rings) and in one of the “bad endings,” he clubs you to death in first person FMV. If that doesn’t entice you I don’t know what will.Obduction: Not in the Myst setting, but if you play the others first, you’ll be able to call all the plot beats of this one. That said, it’s got a frightfully interesting sphere-based puzzle dynamic, an interesting setup, and gorgeous vistas.Firmament: I haven’t played this one yet. “And you call yourself an expert!” I backed the Kickstarter, OK?! I just haven’t had time! I’ll get to it… sometime after Dragon Age: The Veilguard comes out. I hear it’s worth it, though! And if you’re already picking up the rest, well, why not?But what am I, the Myst-pilled weirdo, going to buy? Well, even though I already own the vast majority of the games in this bundle, there’s still something here for me: Spelunx, Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel, and The Manhole. Two American dollars will net me three of Cyan co-founders Robyn and Rand Miller’s pre-Myst works, dating back to the unfathomable desktop gaming year of 1988, when Cyan released The Manhole on floppy discs available by mail order (the one in this bundle is a 1995 CD-ROM rerelease).Calling these three games “puzzle games” might seem like a stretch compared to Myst and its successors — I’ve poked around the original Manhole on the Internet Archive, and it’s more like an interactive object. But there’s a sense of humor, silliness, and, above all, play in it. Even just after ten minutes in a browser emulation, it was clear to me that I was looking at a couple of game developers fascinated by the potential of the point-and-click mechanic, and playing in that space as expansively and freely as they could. I could already see the lines running from this strange, Alice In Wonderland-themed object, to a couple of adventure games that were going to bust the genre wide open.Head over to the Humble Bundle, and you can make those connections, too.
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by Tim Latimer
Tim Latimer is CEO and co-founder of Fervo Energy, a startup making geothermal energy a viable alternative to fossil fuels. By repurposing technology from the oil and gas industry, Fervo drills deep below the Earth’s surface to reach hot rocks and converts that heat into 24/7 clean energy. Google is already working with Fervo to help power its data centers, and the Biden Administration recently approved a Fervo project in Utah that the company says could power 2 million homes. This year, the company slashed drilling times by 70%, a breakthrough that cut costs per well nearly in half.
What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government…
Read moreTake-Two president Karl Slatoff has discussed the company’s recent decision to cancel games as part of a wider restructuring effort that also included layoffs.
During an earnings briefing, Slatoff observed that, across the video game industry, “the biggest games are winning, and they’re taking more share.” The executive said Take-Two takes this “very seriously,” and against that backdrop, the company decided to cancel games to instead focus on the ones with the best chance of success. Take-Two never specified which games in particular it canceled, however.
Madden NFL 25 will release in August, and EA has published a new video and blog post showing off some of its key improvements. The big focus of this gameplay deep dive is the game’s so-called “BOOM Tech,” which EA is touting as a totally redesigned tackling system that focuses on physics and real-world impact to give players more control over defense.
According to the blog post, BOOM Tech applies to any one-on-one tackle, which means that the game’s physics system will determine “dynamic outcomes” based on factors like speed, momentum, weight, and player ratings. BOOM Tech will apply to already-existing Madden gameplay concepts and moves, like the cut stick, trucks, stiff-arms, and dive tackles.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is on sale for $38 (was $70) and comes with a free steelbook case at Best Buy as part of the retailer’s 12 Days of Gaming holiday promotion. This is the final, 12th day of the event, and Best Buy is bringing it to a close with a bunch of game deals, including Dragon Age: The Veilguard for $43 (was $70) and Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics for $35 (was $50). These deals expire tonight, December 20, at 10 PM PT. Come from South African Online Casinos
During The Game Awards, Square Enix announced that Rebirth will be av…
Read moreAt The Game Awards, Naughty Dog announced Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, a new game set in an alternative universe with advanced space travel being developed by 1986. The trailer showed a few seconds of gameplay in which the protagonist takes on a colossal cyborg with sci-fi-looking swords. It is the first original story for game director Neil Druckmann and his team in almost 15 years but has inspirational roots from anime classics like Akira and Cowboy Bebop.
If you want to watch those anime, Amazon has Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series on Blu-ray for only $18 (was $60). The 25th Anniversary Edition is on sale for $27.49 (was $50). Meanwhile, the anime film Akira is available on 4K Blu-ray for $18.44 (was $30) and only $11.49 on standard Blu-ray.
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Read moreUpdate: The new season showcased at this event is now live. You can see everything new in Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 4, the new weapons, map changes, and the new battle pass. The original story follows.
Disney made an enormous investment in Epic Games and Fortnite earlier this year, and while it’s going to be some time before many aspects of this team-up bear fruit, we’ll be getting some of our first peeks at what’s in store for Disney x Fortnite at the D23 Expo in Anaheim this weekend. Even better: You’ll be able to watch this panel on an exclusive livestream inside Fortnite, and doing so will net you the Peelverine Plushie back Bling for free. The only other way to watch is to actually be in the room in Anaheim.
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Read moreThere are plenty of high-profile releases out this month, but if you’re looking to do your part in the ongoing war with bugs, you can now grab Starship Troopers: Extermination on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. It’s launching in a post-Helldivers 2 gaming landscape, but if there’s one thing that makes a bug hunt stand out in this game, it’s that it allows for larger 16-person squads of Mobile Infantry grunts to be deployed and it makes use of a base-building gameplay mechanic.
“We’re full 16-player, we have a different gameplay loop, we have building as a core component of our loop,” game lead Peter Maurice said to GameSpot in an interview. When you dig deeper, you pull that one layer off, you can see that there’s two really distinct games: They kill bugs. We are the bug game.” Com…
Read moreA giant beetle charged toward me, and as it stepped into a big puddle in the center of the room, I snagged it with a burst of magical vines that appeared beneath its feet. Then I blasted the creature with one of my dual flintlock pistols–this one charged with electricity–which sent arcs down through the water, shocking a few skeletons that were joining the fray behind it. As they looked to overwhelm me, I unloaded with both my pistols, zipped a little sideways with a dodge, and clambered away to unload on them before they could slice me up.
One of the highlights of my hands-on time with Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming first-person RPG, is its breezy combat and combination of elements. The game has seen some comparison to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,…
Read moreNetflix might be controlling its spending a little bit now, but is also still looking to put out gigantic blockbusters that rarely hit the big screen. Up next, we have the Russo Brothers’ The Electric State, an adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s 2018 illustrated novel of the same name.While the Russos’ The Gray Man didn’t resonate with critics nearly as well as everyone would’ve liked, it did well enough views-wise for Netflix, who remains quite interested in keeping the collaboration with the Marvel Studios legends going. If nothing changes, however, this will be their last Netflix-backed movie before returning to the MCU to tackle both Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Ever since the first-look images were rel…
Read moreFrancis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis’ road to the big screen has been a bumpy one to say the least, and one has to wonder how many more scandals can befall it before its planned September 27 release date in the United States. The latest drama comes from a bunch of fabricated critic quotes plastered all over the new trailer that Lionsgate has put together.Following a less-than-ideal reception (only 53% of critics on RT gave it a thumbs up) at the Cannes Film Festival 2024, some crew members claimed that Coppola’s on-set behavior was unprofessional to say the least. These two snafus alone indicated the self-financed $120 million behemoth, which stars Adam Driver and many other big-name actors, could be facing a lot of trouble when it finally opens (it also struggled to find distribution), but …
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