Wow, that would be ambitious
That's a great idea, though. Here is my opinion about it, if you're interested.
In
Darka, I think reusing the Myst/Uru lore is too tricky (especially if you plan to reuse known characters like Watson or Veovis). While Cyan seems open to any fan contributions, they are quite tight on keeping the lore intact since it's their baby (and Cyan themselves had trouble avoiding lore-breaking mistakes like wrong use of linking books - that's saying how tricky it can be). So working with existing stuff is probably going to be very hard if Cyan is involved.
Or, maybe you could go ahead and claim that this is pure fan-fiction loosely based on Uru's world, which is just "what if's" and which shouldn't be considered as cannon. This means Cyan wouldn't recognize it as being "Myst" or "Uru", but it would exist nonetheless for people who are interested in it.
I don't know if that's legally possible, but in a sense that's what some fan-Ages have been doing for quite a while now, so if that's allowed, you'd be completely free to make an awesome Uru-based story without Cyan being in the way of every plot twist
Mirrors would be a lot easier lore-wise, if you already have most of it
But of course, there is always the problem of being tied to a big project which might take years to complete. On the other hand, it also means you may have more fun making it since you wouldn't have Cyan always breathing down your neck.
And as a personal opinion, I think it's refreshing when fans of a game decide to start something completely new instead of reusing well-known stuff. Usually that's a good way to get people out of their comfort zone and surprise them.
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About getting Cyan to approve anything (in general, not just Darka), I think the best way is to drop all Myst/Uru characters and locations, and come up with a completely new set of Ages, characters and stories. Ages and Linking Books are still a formidable story tool, which allows you to invent any world you can possibly want, with its own society, technology n'stuff.
And, as I said, it's cool to see new things that you aren't expecting when playing "normal" Myst.
...)
Yali wrote:Of course with a game like Darka, it would be free unless Cyan would like to have it sold, in which case I would hand over 100% of the profits to them directly since I that's what would make sense.
This might not be the most pressing matter, but IMHO either the game is completely free in which case it's a gift to the community (and you don't expect anything but gratitude in return), either it's not and then the money it costs is to reward whoever made it. Since you and your team would be doing at least 90% of the hard work, it wouldn't feel right for Cyan to get the full reward.
Just my opinion.