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Grand(er) Gallery leading to the King’s Chamber

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To give you a glimpse of the added resolution and detail in Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening, here’s a scene from the Grand Gallery in the Great Pyramid. This view is looking down toward the opening of the Ascending Passageway.

New HD "Awakening" scene of the Great Pyramid's Grand Gallery
New HD “Awakening” scene of the Great Pyramid’s Grand Gallery

The ancient Egyptians build this as a bit of a mousetrap serving many practical and, in their mind, spiritual functions. Turning around, this walk way leads to the King’s Chamber, believed to have housed Khufu’s (Cheop’s) mummified body. The metal braces on the telescoping stone walls now features more accurately the degradation of those edges as it currently exists.

Compare with the legacy screen shot, below…

Legacy scene from original Riddle of the Sphinx release
Legacy scene from original Riddle of the Sphinx release

The conversion process is humming along nicely but requiring a lot of attention to detail. So we are working around the clock to get you The Awakening and think you’ll appreciate the attention to detail and enhanced gameplay!

More scenes to come…

Scarab Wings & Things! NEW UI screenshots and more…

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Good morning, anxious adventuring archaeologists!

We are hard at work on the game and getting very close to a playable demo! We are hoping to have that done in a week or so if possible, depending on how hard it is to work out these last few kinks. However, once the demo is done, progress on the rest of the game will be much faster due to existing infrastructure.

We know you have all been waiting for a while for this game, so we appreciate your patience while we make Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening the best we can!

New Enhanced Settings

Today we have a few new screenshots and exciting features to show you! For veterans of the ROTS franchise, you will see that we have added a number of new features. One of the first things you might have noticed is that there are more settings sliders than in the original game. Specifically, you can enable/disable Environmental FX, such as millennia-old dust subtly billowing in suspension as you explore these ancient hidden chambers, etc. Plus you can switch between new immersive scarab-themed cursors and ROTS’ classic cursors, and switch between windowed mode and fullscreen.

Screenshot of additional settings: Cloud Save/Load, Environmental FX, new  Scarab Cursors or Original “Hand” Cursors. The new scarab cursors are very immersive, but we’ve redesigned the original cursors at a higher resolution for the original experience.

New settings include "Cloud Save/Load", adjustable environmental FX, and choice between new scarab cursors and the original release cursor set.
New settings include “Cloud Save/Load”, adjustable environmental FX, and choice between new scarab cursors and the original release cursor set.

Enhanced Save States: Autosave, Local Save, and Cloud Save.

Another major overhaul from the original is saving. We now have three save methods: Autosave, Local save, and Cloud save.

You can register, login, save, and load a game from desktop and mobile version of ROTS: Awakening. This screenshot shows the classic hand cursors.
You can register, login, save, and load a game from desktop and mobile version of ROTS: Awakening. This screenshot shows the classic hand cursors.
  •  Autosave is meant to be the main way to save game progress, so you can just hit the quit button and all of your progress will have been saved.
  •  Local Save is meant as a bookmark of sorts if you wish to go back to a particular time and place in the game.
  •  And for the pièce de résistance… Cloud Save. Start on desktop, continue on mobile. Cloud save allows you to transition between devices and platforms seamlessly. Here’s how it works: at the top, under settings, there is a bar that currently says: “Hi, Scarabhunter” (this will show your name). If you click on it, it will dropdown as you can see from the screenshots. When you create an account, you will be able to save your data to the cloud, simply by clicking the cloud save button. When you want to load to a new device, all you have to do is login and click cloud load.

 The Winged Things!

As we previously mentioned, ROTS: Awakening features enhanced, animated scarabs on the settings screen and as a new set of immersive scarab-themed cursors. You will be able to experience these fully in the upcoming demo. Until then, enjoy the scarab-esque indulgence.

Shows the new scarab cursor set for a much more immersive experience.
Shows the new scarab cursor set for a much more immersive experience.
Winged "Settings Scarab" inactive.
Winged “Settings Scarab” inactive.
Winged "Settings Scarab" activated. Curious? You will have to play to discover it's purpose...
Winged “Settings Scarab” activated. Curious? You will have to play to discover it’s purpose…

New, Enhanced Scarab-themed Cursors!

Here’s a look at the ROTS: Awakening new scarab-themed cursors for a much more immersive experience.

What do you think of the new features and images? Let us know in the comments, and keep an eye out for the demo which will be released shortly!

Charlie and Jeff Tobler

Behold… the Royal Throne!

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New Treasures Chamber Rendering Comparison

We have completed the Treasures Chamber, featuring this majestic royal gilded throne. Take a look and behold its beauty…

Throne Room in Treasures Chamber
Throne Room in Treasures Chamber

Our new dramatic lighting techniques, Strata’s advanced renderer (Raydiosity), and hi-resolution 1080p rendering have only added the awe and wonder of this chamber.

Compare with the original rendering:

Comparison between the original (left) and new HD (right)
Comparison between the original (left) and new HD (right)

This exquisite gold leaf masterpiece from antiquity casts a warm golden ambience to the chamber, as compared with the original rendering. The shadows are deeper, darker, and more mysterious.

Plus, Charlie has done amazing work on real-time atmospheric effects within the Pyramid and other areas. Thanks to his hard work and creativity, you will now be able to explore Riddle’s ancient hidden chambers with dust subtly billowing up from the floor with each explorative step along with millennia-old musty dust particles seemingly held in suspension, ever so slowly settling back to the cold stone floors. These are the details we are working on in resurrecting Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening.

While the process is still very time-consuming, we are working toward a late Dec. release. However, we want this done right and we are making every effort to make your Riddle of the Sphinx expedition unforgettable! It will be worth the wait.

Next update: we unveil of the sacred flying Scarab in the settings screen and as the new cursor…

NEW Tools & Weaponry Chamber Rendering Comparison

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For those of you familiar with the legacy version of Riddle of the Sphinx, you will recognize this chamber. But what you haven’t seen yet is the difference in the new renderings we’ve been toiling over.

Much of our time is spent bringing the models out of the older 3D application (currently only running on Mac OS 9 on an emulator – still amazed this is possible!), converting geometry, cameras, and even lighting. We are intentionally enhancing camera angles and lighting, even textures, when called for. But we are most excited about the enhanced shadows, ambient light, and richer colors, due in large part to rendering in Strata’s Raydiosity.

Compare below and you will immediately see the difference!

Enjoy…

This is the rendering from the original release of ROTS.
This is the rendering from the original release of ROTS.

That is the original. Now, behold the enhanced HD Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening rendering…

New enhanced HD rendering from Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening
New enhanced HD rendering from Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening

And to give you an idea of the new details you will be experiencing in this version, take a look at this…

This close-up of some ancient Egyptian treasures beautifully displays the enhanced “Awakening” version…

Close-up shot of wooden coffer and urn with arrows.
Close-up shot of wooden coffer and urn with arrows.

More updates to come, plus some surprises in this chamber that were not in the original room!

THANK YOU for your support and your patience. We still have more conversions, rendering, and engine work, but it’s coming together and will prove to be an even larger archaeological adventure of the millennia!

ROTS Awakening Progress

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It’s been a while since we have updated but we have been working on the very tedious process of bringing all the old models out of Strata StudioPro Blitz in OS 9 and into the newest version of Strata Design 3d. Quite a lot of work but it’s going smoothly thanks to Strata and Rand.

Plus, we are excited to announce the lead programmer from The Omega Stone, Thomas Carton, has come on board (remotely from France) to help with programming and game development. Thomas is a huge asset to this undertaking – an amazing talent and a great friend! Charlie and Thomas are working very closely on the new engine.

We will be posting screenshots once we have all the environments converted and rendering begins.

Lastly, we have had a few new backers from Old World Studios campaign site: https://oldworld.studio/projects/riddle-of-the-sphinx-the-awakening/

Thank you and welcome to our newest backers!

While we are clearly in the beginning phases still, we can see a dimly lit torch and the hint of eerily dancing shadows at the end of this eerie corridor of resurrecting Riddle is the Sphinx: The Awakening.

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King Tut’s dagger discovery: made from meteorite! Discover Tut’s dagger and more in Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening

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In a shocking discovery, researchers have found that King Tut’s dagger is literally “out of this world’! The iron with which the dagger is composed has been identified as meteoritic, meaning the iron came from meteorites that fell to the earth from outer space. This is due to the higher nickel and cobalt levels in the iron, a trait that is unseen in terrestrial iron. This provides evidence that Bronze Age blacksmiths found their iron in meteorites, as opposed to smelting it from the earth’s crust.

To read more about this epic finding, head over to http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/12/22/king-tuts-dagger-is-out-this-world.html

Remember, you can experience the mysteries of King Tut’s dagger and many more artifacts in Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening!

Egyptian adventure game mirrors recent Great Pyramid discovery!

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On November 3rd, it was widely reported that French scientists made a discovery of the century! They found a large mysterious void in the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Now, you have the chance to explore it for yourself…

MOSELLE (SAINT LOUIS), Missouri, Nov 7, 2017 — National Geographic magazine stated that the mysterious void just discovered will not be explorable, since there are no known corridors connecting the Grand Gallery to this “void.” Coincidentally, an Egyptian adventure game has mirrored these staggering developments.

Old World Studios, the developers of Riddle of the Sphinx: The Awakening, conducted a tremendous amount of research, to make an adventure game that modeled all of the existing monuments and chambers to exact specifications. But they went even further by building access to the many speculated hidden chambers and corridors thought to be within the Great Pyramid.

Charlie Tobler, co-developer and lead programmer, states: “We took some artistic license, of course, but much of what you explore is true to life as if you were to explore the Great Pyramid and Sphinx in person. Now people can experience one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, without all the red tape and expense involved in an expedition of that magnitude.”

“Riddle of the Sphinx came about because Karen and I wanted to explore what lay beyond the existing tombs and chambers in the Great Pyramid. We started with actual archaeological discoveries and scientific speculation and turned those into virtual-reality in Riddle of the Sphinx,” said Jeff Tobler, original co-designer/developer.

If you are interested in virtually exploring the mysterious void found in the Great Pyramid, head over to https://riddleofthesphinx.com/kickstarter-launch for more information.

Jeff and Karen Tobler founded Old World Studios with the vision of allowing the exploration of real and fictional “old worlds” virtually through realistic and captivating adventure games. Now, with Charlie and Marta Tobler, their son and daughter-in-law joining the team, they have decided to take their epic adventures to the next level, allowing both new and veteran explorers to experience the wonders that have mesmerized players worldwide. Old World Studios is a subsidiary of LifeTree Games, a company with the purpose of providing exciting, yet wholesome, entertainment.

Forbes: Mysterious Void In Great Pyramid Discovered Using Cosmic Rays

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You’ve probably heard about cosmic rays, or maybe you think they’re some kind of space-laser-beam thing. Actually, ‘cosmic rays’ is the term used by scientists to describe high-energy radiation originating from outside our atmosphere and from the depths of space:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/meriameberboucha/2017/11/07/mysterious-void-in-great-pyramid-discovered-using-cosmic-rays/#85c059d4700c