Games - Presto Studios

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	Games - Presto Studios

Presto Studios' was a computer game development company of the 1990s, especially famous for its award-winning The Journeyman Project series and the 2001 sequel to Cyan
's hit Myst series, Myst III: Exile.

In August of 2002, Presto Studios shut down new development after the release of an Xbox title Whacked!. In a statement, Greg Uhler (executive producer) announced the closing of the company:

"Due to business, financial, and personal reasons, Presto Studios is discontinuing software development. Whacked! for the Xbox will be the last product that we ship. The company will remain as a corporate entity for many years, but will not be developing products. A minimal staff, including Michel and myself, will be here until the end of October."
Production History
The Legacy of the Journeyman Project
The Journeyman Project series centers around the temporal agent Gage Blackwood
. You, the player, control the role of Gage Blackwood and travel through time to past and future locations in order to protect history's integrity.

The Journeyman Project (1992 - Macintosh, Windows
)

The Journeyman Project Turbo! (1994 - Macintosh, Windows
)

The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime (1997 - Power Macintosh
, Pippin
, Playstation)

The Journeyman Project: Buried in Time (1995 - Macintosh, Windows
)

The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (1998 - Power Macintosh
, Windows
)

All of the titles in the series are first person adventure games featuring photorealistic graphics. The series developed a narrative story line in order to create gameplay. Goals were based on the narrative, rather than a string of puzzles.
The Journeyman Remakes
Following its initial success, the original Journeyman Project was re-released in 1994 under the title The Journeyman Project Turbo!. It was originally titled just "version 2.0", was renamed to reflect major performance improvements.

There is another more substantial remake titled The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime, which was initiated as a "director's cut" release with technological improvements such as full motion navigation seen in The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time. Versions were in development for the Power Macintosh
, Pippin
, 3DO
, Sega Saturn
, and Sony PlayStation
, but only the PowerMac, Pippin, and Playstaton versions were completed and only the PowerMac version was released in North America.
The Journeyman Evolution
There were many changes in interface and style over the games in the series. For example, The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time featured smooth 360-degree panoramic navigation and did not require you to manipulate biochips as in the first two games. The original title imposed a time limit for game-play whereas the rest of the series removed this restriction. Narratively, the use of time travel became a convention of traveling to locations. The first game is about preventing alteration in time, the second with finding chronological anomalies, and the third uses time travel more as a story device. The games also progressed in how the player interacts with the narrative space. In Legacy of Time, players were able to converse with characters. As the earlier games focused on problem solving, the later games focused more on exploration.

The last game in development, The Journeyman Project 4, was shelved before its projected release date in 2000, but much of its development resources were directed towards Myst III: Exile, which featured similar 360-degree navigational improvements.
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Presto Studios ]

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