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Category: Cyan, Inc.

  • Mysterium 2024

    Mysterium 2024

    The XXV Mysterium was held in Montréal, Canada on July 12–14, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Belford wrote a summary in his blog, giving his perspective on the various updates.

    Friday started with the Opening Announcements with a few words and reminders from the convention chairs.

    ☛ In the Cyan ‘State of the Union’ prerecorded panel Rand Miller, Hannah Gamiel and Eric A. Anderson gave a few updates on their games. While Riven‘s critical reception has been phenomenal, sales have not been correspondly positive. Riven costed “less than 2%” of a AAA game of comparable quality to make; it was a “monumental effort” and they really want to scale down their workload.

    Touching on the design process, they started with drastic redesign ideas, narrowing them them down to only those that directly supported the game experience. They also had to iron bugs and glitches quite close to launch.

    For the immediate future, they will be working on porting Firmament and Riven to more platforms, and improving Myst on the Quest 3. After that, Rand confirmed they have started on a new game in the D’niverse; it will be a new storyline and you will not have to be familiar with the Myst series to play it. They expect to have more to say next year.

    Also, Rand is retiring: with Riven released, he feels it’s the right time to cut back considerably; he will still be involved with advising on game design and such, but not as often and as much.

    ☛ In the Myst Reverse Engineer panel, Jeff Barbi showed how to hack the original Myst (thanks to Uli Kusterer’s HyperCard work), and a few interesting results of editing the HyperTalk source code. The original fireplace puzzle accepted two codes, from page 158 but also page 148. The HyperCard stack was password-locked against editing, but this feature can easily be bypassed with modern tools, and Jeff was able to recover the original password.

    ☛ In the Myst Online Update, a group of fan developers (AgeExplorer, Doobes, DPogue, Harley, Semjay and Yali) gave a few updates on what’s been going on in the Cavern. The writing team is trying a long-term story arc (“Diplomacy”) involving first contact with an unexpectedly inhabited Age. On the open source client front, DPogue has continued to improve the Korman Blender plugin, as well as the MacOS client, which however is not yet ready for testing on the live servers.

    As for upcoming Ages, Doobes and AgeExplorer are still working on the Descent: you can now take the elevator down the Shaft and mostly solve the puzzles there, and walk down the spiral staircase that runs the entire length of the Shaft. Doobes is also working on a major Chiso expansion. Tweek is working on a library Age, a garden homage to Myst, a rework of of Fahets, and a new Neighborhood. Semjay is working on completing one of Cyan’s cancelled Ages for Uru, Venalem, and also on the Explorer’s Emporium. Harley is working on expanding Naybree and on an Age called Rei’schu. Yali is working on a private city area and on UI updates for the client.

    ☛ The rest of the day was dedicated to events that were not streamed. In Uru Live, a devious marker mission ws released (video). For Puzzle Time, Rayne and m13 challenged the participants with a set of devious puzzles. For the Dance Event, Annacat explored the music of the Myst series through dance and creative movement, teaching a simple short choreography.

    Saturday started with a few events that were not streamed: the Mysterium Unconference, an unstreamed set of participant-driven discussion sessions; What Would Catherine Build? (Atrus was too busy this year!), where teams were asked to build something that met certain requirements, and delivered clever presentations for why they built like that.

    The subsequent three panels were all about Myst IV: Revelation:

    ☛ In the Designing Worlds panel, Patrick Fortier (Creative Director & Lead Game Designer), Mary DeMarle (Designer & Writer), Sebastien Yelle (Level Designer) and moderator Katie “Khatie” Postma (Community Manager) discussed bringing Myst IV’s world to life, the creative process, technical challenges and innovative design choices.

    ☛ In the Living Worlds panel, Meinert Hansen (Senior Art Director) and Guy Sprung (Actor for Achenar) shared their experience bringing the worlds and characters of Myst IV to life through visuals, sound, and motion.

    ☛ In the Retrospection panel, Mary DeMarle, Patrick Fortier, Meinert Hansen, Katie “Kha’tie” Postma, Guy Sprung and Sebastien Yellel shared behind-the-scenes insights, stories and the creative processes that brought the game to launch.

    ☛ The rest of the day was dedicated to events that were not streamed. In the Guildmaster event, Taerun assigned the participants a variety of unique tasks to complete.

    ☛ Sunday started with the Myst Documentary panel, where Philip Shane (filmmaker), Katie “Kha’tie” Postma and Joshua Reinstein gave the latest updates and showed some footage of the Riven launch event at Cyan HQ. The documentary is having trouble funding the full production. David Van Taylor was brought in to help with pitching, and Julie McElmurry is helping with production. The working title now is “A World I’d Want To Live In: Myst and the Video-Game Revolution“.

    ☛ The Closing Ceremonies wrapped up this year’s convention, running the prize drawing, and announced next year’s location: Atlanta, GA!

    ☛ After the Closing Ceremonies, attendees joined unofficial excursions to see some of Montréal’s many attractions, including the Biodôme and the Jardin Botanique.

    Thanks and kudos to the Mysterium Committee, who did a great job at organising and managing the event.

    Looking forward to next year!

  • Riven to be released on June 25

    Riven to be released on June 25

    Cyan announced that the 3D remake of Riven will be released on June 25! The game will simultaneously launch for Windows PC via Steam and GOG, MacOS (Apple Silicon) via Mac App Store, and the VR platforms Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3.

    In celebration of the game’s release, players can pre-order Riven on Meta Quest and receive 11% off the 34.99 USD price until launch; Windows and MacOS players will get 10% off at launch, but only for a limited time.

    Launch trailers were released for the PC and Meta Quest version. A non-VR demo was released on Steam, for the Next Fest event (June 10–17).

    Reviews were posted on TechRaptor, Gematsu, VentureBeat, RoadToVR, AdventureGamers, and many others.

  • Riven coming to Steam and GOG

    Riven coming to Steam and GOG

    On December 19 Cyan announced that the upcoming realtime 3D remake of Riven can be added to your wishlist on Steam and GOG!

    Game Informer published an interview about Riven, which included various screenshot from the game, including a picture of a 3D model of Gehn, done with a much more realistic tech compared to those used for the Myst remake. Two passages stand out (emphasis added):

    “This is a dangerous question, but when you heard we were remaking Riven, what kinds of things did you hope we’d do?” he asks me. I think about it for a few seconds. I tell him all the parts of the world I wanted to explore more, as well as the two additional worlds we only glimpsed in the original game. I wince, worrying I’ve just described an impossibly grand vision for the new Riven. But Miller smiles. “So far? Check, check, check, check.”

    Suggesting that Tay and/or Age 233 may be explorable, and:

    “There are more stories to tell in the D’ni universe that aren’t directly about Atrus’s family. There are other characters out there that [our fans] are familiar with, and it would be a shame if we didn’t leverage those to our benefits.”

    Confirming their intention, mentioned at Mysterium 2023, of making more (if smaller) games set in the D’ni universe.

  • Mysterium 2023

    Mysterium 2023

    The XXIV Mysterium was held in Spokane, WA on June 30–July 2, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Belford wrote a summary in his blog, commenting on Cyan’s announcements.

    Friday started at 11:00 KIT with the Opening Announcements with a few words and reminders from the convention chairs.

    At the 12:00 panel D’ni Linguistic Fellowship, Christopher “Kh’reestrefah” Gilson discussed word formation in the D’ni language, first showing how words in D’ni can be used to form other words, then looking at known D’ni words to discover patterns that point to historical rules that have not been explained before.

    At the 15:00 panel Uru World-building, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn gave a demonstration of Blender for Korman, the free plugin currently used to create Ages for MOULa and CC. He also briefly showed the use of ZLZ Age Importer, to get Cyan Ages converted to blends.

    At the 16:00 panel Art of Shoomlah, Claire “Shoom’lah” Hummel showed a retrospective of her Myst art over the years, and how the games have impacted her career as an art director and concept artist in the games industry (including hiding a Riven easter egg in Half-Life: Alyx). She runs a “real places that look like Myst” blog.

    At the 17:00 panel The Cavern Today Podcast, Dalken Starbyne, Esto Centura, Maurus and Sh’aeri held a live episode right at Mysterium, discussing the convention, D’ni, Cyan, and did a brief audience Q&A. The Cavern Today podcast has been bringing listeners news from the Myst fan community since 2005.

    At the 18:00 event Moving the Slider (not streamed), Rayne and m13 challenged the attendees at a group game, working together to solve puzzles, find clues, and trying to figure out what in the world the Thing is for.

    At the 19:00 panel Unwritten Character Creation Workshop, Faroguy, Eleri Hamilton, Vee Hamilton and Thomas “Curator” Steele announced the Modern D’ni expansion for Unwritten, and gave tips on how to plan a good character for the game.

    Later, Curator and Eleri hosted two parallel Unwritten sessions.

    Saturday started at 9:30 KIT with a few words from the convention staff, then the attendees headed over to Cyan HQ. At 11:00 Jeff Lanctot gave a brief welcome talk and order of events.

    At the 11:15 Cyan State of the Union, Hannah Gamiel and Eric Anderson discussed the recently released Myst (VR) and Firmament, and gave some updates about the Riven remake; notably, there will be some changes giving more lore details.

    Currently all resources are focused on Riven; future projects will likely be smaller, a bit more experimental, and possibly more related to the Myst universe. The presentation ended with a preview of the Riven remake, specifically the Boiler Island area!

    Starting at 12:15 the attendees were divided in three groups, alternating between lunch at the Squee Conservatory, a guided tour of the campus at DRC Headquarters, and an opportunity to meet some Cyan employees and guests at Gehn’s Temple.

    At 14:30 Mike “RIUM+” Ando showed off another one of his amazing creations: the Andotrope, a recreation of Gehn’s holographic imager from Riven. As RIUM+ put it, he “accidentally invented new technology while trying to make a videogame prop more screen-accurate”.

    At 15:10, at the Special Mystery Presentation, Phil Salvador from the the Video Game History Foundation announced they got permission to digitize a huge stack (about 100 hours of footage) of videotapes from Cyan’s vault, recorded in the Nineties, found by Philip Shane while he was collecting material for the Myst Documentary. They hope to finish digitizing the tapes and make them available by the end of this year.

    At 16:00 Rand Miller held a Keynote Q&A, discussing a few design choices for the Riven remake, and taking questions from the audience. Cyan is now focused on the remake. Richard Vander Wende has returned as creative leads, along with Rand Miller. The game logic is in place, but a lot is still needed for the visuals. They confirmed they will not use live-action video for the characters. No release date or platforms were announced, but they want to release it by the 30th anniversary (2027).

    The remake will expand a bit the lore, under the premise that they uncovered more archaelogical material from the New Mexico desert, and they will incorporate those discoveries into the new game. For the occasion, Rand showcased a metal plate with a relief of D’ni letters (possibly a gahrohev), originally used to cover the Fissure around the telescope.

    After Riven, they want to focus on smaller games, with more replay value, going back to the Myst universe.

    Wrapping up at 17:30, the crowd headed back to the hotel for the rest of the events.

    At 21:00 four parallel events started:

    Harley hosted the Gemedet Tournament, a game in which two players take turns placing pieces of their color in a three dimensional grid nine wide, nine long, and nine layers high. The objective is to complete an unbroken straight line of six pieces of the players color. Any direction the line of six can fit will count, including diagonals.

    Dan Binder hosted Name That Tune, a competition in which the attendees identified songs and tracks from the Myst games.

    Eleri and Curator hosted two more Unwritten sessions.

    After some announcements from the convention staff, Sunday started at 11:00 KIT with Cyan Games Completed Rapidly Live, a marathon of Myst games hosted by the Guild of Speedrunners, to show the differences and the development of its various iterations, in celebration of 30 years of Myst.

    At the 12:00 panel Uru Demake, Phil R showcased his ‘de-make’ of Uru, a recreation of some of the Ages in a very simple 2D pixel art engine called Bitsy; he discussed the process of translating puzzles from Uru into a minimalist style and redesigning some of the puzzles based on player feedback.

    After lunch, at the 15:00 panel Myst Documentary, filmmaker Philip Shane and team members Randy Woods, Joshua Reinstein, Katie Postma and Elana Bogdan gave an update about The Myst Documentary, highlighting how it will be structured and showing a few clips about the Miller family. Attendees were given an exclusive sneak peek.

    At 17:00 the Closing Ceremonies were held, wrapping up this year’s convention, running the prize drawing, showing the “Crafting With Watermelon” video, and announcing next year’s location: Montreal, Canada!

    Thanks and kudos to the Mysterium Committee, who did a great job at organising and managing the event.

    Looking forward to next year!

  • A New Era in D’ni: Kalamee

    A New Era in D’ni: Kalamee

    On Monday, May 1st, 2023 (9679 Leefo 8), in a ceremony held in Chiso Preniv that gathered over 100 explorers and was announced on Cyan’s Twetter feed, Semjay and Patrick Dulebohn gave a speech (a transcript of which you can read below), then unveiled the linking book to Kalamee.

    This was originally an unfinished Intangibles age that was picked up by Semjay to complete. You can find more details about the original design (spoiler alert) at The Lost Library of D’ni. The following is a spoiler-free outline of the backstory of the released age:

    Ancient Kalameeans built the stone circles and erected the monoliths. One day, a big storm and catastrophic flood washed the earth mound and its contents away, leaving the stone structure of the quoit as seen today.

    The age was later linked to by the D’ni; the inhabitants were chased away and a curtain wall was built around the valley, but the age was soon abandoned. Many years passed and eventually a father and daughter arrived and occupied the valley.

    Many more years passed, and the age was found by the DRC. They updated the link-in point and constructed landing pads across the valley. In 2022, Semjay found the book, settled in the house and spent many months clearing the pathways, constructing weirs, repairing structures and replanting trees and crops.

    Note than unlike other ages available in Chiso Preniv, Kalamee is a personal instance; visiting it will save a link in your Nexus. To visit with friends, you will need to go through Chiso Preniv and use the share panel, or send an invite with your KI.

    Calum Traveler posted a postcard in his blog and chatlogs on the Beneath forums. Minasunda made a video of the event.

    Speech transcript (click to expand )

    Patrick Dulebohn:

    Welcome to you all. Thank you for joining us today! Once again, we find ourselves here in Chiso Preniv, ready to open up another Age. And again, we will experience the history and majesty of the D’ni mastery of the Art thanks to the hard work of our volunteer restoration experts. Today, we bring you the Age of Kalamee.

    A bit of the modern history of this Age: A little while back, the D’ni Restoration Council, or DRC as we more commonly know them, was gracious enough to open their “vault” to those of us currently restoring and residing in the cavern and its Ages. Needless to say, there was a lot of exciting material they had to show us! It shows they had been extremely busy all the way up until the very end.

    With that in mind, amongst our other goals, we aim to finish the work that they started. Today, we offer the first Age that is part of that continuation of the DRC’s work, and that is Kalamee. The DRC had just discovered the Age and had begun to set up there when the last restoration ended, so there was quite a lot of work to do.

    Still, you’ll soon see why it piqued the DRC’s interest, as well as the interest of the individual who is largely responsible for completing restoration efforts there. It is because of her tireless work that we are here today! That person is Semjay.

    She spearheaded the majority of the time and energy to finish Kalamee’s extensive restoration and the results are truly a sight to see. We are here today because of her; to honor and celebrate her momentous achievement.

    So, all that said; Semjay, anything you’d like to add?

    Semjay:

    Thank you, Patrick. I would like to say a big thank you to all the people who spent time and trouble to help me make the Age the best I possibly could, and to YOU all for being here. You guys keep this whole thing going, that’s for sure!

    I see some of you wearing the t-shirt already! You can get it from the box by my desk downstairs.

    So, are we ready?

    Patrick Dulebohn:

    I think they’re about ready, yes. Semjay’s got the honors.

  • Riven remake announced

    Riven remake announced

    On October 31, both Cyan and the Starry Expanse project officially announced the upcoming, realtime 3D remake of Riven, the sequel to Myst!

    In the FAQ, Cyan clarified that this is not a continuation of the Starry Expanse project, but an in-house ground-up remake by Cyan, jump-started by the SE team’s work.

    As can be expected, the news was reported by a number of gaming websites, including Destructoid, PC Invasion, PC Mag, Polygon, VentureBeat.

  • Mysterium 2022

    Mysterium 2022

    The XXIII Mysterium was held in Denver, CO on August 12–14, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Minasunda and Civer Gaming made summary videos; Belford wrote a two-part summary ([1], [2]) in his blog, commenting on Cyan’s announcements.

    Friday started at 10:00 KIT with the Opening Announcements and Cyan’s “State of the Union”, with Eric A. Anderson (Creative Director) and Hannah Gamiel (Development Director). They are super busy developing Firmament (they also showed a preview video), so they will combine Myst’s and Riven’s anniversaries next year. They will share something new every month, including challenge coins, Cyan logo shirts, re-releasing the ebook versions of the Myst novels, and digging through Riven’s archives. They are working with members of the community on “special, secret projects”. There are no plans for an official remake of Uru.

    At 11:30 the Walkabout Mini Golf: Myst panel with Don Carson, Henning Koczy, Lucas Martell, Edward McAndrew of Mighty Coconut studio discussed their approach to design for immersive gameplay with realistic physics, in combining their VR mini golf game with Myst’s iconic island.

    At 14:00 the The Last Clockwinder panel with John Austin and Anita Tung of Pontoco studio talked about their game, developed with Cyan Ventures (which has shifted role from publishing arm to development-support group).

    At 15:00 Kefrith’s Cryptic Contraption presentation revealed his surprise Myst-inspired creation, discussing the setbacks he got into in the creative process.

    At 16:00 the full recording of the concert held by the NULP Dance Group in Elonin was released as a YouTube Premiere.

    At 18:00 it was time for the trip to the Meow Wolf: Convergence Station interactive art series.

    Saturday started at 10:00 KIT with the Cyan Q&A, with Eric Anderson, Rand Miller, Ryan “greydragon” Warzecha discussing what is happening at Cyan, their artistic and technical approach to game design, and the rationale behind some decisions on Myst and Uru lore.

    At 11:15 the MOULa Fan Creations: Tech Development panel with Colin “Maccodemonkey” Cornaby, Adam “Hoikas” Johnson, Darryl “Paradox” Pogue, Paul “rarified” Richards presented the latest development news about MOULa, with an update on the process to make the client cross-platform. To get involved, you can contact the OpenUru team (testing) on Discord, or the H’uru team (developing) on GitHub and IRC.

    At 11:45 the MOULa Fan Creations: Ages panel with Ametist, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn, Harley “Calum Traveler”, Keith “Tweek” Lord discussed the challenges of creating and modifying environments for MOULa. The current tool for creating ages is Korman for Blender. You can find tutorials in the GoW wiki; Calum Traveler also made a series of videos.

    At 13:45 the Area Man Lives panel with Amy Green, Ryan Green, Mike Perrotto of Numinous Games, and Ryan “greydragon” Warzecha of Cyan, discussed their VR game produced with Cyan Ventures.

    At 14:45 the highlights of the concert held by the NULP Dance Group in Elonin was released as a YouTube Premiere.

    At 16:00 Erik Oberg’s Libraries of Myst presentation analyzed how libraries fit into Myst, both in the explicit sense of literal, in-game libraries and the broader presence of librarian principles and practices in the Myst universe, as well as how Myst fits into real-world libraries.

    At 19:45 the Achenar: Redemption in One Part panel with Guy Sprung, who played Achenar in Myst IV: Revelation, discussed the process behind playing a character who experiences both sides of being the villain and the savior.

    At 20:45 it was time for Cavern Feud, hosted by Dan Binder, in which teams competed against each other to see who best knows how the Myst community responds to various survey questions, like “what would Yeesha name her cat?” or  “which Myst animal would make the best pet?”

    Sunday started at 10:00 KIT with the Myst Documentary Sneak Peek and Q&A, with Elana Bogdan, Katie “Kha’tie” Postma, Joshua Reinstein, Philip Shane, giving insights into the creation of The Myst Documentary, which will cover Myst, Riven and Uru, the near-collapse of Cyan in 2005 and its climb back in the following years, and the new era that started with Obduction. Attendees had an exclusive sneak peak of the documentary, then they showcased the new online Community Vault of Myst Stories.

    At 12:00 the Closing Ceremonies were held, wrapping up this year’s convention, running the prize drawing, and announcing next year’s location: Spokane!

    Thanks and kudos to the Mysterium Committee, who did a great job at organising and managing the event.

    Looking forward to next year!

  • Myst for PC/VR release announced!

    Cyan has announced the released date for the re-imagined version of Myst for non-Quest VR, PC, MacOS and Xbox: August 26! You can (and should 😉 ) wishlist it on Steam, GOG, Epic, Mac, Xbox or Oculus. A new trailer in HD was also released.

  • Mysterium 2021

    Mysterium 2021

    Like last year, the XXII Mysterium was held entirely online, on July 16–18, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Friday started at 18:00 KIT with Rand Miller playing through Myst and giving some insights in the design process. One highlight was the medallion on the planetarium door.

    At 19:00, it was time for the discussion rooms, this year held on the Mysterium Discord server, and for the marker missions in MOULa. You can still get them by PMing Mir-o-Bot (#32319) or MinBot (#9292763) the command “sendme 10800192” for the Red markers or “sendme 10801032” for the Blue ones. While you’re there, make sure to grab the Mysterium shirt in your Relto wardrobe, it won’t be available afterward!

    Saturday started at 8:30 KIT with a message from the Committee, giving some info on the organisation of this year’s convention.

    The first panel was at 9:00, with some members of the Myst IV: Revelation team: Meinert Hansen (Art Director/Sr. Concept Artist), Brian Wrench (Actor – Sirrus) and Geneviève Lord (Producer), discussing how Myst IV evolved in its looks, styles and immersive design.

    At 11:00 it was time for the Myst State of the Union panel, with Eric A. Anderson (Creative Director) and Hannah Gamiel (Development Director) presenting Cyan’s newly re-imagined version of Myst before its release for PC/VR and Mac.

    At 12:30 the Cyan Dev Team Q&A panel, with Abner Coimbre, Brandon Collins, Hannah Gamiel, Karl Johnson and Josh Van Veldhuizen discussing what it means to be a developer at Cyan and how they adapted to working from home.

    At 13:30 the Cyan Art Team Q&A panel, with Eric Anderson, Blake Bjerke, Jeremiah Castro, Autumn Palfenier and Derrick Robinson talking about how the look of a game is established and what inspiration they draw from in designing worlds.

    At 15:00 Vincent Weaver presented his Apple II Myst Demake, talking about the challenges involved with getting a fully playable version of Myst working on an 8-bit system from the 1970s, fitting on a reasonable number of floppy disks. To learn more (or try it yourself!), see Vince’s website.

    At 16:00 Chuck Carter (original Myst Artist) presented his reworking of the Selenitic Age for Unreal Engine 5, which will add some new twists (e.g. the maze ship is now destroyed). The redesign will have original music by Conductor/Composer Lucas Richman. You can follow Chuck on his website, Twitter and Instagram.

    At 17:00 it was time for the discussion rooms, with two focused chats beside open discussions: “Unwritten Character Workshop”, about creating a character for the Myst RPG, and “Dancing with Annacat”, to get some exercise after sitting and watching streams all day.

    Sunday started at 8:30 KIT with a message from the Committee, giving some info and announcing the location of Mysterium 2022, one that will give attendees the true Myst experience 😉

    The first panel was at 9:00, with Maxx Hirsch’s honors thesis “Finding Tomahna”, analyzing Myst as a product of American 1990s cultural movements and ideas, considering attitudes towards war, violence, new technology, reading, community, and diversity. You can read the full text here.

    At 1o:00 documentary filmmaker Phillip Shane gave an update and a sneak peek of the Myst Documentary, along with his collaborators Elana Bogdan, Will Cavendish, Rachel Kittner, Anais Michel, Katie Postma, Joshua Reinstein and Randy Woods. You can follow and support the development of the documentary on the official website.

    At 11:30 the Uru Worldbuilders Panel, with Eric Anderson, Mike Hines, Doug McBride, Steve Ogden and Bill Slease discussed about the original development of Uru, from DIRT and Mudpie up to the GameTap era.

    At 12:30 the MOULa Fan Development Panel, with Mark “Chogon” DeForest, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn, John “Marten” Johns, Adam “Hoikas” Johnson, Keith “Tweek” Lord, Darryl “dpogue/Paradox” Pogue and Paul “rarified” Richards discussed how fan developers and creators are keeping Uru alive and well, with client bugfixes, QoL improvements and new fan-made ages. To get involved, you can contact the OpenUru team (testing) on Discord, or the H’uru team (developing) on GitHub and IRC.

    At 14:00 the Unwritten Update panel with Veronica Hamilton gave some updates on the RPG and its role in Cyan Ventures, discussing the design and how it focuses on non-violent solutions. To learn more, visit the official website.

    At 15:00 it was time for Cyan Games Completed Rapidly, a round of speedrunning, with some unusual categories like Myst on the Apple II, and a few races.

    At 17:30 it was time for the discussion rooms, with no preset topics, and the Speedrun After Party, in which the speedrunners chatted with the attendees about the runs and racesfrom the panel.

    Thanks and kudos to the Mysterium Committee, who did a great job at organising and managing the event.

    Looking forward to next year!

  • Early Kahlo test demo released

    Just like two years ago, in a series of tweets Eric A. Anderson, Creative Director for Firmament, has released a very early Kahlo test demo, along with a slightly more-refined version from Parable.

    He also re-released the pre-DIRT Descent and the Hector Cove demos from around 2000.

    Here are the direct links:

  • Intangibles Assets & Unexplored Branches

    Intangibles Assets & Unexplored Branches

    In an surprise move, Cyan has released the Intangibles assets under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. The assets include design documents, textures, audio, and 3D models for ages and Cavern areas – including Kahlo, Rebek and Katha Island – that were in the planned for addition to Uru Live. Some date from 2000 or even earlier!

    The assets are in various stages of development, but most are very unfinished, and never appeared in game for good reasons (some concepts may not ever work with the game engine). So tempering expectations is advisable 😉 For a short time, the assets were previously only available to a select group of fan developers who signed a NDA, and are now open for anyone to dissect or even fully develop.

    The Guild of Writers’ H’uru Team is currently working on bringing the majority of these assets into their version control system to facilitate collaboration. The files are available at the OpenUru Foundry, and at the Guild of Writers (direct link) as initially provided by Cyan.

    It was also announced that Unexplored Branches – the expanded universe of the Myst/Uru franchise, authorized by Cyan while still not fully canon – now includes the announced Intangibles and also any fan-created ages or locations added to MOULa, along with the TRPG Unwritten.

  • Myst VR officially announced!

    Myst VR officially announced!

    Today the upcoming release of the ‘definitive’ version of Myst was announced by Cyan!

    (more…)

  • Unwritten Journeys Patreon

    Help grow the Unexplored Branches of the Great Tree of Possibilities with the Unwritten Journeys Patreon!
    Unwritten Journeys will be supplemental material for the Unwritten TTRPG: forays into the unknown, blurring the line between fact and fiction, apocrypha and canon. We will play with the Art in unexpected ways, take a new look at members of the DRC, send the history and future of the Cavern off on wild tangents and speculative adventures… Every step will be a new Journey opening up before you. There will game ideas, lore, live events and more!

    The Unwritten creators, Inkworks Productions, will also be hosting hangouts in the Unwritten RPG Neighborhood on the 5th of each month, at 7 pm KIT. Come to talk about Unwritten, role-playing games, and whatever else comes up!

  • 10th anniversary celebrations wrap-up


    The anniversary celebrations have been a success, with spikes of over 70 attendants. If you could not attend, or if you wish to relive the experience, be sure to watch the videos from Minasunda’s Youtube channel.

    In the opening ceremony, Ghaelen D’Lareh retold the last minutes of the closure of Prologue, back on February 9, 2004, and the first days of MOULa’s reopening on February 8, 2010.

    In the Door Run competition, team A was the winner (2′45″), followed by team B (3′06″) and team C (3′38″). Team A included ghoul (caller), Ro”Jethhe, Malim Praedari, Boywhith, Jet Blast, allie page, Rhys, maree. Team B included Kneb (caller), etelka, Sleeper Jan, Mak Raves, Adrian Green, ondine, Boris, aqua. Team C included Susa’n (caller), thoekenem, Maleficent, EthanEver, PodHopper, Mevvah, angelmyst, Umo.

    Each team suffered from setbacks: team A suffered from a lag spike at the very last symbol; team B suffered interference from a mean person/people; team C had little practice, the most substitutes, and a position swap.

    On Saturday, for the Cavern Tour, for the first time Larry LeDeay streamed the event through his Twitch channel. Despite technical difficulties for a few attendees, the new format was on the whole a success. The stream is not meant to replace actually being there, but will allow showing extra materials that would otherwise not be possible.

    The NULP Dance Show (featuring Aeonihya, Calisia, Claidi Song, Lu*, Mabe, Roland, Eternal Seeker, Willy, tsuno) was, as always, excellent and perfectly color-coordinated. The music was provided by Piboc, who was present at the show.

    For the Story Night Special, in the Baron’s office, r’Tayrtahn recounted Douglas Sharper’s experience with the restoration, and the rising tension that led to the bahro incident.

    On Sunday, in the Fashion Show competition, five contestants won the votes of the public: Ondine was 1st, with 32 %; Kamikatze, Claidi Song and Mabe were 2nd ex aequo, with 16 %; Aristocat was 3rd, with 8 %.

    For the Explorer Memorial, Ghaelen read the names of the explorers we lost along the way; 2019 was a particularly hard year, with the loss of Tai’lahr. Korov’ev took the occasion to remind everyone that he took charge of keeping the OpenUru page updated, so if you know of names that are missing, please contact him.

    Closing the weekend, of course, Yoda performed a Magic Show on the cliff in Kadish Tolesa, followed by a dance party in the Pyramid.

    A big thank you to the organisers: Minasunda, Eternal Seeker, PodHopper, Larry, Fil, Donahoo, the participants at the contests, and to all the explorers, in the Cavern or on the Surface, who keep making Uru the unique place it is.

    In other news

    • On the aftermath of the announcement of the official forums closure, Yali announced the revival of RivenGuild. The initiative was greeted with mixed reactions, some rejoicing at seeing the return of one of the most beloved fan hubs, others worrying it will never be the same. Cautious optimism!
    • A couple days later than expected, the MOULa and Cyan forums are now read-only. Chogon announced that the previously hidden MOUL beta sections of the forum, including the GameTap Live Rehearsals, have been made visible to everyone.
    • On the first day of the anniversary celebrations, Korov’ev suggested the idea of an Ahyoheek tournament, to be held sometime Soon™. Not much has yet been planned, but stay tuned if you are interested!
    • A new Cyan Venture has been announced: Area Man Lives, from Numinous Games!
    • Rel.to is back! At the time of this post, most of the links point to websites that do not exist anymore. In the following days and weeks, each link will be checked, and new ones will be added.

  • 20th Mysterium, Day 2

    The second day of Mysterium has come and gone, and what a day it was. If you could not be present, remember that you can follow the convention live on Twitch and Discord.

    (more…)

  • Pre-Uru DIRT/Descent demo released

    In a series of tweets Eric A. Anderson, Creative Director for Firmament, has released the original pre-Uru, pre-Mudpie DIRT/Descent demo, in all its fully-playable glory!

    Along with that, he also released the pre-DIRT Nexus demo, built before Cyan even acquired Headspin, and the Hector Cove demo from around 2000.

    Here are the direct links:

    Eric A Anderson is a longtime veteran of Cyan, Inc., contributing heavily to Myst Online and Myst V; he then contributed to the development of The Witness. More recently, he returned at Cyan, Inc. as Art Director and Technical Art Director for Obduction, and currently is Creative Director for Firmament and other projects.

    He lives in the woods.

  • The saga continues: a Myst film is in the works

    As reported by Variety, Village Roadshow Entertainment Group, of Matrix and Sherlock Holmes fame, has acquired the rights to a ‘multi-platform’ film and TV series. The projects will be developed with Rand and Ryan Miller, as well as Delve Media’s Isaac Testerman and Yale Rice.

    Hollywood Reporter mentioned that the project will be “both scripted and unscripted”. Some kind of reality TV? The move to adapt Myst comes shortly after a new mandate by Village Roadshow to make the company into a ‘broad-spectrum content creator’ focused on television, streaming and other distribution platforms.

    This of course is not the first attempt at bringing Myst to the small screen: Legendary Entertainment had plans for a transmedia series with a companion video game in 2014; the following year the rights were moved to Hulu, but never materialised. As for a film, the story goes back to 2002 if not earlier.

    As Zarf cautioned, ‘paid for the rights’ is a long way from ‘greenlighted the production of a show’; and in Myst’s case, ‘artistic differences’ have brought these attempts to a halt too often.

    Hopefully this time will be the charm!

    Some more articles related to the announcement:

    (Thanks to catherwood and Hoikas for collecting the links used in this post.)

  • Firmament by Cyan Inc.

    Firmament by Cyan Inc.

    At the time of this post, there are about 50 hours left in Cyan’s Kickstarter for their new game, Firmament! The game will be designed for VR, but it will run on PC just as well. A macOS version will be possible if the $1.4M stretch goal is reached. But let’s hear it from Cyan themselves:

    Firmament is a deeply immersive narrative adventure game for both VR and PC that stays true to the storytelling, artistic integrity, and inventive puzzles that Cyan holds dear.

    This is an entirely new property – the beginning of an exciting new Cyan universe, delivered using Unreal 4, one of the most powerful game development technologies available.

    Firmament is designed for and will be built from the ground up to take advantage of the VR sense of presence and a seamless interface. Stunning and enigmatic locations (with a certain callback to the steampunk roots of Myst) were conceived to allow for highly immersive and eclectic visuals for which the world-building artisans at Cyan are known.

    But unlike previous games you don’t travel this world alone. You’ll have a clockwork adjunct…

    Firmament will be designed for VR, but built to play on PC as well. All backers will be able to play the game on both platforms, and effortlessly switch between VR and PC to continue your progress in the game.

    A Word to Mac Users

    Cyan has always been a big Mac supporter. Myst started out as a Mac title, and over the years, Cyan has always tried to release each of our games for the Mac. We’d love to continue that tradition with Firmament, as an indie studio, but with the minimum funding and resources we anticipate having available, and the complexity involved, this campaign will be focused on Windows (PC and VR).

    BUT… We’ve have announced a Stretch Goal!

    The stretch goal would allow us to build both a Mac version and PS4/PSVR version. We’re really hoping that we can reach the extra level of funding that allows us to build the Mac version. And of course, the world of gaming is changing quickly, and we’ll continue to keep an eye out for other solutions that allow as many fans as possible to play Firmament.

    ☞ Firmament’s Kickstarter page

  • URU: Complete Chronicles Patch Beta 1.1.4

    URU: Complete Chronicles Patch Beta 1.1.4

    For the first time in many years, Cyan has released a new patch for URU: Complete Chronicles! While the patch doesn’t add new content per se, it does fix a few annoying bugs that cropped up with Windows 10 and added HD support.

    To quote Chogon’s forum post:

    1) Version displayed in the title of the game window (if in windowed mode)
    2) Win10 Cursor fix (from Adam Johnson and Joseph Davies)
    3) HD resolution support (16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratio resolutions).
    4) DirectMusic disabled

    To download the patch, simply click here. Be sure to back up your installation before attempting the patch!

    For further updates from Cyan, be sure to check back here!