Hi Can anyone explain what is this black cube I keep coming across. I guess I must be behind the times. Nearly very game I have checked out this black cube comes into effect. I have checked out Myha return to lost Island thinking oh! yes I remember this as a girl stranded on an island trying to find a lost friend I think. But I get this space astronaut and a black cube, Other games I have checked out and this black cube is in most of them I am at a loss.
Help
Regards
Maggsie

I'm not sure what you mean by the "black cube comes into effect?" Myha is about a crashed space ship on another planet. Black cube refers to a series of space adventures. This is from the Steam page.

"Myha: Return to the Lost Island is a first person scifi adventure game developed by Denis Martin with Unreal Engine 4, based on the Black Cube series created by Simon Mesnard. It was funded on Kickstarter in November 2017."

You can read about the Black Cube here.
It is exactly as Drac stated, with added descriptions.

Ana

Hi Thank you for the info. I as just curious as I have purchased ASA, Catyph . I thought they were independent of each other I didn't realise they were all part of the same genre till I came across Myha.
You have answered my question as you always do .
Thank you
Regards
Maggsie

If you want to purchase the other games and have ASA and Catyph from Steam, look at The Black Cube series bundle there for additional discounts.

Hey thanks everyone for answering to the question! Sorry I wasn't around during Summer

Hi maggsie I am the developer of the Black Cube series (see it like Myst or Monkey Island: a series of games with several episodes)
All the games are linked by a same mythology where mysterious Cubes appear here and there, but they are all quite independent from each others. I mean, you can play them individually in any order, you should be able to understand the story. And if you like an episode and play another one, you should be happy to discover subtle (or less subtle!) relations between them! You will learn new things about this world in each game, while playing a different adventure.

Yes you can have discounts on this page: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/617/The_Black_Cube_series/
They will also arrive soon on FireFlower Games hopefully.

I recently played Boinihi and I really liked it a lot! As I have mentioned before, all games I played which were developed by Simon (ASA, Catyph, Boinihi) are really good, I would recommend them to every Myst lover. Only downside is the navigation, but one gets used to it. If you are new to these kind of games, Boinihi is probably the easiest one, albeit a bit different as it is in 3rd person, normally Myst Clones have ego perspective.

@Simon: in case you are reading this: It is a shame that you don't make much money by creating these games. It makes me admire your passion
to create these games even more. I really hope sometime you will be in the mood again to create another Myst game. Please never forget
there are quite a few gamers who really like and admire your work!

@mike_bn
I'm very happy that you played Boinihi and liked it! It has always been for my fans and for people like you that I created the sequels to ASA. So it's always great to read messages like this!

Ah navigation, yes... It's complicated in Myst-like games. I'm curious to see how it will be in Neyyah and what Myst fans will think of it!
By the way have you played Myha? What did you think of the gameplay in full 3d?

In the future I plan to try a different game engine to make more games in full 3d. It's not what I prefer personally, but it usually makes the unanimity regarding the gameplay.
I'm really looking forward to be able to continue to develop the Black Cube series to enrich it, and to improve the next episodes, but yes it will take me some time, I can't continue for the moment. I need to find a way to consolidate my activity of indie dev before I can continue, else I can't have a normal life.

By the way this Summer I participated to 2 game jams (small contests for devs), and I created adventure games. It's very different from the Black Cube series but if you're curious about my other work, you can take a look here:
Francium chapter 1: https://the-icehouse.itch.io/francium
Francium chapter 2: https://the-icehouse.itch.io/the-king-returns-francium-chapter-2

Nothing out of the extraordinary, but I learned a lot of things, particularly when working on chapter 2. That makes me more confident regarding my next games.
I hope you have fun with this!

Hi Simon,

thanks for the long and informative post. I also liked the remake of Myha and overall, I definitely think it is a good game and I enjoyed it.
A few things bugged me, if you are interested in feedback, I can write you an email about them.

I also don't prefer full 3d. But it seems most people do and it seems if you want to sell games, you need to consider this preference, unfortunatley.
I, personally, prefer either slideshow like Riven or what I really liked was the hybrid navigation used in Schizm I.

I had not heard of the game Neyyah before. Looks interesting. Are you involved? I put it in my Steam wishlist.
I will check out your 2 game jam games for sure, might take a few weeks, though. The queue of what i want to play next is long ;-)

Simon, one more question : could you maybe post a complete list of ALL games you created and are finished/released and also all
games you are still working on (or plan to work on in the future). I know about the two websites cube and simon says play
but even the sum of all games found on these pages does not look complete to me. For example the Jam games you created
are not listed there (at least not on the sections I searched for them). I even seem to remember that once I found one of your games
in some sub-page of the cube-website, that was not listed on top of the root page.

That would be great - I would love to have a full list of your work and maybe others as well....

Last but not least, as you worked together with the creator of RoonSehv do you know by any chance in which stage the development
of RoonSehv 2 is? Will it be finished soon? To be honest, RoonSehv 1 was not so much my cup of tea because it had some major weaknesses, in my
opinion, but I still highly respect being able to develop such a game as a single indie person. So I plan to check out RoonSehv2 once it is released.

Hey mike,
Yes of course feedback about Myha would be interesting! It won't change the game itself but I will learn from it and if I ever make a new episode in full 3d I'll try to take care of what you say. It doesn't mean I will be able to fix everything (there might be issues related to the fact that I work alone or with only a few creators such as Denis on Myha). But I'll do my best, and if players don't share with me their feelings (bad but also good to motivate me ^^), then it's difficult to know what you'd like me to do! But it is not urgent at all, so if you want to send me an email it will be welcome -but just take your time!

Yeah I see what they did in Schizm 1, it's somehow what I attempted to do with Catyph in the first place, but it proved more complicated than I thought and I tried something different with the video transitions. That kind of thing is easier in full3d...

I'm not involved in Neyyah but I love the look of it and I contacted Aaron, the developer, as soon as he announced his game 2 years ago. He's a very nice guy, very talented, and we talked a lot and shared some ideas. At some point I gave him some help with the Visionaire game engine that we both use, and now I'm even more excited to play his game because there is for me an interest in the technical side of his game. He's doing great! But I don't know how people will receive it in 2020, as you know it's a Myst-like game in 2d (prerendered 3d) and they're not popular anymore. I really wish him good luck and will try to support his game when it is possible. I'm very happy to see developers like Aaron trying to keep alive the genre with the 2d feel, with a high level of quality (HD, beatiful graphics, etc., but still the core gameplay of Myst).

Oh it's difficult for me to post a full list of my games.

- My main series is The Black Cube series of course, since 2012 now (already!):
ASA (Original and Remastered), Catyph (Original and Light Edition), Myha original, Myha: Return to the Lost Island, Kitrinos, and Boinihi (Steam, itchio)
- In the same series there were a few game jams but I don't share too much about them because these games are not complete, or I think that the quality is not good enough:
ATOS (gamejolt), Kel Leda (itchio)
- There has been a few cooperations with other creators:
The Ruins of Riddoh (gamejolt)
- And finally an aborted project of J-RPG with my brother in 2013, but the crowdfunding failed and we couldn't continue it (but I would like to bring this ambitious project to life someday -probably as an adventure game- because I wrote a long story that, I think, is interesting for the fans of the Black Cube world):
TBT: The Black Tower (itchio)

Next to this I have another series called My Village is Magical (Mon Village est Magique, aka MVEM): it's more for kids. I wrote a series of books and worked on comics wtih friends. Even though I'm not the main character it talks of my childhood and my real village in France, Burgundy. It was also inspired by my love for Ghibli movies. I never really had the opportunity to work on games in this world, not as much as I want to I mean. It's a fantasy series based on reality, I'd like to try to expand it in the future.
- MVEM: The Forgotten Crypt (itchio)
- MVEM: The Whale of the Infinite Ocean (gamejolt)

I also worked on short games or demos during other game jams, or as experiments. Most of them are unfinished, so I don't talk too much about them. But some are quite complete however, like the first one:
- Eoin's Quest (itchio)
- Squib For Dragonflies (itchio)
- ASA 3d remake (itchio) (it's just the first room with no puzzle)
- Francium chapter 1 (itchio)
- Francium chapter 2 (itchio)

And I think that is all? This was between 2011 and 2020.
Most of those games are on simonmesnard.fr
If they're not on my site, then I consider they're not worth being played in their current state or that I await further cooperation with another creator, but it doesn't mean I don't like them, just that it's difficult for the player to understand what I (or we) had in mind. I mean it's probably not very representative of the original idea, so I would prefer to work on them more someday in the future, rather than listing unfinished projects.

Regarding my future games there is nothing exciting to say so far...
- I can talk of a project called Blue Moon, which is in a more dark style (in the Black Cube series) made with Juanjo Barcelo Molina (https://gamejolt.com/@BlurredGames/games). We officially announced Blue Moon quite a long time ago but it hasn't progressed a lot.
- Next to this, I've been talking of a reboot of ATOS with Yazorius (who worked with me on Kitrinos and Boinihi's music).
- I'd like to work on a game in the world of My Village is Magical. It could be my big project for 2021 but I've not decided.
- I hesitate with another project: a first-person adventure in an egyptian/mystic style, but I'm not sure I should work on a first-person game now, if the Black Cube series didn't have more success. Maybe later.
And next to all of this if I ever participate to another game jam then I'll try to create a 3rd chapter of Francium for the fun.

Finally regarding RoonSehv, the best would be that you ask to Denis, as he will probably be happy to reply himself. You might even get fresh news that I don't have! I know it's a bit complicated for him to work with his original team of RoonSehv 1, they are having a few issues (lack of free time mostly), and as they're not being paid it's not easy of course. I'm, like you, very curious about RoonSehv 2! I played a demo of it almost 2 years ago. Since then, Denis learned a lot with Unreal Engine 4 (RoonSehv 1 was made with UDK, that is to say the previous version of the Epic engine). He's also learning a lot about VR. I'm sure that they want their game to be better and more impressive! We can probably hope to get some news in 2021 You can try to contact him directly on the RoonSehv blog: https://roonsehv.blogspot.com/
However Denis just had a new baby, so it keeps him quite busy Happy event, but not very compatible with the life of game developer haha!

Thanks for your questions mike. Cheers!

Interesting info Simon!

Thanks for reading oldbroad!

Everyone: just let me know if you have questions regarding one of my games, or if you really enjoyed one of my unfinished projects and would like me to continue it more seriously. That would really help too, thanks!

Some of these games/prototypes are not scifi, so they might not please those of you who liked the Black Cube series, but it could also open new ways with different worlds and stories, other graphic styles, etc. It's very hard to know the potential of a game and it makes it complicated to decide to continue to work (or not) on a specific project. So usually I prefer to not take risks and not continue if I see that there hasn't been a lot of comments/feedback about a game. That's how potentially good games never come to life

Hi Simon,

thanks for your long and informative post. Really appreciated. I am a bit in a hurry right now, I will try to respond in the next 1-2 days!

Wow Im wishing you all my Best ....Sounds really Great,.... God Bless in all you do

Hi everyone!
I have listened to the request of some of you
The Black Cube series is now available on FireFlower Games (DRM-free)

All the games are quite cheap now, and also benefit of -15% off for the launch on this store during a week.

ASA:
https://fireflowergames.com/products/asa-a-space-adventure-remastered-edition

Catyph:
https://fireflowergames.com/products/catyph-the-kunci-experiment

Myha:
https://fireflowergames.com/products/myha-return-to-the-lost-island

Boinihi:
https://fireflowergames.com/products/boinihi-the-ki-codex

You can also find the prequel Kitrinos (short game available for free). It's quite different of the other episodes but if you're curious...
https://fireflowergames.com/products/kitrinos-inside-the-cube

Thanks for your kind words all the time! Cheers

Good to know Simon! Thanks!

Thanks Simon.

That is great, Simon! Thank you!

Thanks for your messages!!
Boinihi is finally available too. I have updated my previous message with the link if you're interested.
A bientot!

Thanks!

@Simon: As I am not sure if you know about the feature of this website and you might miss it, I just wanted to tell you that I send you a private message

Yes I just saw it and responded
I often visit GameBoomers but don't often connect with my account, so if you want to be sure that I receive a message, it is better to send me an email (you can use the contact form on the theblackcube.fr or simonmesnard.fr -I've also added my personal email in my reply)
Cheers!

@Simon: Thanks for your long and nice response :-) I will email you in a couple of days!

Hi! In France we are in quarantine for the 2nd time, during the whole month of November (and maybe more). When it already happened before during Spring, I gave ASA and Catyph for free during a few days on itch.io to support people at home.
This time I am preparing another similar offer so, in case you're curious and still don't have the Black Cube games, please keep an eye on them on FireFlower during the week between Monday 2 and Sunday 8 of November...
Boinihi more specifically could be at an interesting price for the first time - this is an effort for me as this game is new. If you apreciate it, I would be more than happy if more of you could play it before the end of the year and write a bit of feedback, and of course I hope that this offer will entertain some of the people who are stuck at home and who love adventure games.