Tag: Firmament

  • News Roundup #30

    ☛ MOULa got a new update on Tuesday 12 for the Q3 update. You can find more info about all the fixes and goodies in our dedicated post. The new location, the Explorers’ Emporium, will be unveiled on December 5 at 13:00 KIT, in Chiso Preniv.

    ☛ At the end of October, Cyan announced a big update to the VR remake of Myst. The main highlight is the upgrade from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, which solved a number of stability issues on various platforms.

    ☛ Then, on November 8, Cyan announced a big update to Firmament, with a number of quality-of-life changes for MacOS and Windows. Due to a few remaining PS-specific issues, the ports to PlayStation 4, 5, and PSVR2 have been delayed to the first quarter of 2025.

    ☛ The Mysterium committee announced the dates for Mysterium 2025: August 1st – 3rd. Masks and COVID vaccines will be strongly encouraged; masks will be available for attendees who did not bring their own. Submissions for this year’s Writing and Artwork table are open and will be accepted through July 15.

    ☛ In the last couple of months there has been a lot of behind-the-scenes activity on the Open Cave shard, to get it on par and compatible with the latest version of MOULa. The website has also been recently restyled and renovated.

    ☛ Episode 16 of The Lost Art, by MystiTech Productions, is coming on January 4, 2025 at 14:30 KIT. The premiere live chat will as usual start half an hour before.

    ☛ On October 11 Necrovarius released part five of the “Myst Explained” video series.

    ☛ Calum Traveler has been streaming “Blender for Korman for Beginners“, a series showcasing the Guild of Writers’ Age building tool.

  • March 2024 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    March 2024 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 167th All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Mysterium
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. D’ni Language Classes
    4. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    5. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    ☛ T-shirt submissions are now closed. Event submissions are still open until May 12, while writing and artwork table submissions are open until June 30.

    ☛ The creativity prompt for March is “Memory”; the deadline is the 31st. Entries for the “Ice” prompt for February were from, Calum Traveler, Redwoodrroad, and Talashar.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ To celebrate International Women’s Day there will be a week of special events, including:

    • Sunday 3 at 13:00 KIT: Radio Free D’ni started off the week with a revised and expanded IWD show remastered from 2019;
    • Monday 4 at 12:00 KIT, in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood: Cooking Session with Sky made homemade pizza and chatted a bit about women in the restaurant industry;
    • at 13:30 KIT, in the Hall of Kings in Ae’gura: Classic with Babbel hosted a special broadcast with female performers. The regular show will be on Monday 18 at 12:00 KIT, and will be about film soundtracks;
    • at 15:30 KIT, in Eder Naybree at the beach: Isa & Sky hosted a ’90s music show, hanging out around the bonfire;
    • Tuesday 5 at 12:00 KIT, at Kalamee (PM “link” to Mir-o-Bot #32319 or MinBot #9292763): Ereshkigal will host a show about Rhadopis of Nubia, a great woman of ancient Egypt;
    • Friday 8 at 12:00 KIT, at Sutherland Point in Ae’gura: Nosila will host a music show about award winning female artists;
    • Friday 15 at 15:00 KIT, in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table: IwonK will host a Wonky Talk about female protagonists in video games (and is also making games on itch.io);
    • Saturday 9 at 12:00 KIT: Dah’mpa will host a music show about female Brazilian bands.

    ☛ On Sunday 3 at 9:00 KIT, Jodok & Philip Gray hosted a special show at The Open Cave shard, in the City of Dimensions (which you can reach using the /cod command), a tribute to the late Grandbad. The TOC Facebook page is no longer maintained, but there is a Discord server, where you can find help installing the shard, or just have a chat. You can also contact Jodok at his FB page.

    ☛ On Sunday 17 there will be two Saint Patrick’s Day parades, one at 13:00 KIT, starting in Elonin and led by Eternal Seeker, and one at 17:00 KIT, starting in Ae’gura plaza and led by Claidi Song.

    ☛ For a more complete list of upcoming events, check our calendar. Times and events may change at the last minute; you can find the latest updates at:

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    More about the D’ni Language Classes (click to expand)
    • Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 80428), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Classes are individual.
    • There will be no daytime openings for the next two months, as r’Tayrtahn is moving and his daytime hours are spent packing;
    • evening openings are on Monday to Friday, at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • Daytime availability is subject to change with little or no notice. Last-minute changes to class times will be announced via Magic Bot (KI #27527) or Mimi Bot (KI #71459); to be notified, add both as buddies, then PM them “advert”.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are at the fifth story of the second human restoration of the Cavern, the third attempt overall. There will be no story on March 30 – the weekend of the major part of the move!

    Eventually they will cover all of the books and games, as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni, and the bi-annual Bahro Glyph Tour.

    They will also cover the five-part chapter play “Jae’s Journey“, written by explorer Janai and posted to the Mystonline.com forums in 2008; if anyone is still in contact with her, please let her know that her story is about to be performed, probably on April 6 this year, and that she is welcome to attend.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot during the events, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉

    Videos now also come with auto translated captions in French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. Automatic translation often has trouble with words like “D’ni” or “linking books”, so your mileage may vary 😉

    More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
    • Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, gathering at the fountain at around 23:00 KIT, with the story starting at about 23:30 KIT.
    • For Story Nights – Europe, the gatherings are on Saturday starting at 13:30 KIT, with the story starting at about 14:00 KIT.
    • On All Guilds Meeting days, the event will begin at 14:00 KIT or 30 minutes after the meeting, whichever is later.
    • The stories are told using voice chat, so you will need to have your speakers, headphones or KI devices on. If you would like a reminder, please send r’Tayrtahn (KI# 58324) a KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.

    Miscellanea

    ☛ The Guild of Writers released a new version of the age exporting tool Korman. You can read more in our dedicated post.

    ☛ In March, the Fan Age Expeditions in Deep Island will complete the exploration of the educational series Geologica, by Ametist & Metabasalt. Then, they will explore the puzzle age of Oolbahnneea, by Wodan, the whimsical chain-letter age Rell-too, and a few age by Jamey including Tsoidahl Sheegahtee and Writers’ Niche.

    ☛ Cyan’s decision to replace the DVD for a GOG code in the physical rewards for Firmament has proven controversial; until March 22, Cyan is offering to organize returning your rewards for a refund.

    And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

    January ended with the CavFunding at 76% (CavCon 2.7) and the reserve at 600%, with no extra expenses.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, April 6, 2024 (Leenovoo 18) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • News Roundup #29

    ☛ MOULa will be offline Wednesday 8 (today!) at 9:00 KIT for the Q2/Q3 update! The downtime should last about two hours. We will post a changelog with the fixes and goodies soon after that.

    ☛ To honor Riven’s 26th anniversary, RIUM+ spent roughly 350 hours upgrading his restored Riven Journals, a (spoiler-less) collection of books and puzzles that give more insight into the game’s world. It is recommended to start with the middle journal, then the right one and leave the left one to last. You can read more on RIUM+ blog post.

    ☛ Rand Miller was a guest at Lucca Comics & Games, an annual comic book and gaming convention in Italy, the second biggest in the world after Comiket. He was invited at four panels, two about Myst specifically, one about his career experience, and a round table discussion about contemporary gaming, where he was joined by Yū Suzuki (designer, producer, programmer, and engineer for Sega for 18 years) and Arnar Hrafn Gylfason (Director of Production for Valorant).

    ☛ In their Kickstarter update for October 25, Cyan confirmed that all remaining physical rewards for Firmament are expected to ship in early 2024.

  • 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!

  • May 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    May 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 157th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Firmament
    2. Mysterium
    3. Events in the Cavern
    4. OpenUru
    5. D’ni Language Classes
    6. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    7. Miscellanea

    Firmament

    Firmament now has a page on Steam and GOG; wishlisting it will help the visibility of the game. A teaser and a trailer have also been released on Cyan’s YouTube channel (possible spoilers); extended preview footage was released back in December.

    In a post on Kickstarter, Cyan recommended backers to double check your survey information via Fangamer to ensure your shipment and delivery settings are up to date; wrong info will lead to delays in getting your digital rewards.

    The system requirements are a bit beefy, with a minimum of an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X eight-core processor (16 CPUs), ~3.7 GHz or Intel i5 7000 series; 16 GB RAM of memory; AMD Radeon RX 5700XT or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB graphic card; DirectX 11; 20 GB disk space.

    The game will release for Windows and MacOS on May 18, and on PS4, PS5 and PS VR 2 at a later date. PC VR will include free roam and teleport modes and will support Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Rift S, and Quest 2 via Oculus Link.

    Mysterium

    The annual Myst convention is only two months away, on June 30 in Spokane (WA)! A few reminders:

    • book your hotel room before the closing date on May 28, since the discount code for the rooms will no longer work after that date;
    • the cut-off date for swag is June 3, any orders not finalized by then will be unavailable (a limited number of swag items will be available at the registration table);
    • online registration ends on June 16; walk-in registration will be possible, but registering before the deadline helps getting an accurate head count for the visit at Cyan’s HQ.

    This year will be the first time Mysterium will be offering assistive listening technology (specifically a Williams Sound PPA 457 Personal Assistive Listening System): if you require one of these, please contact the committee by no later than June 1st so they can compile a headcount. Bear in mind that a deposit or a form of collateral will be required to use the devices.

    The creative prompt for May is “Spring”; the deadline is May 31. Entries for the “You Fool!” prompt for April were from Redwoodrroad, Calum Traveler, and Talashar.

    ☛ For the latest info and more details, check the official website of the Mysterium Convention.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ Between April and May two new Ages were made available to explorers: Eder Bahvahnter and Kalamee, the latter based on an Intangibles design by Cyan. Three clothing items have also been added; did you find them all?

    ☛ Maurus thanked everyone who attended the Live The Cavern Today show in the TCT Hood. A recording is available on the TCT website and the podcast feed (and through the streaming app of your choice).

    ☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 19 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic is flying games. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

    OpenUru

    Testing for items to be included in the Q2 update has begun. A few areas are in the works, but it is unclear whether they will be ready for a Q2 or a Q3 release.

    ☛ The first part of the expanded Descent has been added to Minkata alpha! So far, things are very roughly working, but a lot of multiplayer functions still need to be addressed, various visual fixes need addressing, and some suggestions and additions are still in the works.

    Descent will certainly not be ready for Mysterium, but Doobes is hopeful to get at least the first leg ready within this year. This expanded version is planned to include elements from Myst V and the DIRT/Descent demo.

    ☛ Christopher Therburg gave an update on his Fall of D’ni Memorial Island project. Surface commitments convinced hit to turn this into a community project; work since then has progressed very quickly, thanks in particular to Tweek.

    The island had already been in use some time prior of the Fall, but it is unclear for what purpose: possibly a wedding place, or more likely a small park overlooking Ae’gura. Another dock was added to the island, and a memorial was placed on the spot where the largest stalagmite once stood. The memorial was initially planned to be placed in Ae’gura, but issues with the two possible locations led to relocate it to this little island, which also offers a nice vista of Ae’gura and the whole Cavern.

    The island has finally reached phase 5. There are still a few things that need to be done before it can be opened, hopefully in time for the anniversary (July 12, Leesahn 8). The island will be accessible via Chiso Preniv first, but in the future it will also be added to the Nexus, and also with a boat from Ae’gura.

    Chris also mentioned he found a new Age somewhere in the Cavern, but it still needs further explorations and mapping before restoration can actually begin.

    How to be a tester (click to expand)

    To be a tester, you will need to open an account on the Minkata prime shard; it is highly recommended to read the Tester’s Guide to understand what is expected. To test the cutting edge additions, you can sign up for the Minkata alpha shard.

    To report bugs, you can post on the OpenUru Discord server (channels #hood or #dev); on Discord you can ask to be added to the Testers role to be notified of testing requests, which sometimes need quick response in terms of hours, not days.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Another student has completed the 101 class and is working on their final exam!

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    More about the D’ni Language Classes (click to expand)
    • Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 58324), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • Daytime availability is subject to change with little or no notice. Last-minute changes to class times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of Atrus as told in the book Myst: The Book of Atrus. After that they will begin the story from the game of Myst. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games. as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot during the events, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉

    More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
    • Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, gathering at the fountain at around 23:00 KIT, with the story starting at about 23:30 KIT.
    • For Story Nights – Europe, the gatherings are on Saturday starting at 13:30 KIT, with the story starting at about 14:00 KIT.
    • On All Guilds Meeting days, the event will begin at 14:00 KIT or 15 minutes after the meeting, whichever is later.
    • The stories are told using voice chat, so you will need to have your speakers, headphones or KI devices on. If you would like a reminder, please send r’Tayrtahn (KI# 58324) a KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.
    • Last-minute changes to Story Night times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    Miscellanea

    ☛ In May, the Fan Ages Expeditions will continue the exploration of Alabaster by Dulcamara; another huge Age, with many puzzles, so it will take a couple more sessions. After that, they will begin the exploration of Tentsahveet by Jhon J. Jaguar.

    And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, June 3 (Leebro 6) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • News Roundup #27

    ☛ Firmament is scheduled to release for Windows (2D & VR) and MacOS on Thursday, May 18. All other platforms (PS4 / PS5 / PS VR 2) will launch at some point down the line.

    ☛ A very interesting article from Inverse gives insights into the rise, fall and rebirth of Cyan, and reveals exciting tidbits about their upcoming titles, including Firmament and a possible new chapter in the Myst saga.

    ☛ Blogger Leslie “Byvivre” Brooks wrote an article about Riven’s uniquely immersive puzzle design. If you are on Reddit, you can discuss with the author here.

    ☛ Woe Industries on itch.io ‘fixed’ Myst by adding guns, demons, and a metal soundtrack! Can you save the island from demonic bats? The spoof crossover was covered by Polygon, The Escapist and Rock Paper Shotgun.

  • News Roundup #25

    Cyan news

    ☛ The 1.8.4 “Touch Grass” update for Myst was released on December 7 for the Quest 2 and Pro platforms. The update adds flowers, grass, ferns, clovers, and more foliage, and increases the pixel density of the game across the board, along with tweaks and fixes.

    ☛ New hat and shirt designs, mainly inspired by Riven, have been added to the Cyan Store.

    ☛ A Firmament update on the Kickstarter website, on December 13, showcases some more work-in-progress images, and an updated preview footage.

    ☛ A new bundle has been added to Steam: “Myst: Through the Ages”. It includes Myst: Masterpiece Edition (1999), realMyst: Masterpiece Edition (2014) and Myst (2021); at the time of posting it is 20% discounted.

  • 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!

  • News Roundup #21

    Cyan news

    ☛ An update to MOULa was released on July 12, bringing the avatar dance animations from Uru: CC. You can now pick the awkward dance style of your choice 😀 The new animation is activated using /retrodance .

    ☛ The music for Firmament will be composed by Maclaine Diemer, who previously worked on ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2, Harmonix’s Rock Band franchises, Riot Games’ League of Legends, Amazon Game Studios’ first major original title Crucible, and most recently Salt and Sacrifice from Devour Studios.

    Mysterium news

    ☛ As announced during the AGM, a Mysterium Concert will be held live on August 5 at 13:00 KIT, in NDG Elonin, during the Summer Festival 2022. The concert, conceived by Minasunda, will be a tour across the Myst games and the Cavern and its community.

    For in-person Mysterium attendees, a special highlights video of the concert will be premiered on August 13 and shared on Facebook and Discord. For online attendees, a link to the full concert will be provided on August 14, for those unable to attend the concert live.

    The concert will feature three special guests who will play live: Olivier Maurey aka Piboc, Lillo Moon Minniti aka Lyllus, and Phil Rounds aka Fil. You can find more info about the artists on Calum Traveler’s blog.

    ☛ A new round of special guests has been announced:

    • John Austin, co-founder of Pontoco and project lead on The Last Clockwinder (a Cyan Venture);
    • Don Carson, Senior Art Director at Mighty Coconut and former Disney Imagineer;
    • Henning Koczy, Level Designer for Walkabout Mini Golf (a VR game planning to release a new course based on Myst island) at Mighty Coconut;
    • Lucas Martell, Head of Mighty Coconut and creator of Walkabout Mini Golf;
    • Anita Tung, Art Director for The Last Clockwinder.

    ☛ There will also be a Cyan Q&A Panel; if you wish to ask any questions, please submit them via this form by August 7. It will be a general Q&A, so feel free to ask about Firmament, Venture projects, Starry Expanse, etc.

    ☛ The Myst Documentary crew will share an update and sneak peeks of the film progress, as well as show off the Myst Story Community Vault. There will also be a Q&A session.

    ☛ Proof of vaccination will be asked at the time badges will be issued, you will not need to show proof again for the rest of the weekend. The up-to-date COVID policies are available here, the Committee will avoid changing them unless necessary.

    Other news

    ☛ The third episode of the WaterCooler Show, by the Cavern Communications Network, will be an interview to Aaron Gwynaire, developer of the upcoming Myst-style point-and-click adventure game Neyyah.

  • News Roundup #20

    • Firmament is on track for a late 2022 release of the game. The Kickstarter physical rewards will be delivered by Fangamer in 2023.
    • The Mysterium Committee has posted a follow-up on the COVID policy for the 2022 convention: all attendees will be required to provide proof of being up-to-date with vaccination, and will be required to wear an N95 or equivalent mask. The full policy can be found on the COVID page.
    • Korman 0.13a was released by the Guild of Writers, fixing a couple of crashes.
    • Calum Traveler posted a summary of the recent in-Cavern events. Carl Palmner also frequently reports on such events. More IC weblogs are listed under “Explorers’ Journals” here on the top bar.