Ambrosia Software Web Board: Old Glenn Andreas quotes - Ambrosia Software Web Board

The Cythera spirit within me has woken up after a long sleep. The obsession is coming back. I realize that we will most likely never see a continuation of our story, but at least I have brought up what Glenn Andreas has had to say about it, in the past. Dream on (and weep), as you read these little tidbits. The text goes from "new" (2004) to old (2000), except in two cases. Some posts have dates, some not. I did not really think of that detail as I copied the text and saved it in a document. I will want to torture myself further for the rest of my life, and will read these quotes every now and then, as the true masochist that I am.

Text in within lines (--) is Gandreas. Other text is him quoting others.

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Posted 31 August 2000 - 06:50 AM
There is no code currently being written specificly for a sequel to Cythera (hows that for weasel words?)

That being said, I've got the plot for the sequel (though it will require some capabilities that the current graphics engine doesn't support, so "Cythera II - Shattered Realm" would require "Delver II" tech). I've also got some "tech demos" of a new sprite & windowing graphic engine (16 bit w transparencies, though with the commonness and power of graphic cards, it might be easier to build on top of OpenGL instead (after all, OpenGL isn't for 3D only) - sort of like the way Diablo II uses hardware acceleration), and a pretty cool embeddable/extendable scripting system (which solves many of the problems of current scripting system). I've also got some ideas for non-RPG games that are set in the world of Cythera, but again, no code.

So bottom line, there is currently not a sequel (either with the same engine, or a sequel to the engine itself) being worked on, but various bits and pieces that may (or may not) end up in a sequel are being worked on. I wish I could answer "yes", but I currently can't.

Yes, I'd also love to make a massively multiplayer online role playing game (especially one set after the sequel, or perhaps just before - what goes on in Cythera after you heal Alaric will be quite interesting, answering many of the secondary unanswered threads in Cythera), but I currently don't see that happening for a large number of reasons.
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Posted 31 January 2004 - 04:11 AM

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Originally posted by DataSpot:
I think a better sequel would integrate the first Cythera with the second's storyline, so you never leave the land after you cure Alaric;

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The sequel is set "a ways" in the future from the first - and its critical that your character leave for certain key events to happen. Basically, the Undine have lost their most powerful artifact to the hands of their most hated enemy, who now has the opportunity to learn to use it and transcend even his current ability. And the sequel is set _after_ that is "resolved".

(The sequel also requires a new engine, since a certain critical "feature" of the world isn't possible with the current one, and, as far as I know, has never been done in any other CRPG).
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And for the record, I don't have a problem with doing a sequel to Cythera. There are, unfortunately, other issues (like having the time to dedicate to complete it, pesky litte thing called money, and the like - so if I win the Powerball...)
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Posted 04 April 2003 - 09:03 AM

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Originally posted by Ice:
So Glenn, what ever happened to Larisa and Joppa??
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They did not return to Kosha.
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Well, technically, nothing in the team stories is canon. Any future plot lines would be completely inconsistent with them (trust me on this one - my grand plan included some _major_ happenings - and no, I'm not telling).
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Of course there is also:

Tactics of Cythera (a tactical, turn based combat heavy game)

Halls of Maayti (a 3D puzzle solving game, with a Seldane twist)

Powers of the Undine (something not completely unlike a sort of collectable card game)

Merchant of Cythera (trade your way to become the head of a powerful House)

Cythera Online (well, that would be obvious what it is, wouldn't it)
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Omen will actually be part of "Cythera II:Shattered Realm" (or perhaps "Cythera II:Quest for Alaric") - after all, he has a major score to settle, and can turn up like the cockroach he is (though this time you might even have to trust what he is saying, or then again, maybe not).
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I am _currently_ not working on "Cythera 2" though I have done work on various technologies that may (or may not) be used in such a creation. At some point I do _want_ to make a "Cythera 2" (I've got the basic plot worked out, as well as a rough idea for Cythera 3), but there are a bunch of other things I also want to write at some point as well (and saddly I've been too busy to work on _any_ of them).

Just setting a few facts straight here...
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Originally posted by Talos:
"Basic Plot"?

Is it anything like the stories that have been written?

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No. It will involve the Undine, but it will involve some very big events..
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That being said, some of the underlying plot from that project is mentioned carried over into Cythera. Also, the quote from the Cipher Ms was "Th L Dr W".

If you really want hints about a sequel, read all three of the Prophesies of Neleneus.
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2002
Also, gandreas has no plans to make an editor available, and there's no indication of a Cythera 2 anywhere on the horizon.

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"Har em akhet xepheru" as the Seldane would say...
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Back to me: The last sentence certainly is interesting. Given Gandreas' ingenuity and attention to detail, I am not surprised if there really is a Seldane language. Or at the very least, some sort of code of the English language. Will we ever be able to decipher it?



Finally, I would like to try something that I noticed while grave digging... I don't think it will work, but it is worth a shot. Everything is, at this point.

*summons gandreas*

This post has been edited by Seldane: 03 February 2011 - 10:40 AM

That's a really cool collection, thanks for sharing ^_^ It is rather depressing, I agree. Puts a little perspective on the mushroom steak mystery :x

Please do return and talk to us, Mr Gandreas. I wish you would still consider making Cythera II from scratch. Imagine how popular it would be :D If it is a matter of not having the "start-up costs" or whatever you call the money it takes to build a game engine, I think some of us would be happy to donate to the cause.

But if you're absolutely not willing to do that, what's the harm in telling us the plotline, right? :D

This seems like a good place to link to a deviantArt thread I stumbled across by accident recently. gandreas probably didn't say anything we didn't know already, but it's here for posterity now. Also, who know he had a deviantArt account?

This isn't exactly Cythera 2 or 3, but once I'm done with my current project I'd like to do Cythera X, Ambrosia- and Gandreas-permitting. Essentially this would be a game as close to the original as possible, just running in Mac OS X (and with the engine I'm creating right now, perhaps Linux and Windows support as well). This is still a ways off, but I just thought I'd poke my head in when I saw this topic

Seldane, on 03 February 2011 - 10:36 AM, said:

I thought I'd see if any of those words were in the game, but it doesn't look like it. Before you learn the language, Jhiaxus and Uset both tell you, "An au Gernek ers." Unhayt says, "An daya ayqk hera." & Seqedher says, "Peti try zertk." After you learn the language though, they don't even greet you, except for Jhiaxus. So... I've got no idea what any of them mean :(

BreadWorldMercy453, on 03 February 2011 - 10:09 PM, said:

Give me a translations of those, and short of that I can try to decipher it by guessing letters and seeing if it works at all.

Two Jacks, on 03 February 2011 - 10:30 PM, said:

Unfortunately, the Seldane don’t seem to care much for greetings after you know their language, so it’s impossible to figure out what they’re saying. The fact that Jhiaxus and Uset say the same thing, and the capitalization of “Gernek” might still make it possible to decipher, but that would take a lot of time and effort and. I think Jhiaxus still talks to you though? No guarantee it’s the same thing, but…

I showed some of these Seldane phrases to my linguist sister. She said that they do not appear to be based on any particular Latin or Greek roots. However, she did note the structural similarity of the words "xepheru" and "cythera." So if there is a Seldane language, it is not necessarily based on Greek or any other languages. Instead, I wonder if it is more of a code where some letters are substituted in the case of other letters, and certain letters can make the sounds of other letters. If "xepheru" means "cythera," then 'x' is either substituted for 'c', or 'x' serves multiple purposes, as an 'x' or a 'c'. 'e' may be able to mean 'y' as well, and 'p' for 't', 'u' for 'a'. Unfortunately, these substitutions don't really work in any of the other words

I thought I’d also note that there seems to be a written Seldane language as well. Since we so conveniently have translations of these, it might help.





They all end with “this” but the only commonality in the end of the Seldane text is that they all end with a sort of backslash character. It seems unlikely that this could mean “this,” but maybe the grammar’s different.

This post has been edited by Buzzzzy: 05 February 2011 - 12:58 AM

That's really cool Buzzy! I don't know what to do with it, but it's cool

Are those custom made characters on those signs?

I think so, but they can’t be a font since they don’t match up to the translations at all.

I don't think the characters are actual characters, but just something made up to look like writing. Notice how two signs start with UPEYA\ (sort of), but the English translation is the dweller / the guardian. Unless UPEYA\ is something like "the".

I think the signs are probably random characters thrown together. If it is actually a language, the structure of the sentences must be very different than in English. I can see that being the case, but I've yet to figure out any of it.

I was thinking that the grammar could be totally different, but I can’t see why UPEYA\ (which is a large portion of the second and third texts) would be in the second two and not at all in the first. I’m inclined to think that a full language was not actually developed, but I could be wrong.

Well the second two refer to a person, so maybe the second part refers to what kind of person?


Also each message is has two "/" in it. With the second part being different in each case (the first and thid being the most similar in both languages).

Two Jacks, on 07 February 2011 - 08:48 PM, said:

That could be possible, I’m also thinking that the translations might not be very accurate, I mean what does “at the door of door this” mean?

I was looking around the old Delver site recently with the help of the WayBackMachine when I came across the original Delver Boards. There were actually quite a few posts by Gandreas back then, so I thought this topic was the perfect place to post about it:

http://replay.waybac...d/wwwboard.html

That's the most recent version of the Delver boards that the WayBackMachine has archived prior to the switch to the Ambrosia boards and the Delver board's removal. I've been finding some interesting posts from Gandreas that are relevant to some of our current topics. In this post, Gandreas says:

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I took this to mean that the Seldane language may actually be a custom font. However, it may be a font of random characters rather than corresponding to traditional fonts, so that may not help us either way, but it does say that Gandreas clearly had the idea of the Seldane language in mind way back at the very beginning of the project. He probably had most of the plot worked out at that time.

Also interesting is another part of the old Delver site:

http://replay.waybac...com/Editor.html

Gandreas used this page to provide his analysis of why a Cythera Editor should never be released. At least, not a Cythera Editor. Towards the bottom of the page he does say that he would like for the Delver Engine itself to support third-party scenarios at some point. If you read through some of his old posts, it is clear that at the time Gandreas had extensive plans for Cythera and Delver both. The Delver engine was to be the next generation engine for Computer Role-Playing Games. Unfortunately, it had some nice features at the time of its development, but it was outdone by game engines such as Blizzard's Diablo within a very short time.

Interesting find, Wizard. I went through most of gandreas’s posts and found something interesting.

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What is this about climbing buildings?

Yeah, he has stated that on different occasions. He wanted to be able to have "depth" in the game engine, specifically for Cythera 2. Just like in Ultima 7 (which he also implied the inspiration came from). Instead of the game world being completely flat, like it is now, it would be able to have tall buildings will people standing on top, etc.

By the way, thanks for digging up the old Delver site! That completely slipped my mind! More reading material!

Thanks for the links, Wizzy!

I found an interesting little quote from Gandreas on the Delver site:

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Full post here

Compare that with the Bestiary of Asilops:

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Full book here

That looks like another element of the game that they never finished. I remember reading that wolflizards were supposedly about in the forests at night in Cythera, but I've never encountered them there. Gandreas must have had plans to do that for some time, but never implemented it. As it is, wolflizards are significantly less dangerous than ratlizards in my opinion, because they can't poison you and they are only in one place in the game (the northern cave with the mystic helmet).

The rest of Gandreas post is interesting, too. I wonder what the "required" combat he is referring to? I would say fighting the polyps under Catamarca to get the first part of the Crolna, but fighting the ruffians to free Ariadne is also required. For that matter, you have to fight polyps to get the Timeflux book, which is necessary before Charax purifies the Crolna, as I recall. You also have to fight giant crabs in Free Maayti to get the third Crolna shard. I can only assume that Gandreas initially expected to make most of the quests combat-free, but that more elements of combat were added as they worked on the game.

There are occasionally wolflizards on the path between LKH and Odemia during nighttime.

I thought he was referring to killing Eudoxus as the one required combat, but I didn't think of all those others. I suppose killing Eudoxus isn't strictly necessary, but you need to at least attack him to make him move out of the way, right? I can sometimes get past the polyps under Catamarca without attacking, but I think that depends on if you have followers & how weak they are. The hydra blocking off the timeflux book would definitely be necessary, I think.

I am pretty sure it is either Eudoxus or the hydra, as 453 said. I’ve gotten past the polyps several times before without anybody in my party attacking, and avoiding crabs under Maayti is easy. Also, there are wolflizards on the path to Odemia? I have never encountered them outside of the mystic helmet cave, maybe I should walk at night more often.

I saw somewhere on that old board that he confirmed that there are no gods in Cythera. I guess we already knew this, but a confirmation is still nice.