Many thanks, Luminy and reneuend! (reneuend = Bob from the Myha team! :)
I would like to explain how we designed the island of our project. It had to be a very fast work (because of the limited time we have for the Jam), so we had an idea: we could just get inspired by the original island of Myst. It would be a very fun tribute for all Myst fans. Of course our island would be totally different in the end, with a completely different way to visit it, different paths and a different look. But the basic idea was to use the same topography.
People who know Myst are familiar with the island, that we can see on the cover. It has always been the main artwork of the game:
The design of the island is very important in Myst, and it's part of the success of the game. It's mysterious because of the fog everywhere, because of the strange buildings and machineries, because of that lonely mountain peak, the rocket and the forest. Everything is isolated, surrounded by water, and there seems to be no possible escape. That's what I liked in Myst, and what we wanted to do in Myha. Here's the first model of our island:
As you can see, it's slightly different, but we kept a few things from Myst: the mountain, the rocket, the water all around (of course, it's an island). I thought it was fun if the rocket had crashed on the island, and if it was possible to visit it in the game, just like in Myst!
For the moment, all you can see in our island is a rocky ground everywhere, but there will be more details in the end: buildings, vegetation, different paths, etc. This is only the basis of work. And even with such a poor island, we could prepare the game design: we started to place several important things in the game. I created a top view of the island that I shared with Bob and Deki, and we thought of the best way to place the starting point and the end of the game, some doors and buildings, the paths that are available at the beginning, and those that are blocked, and also where we could put the diary (scenario parts).
We used the top view as follows:
This map has been very helpful for me to model everything in 3dsmax. I created the doors, the cave in the mountain, the inside of the rocket, the marina, etc. And moreover, it helped me place the different paths and stairs depending on the topography. In the end, some of our initial choices (above) will be changed, but I couldn't have created the final island without this plan.
We hope you like how we proceeded! Tomorrow I will show you some of our 3d models, or maybe just screenshots of the final island. I don't know yet, so let's see tomorrow :)