☛ Anthony Kleine posted an interesting two-part article about fixing the loading speed between nodes in Myst IV. There is no support yet for Revelation in ScummVM, but if it will be added, this is a tweak that could definitely be considered.
☛ In episode 121 of the Video Game History Hour podcast, Cyan co-founder Rand Miller took VGHF library director Phil Salvador on an exclusive tour of the Cyan Vault.
Here is the summary for the 174th All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!
☛ Event submissions for Mysterium 2025 are now open, until April 30. Pins and shirts are open until February 26.
☛ The 2024 Puzzle and Coloring Packets are available for download at the Mysterium website.
☛ The Creativity Prompt for September–October is “Falling” (anything that involves falling), the deadline is October 31st. Entries for the “Revelation” prompt for August were from Calum Traveler, Kefrith, Tomatoes, Talashar, Redwoodrroad, Laughingpineapple, ZeTomato.
☛ The 2024 Mysterium shirts in MOULa will be included in the upcoming update. How these will be made available is still undecided, possibly via a magic instance.
Rarified mentioned how this year many of those who have been doing restoration work in the Cavern had to tend to family or other personal matters. This has delayed the testing and deployment of a few updates.
They have now found the time to finish, so after some testing on the Minkata shards for another week or so, and barring any additional issues, they will send the update to Cyan for another week or two of final checking.
On request by Minasunda, to avoid problems with the Nulps dancing event, they will wait until after Halloween, so the update will likely be released by Thanksgiving (November 28).
☛ Minasunda announced the upcoming Halloween party, on October 31 at 13:00 KIT, in Mir-o-Bot’s Eder Naybree at the fire pit. Note that the party will fall on the confusing week where countries in Europe have switched back to standard time, but the US has not; so the event will start on 20:00 CET.
To get there quickly, you can PM “link” to Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319). Seeker will provide the music, starting exactly at 12:47 😉
Attendees will be asked to leave the inside of the circle of chairs free for the Nulp dancers, who will be performing as spooky ghosts. The ghostly show lasts about 20 minutes and will be repeated at 14:00 KIT for latecomers. In between and after the repeat there will be Halloween music to dance to.
Attendees will also be asked to not use any magic commands, at least until the end of the dance repeat, to avoid messing up the special effects.
☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 18 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic will be “Myst games“. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!
IwonK is also making some games of her own as a year-long gamedev challenge; you can find them at her itch.io page.
☛ Ereshkigal is currently visiting India. Her Ancient Stories event will begin again on Tuesday 22 at 11:30 KIT, in Fahets Highgarden as usual.
☛ 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:
#announcements channel; or#cavern-events channel.☛ skyisblu, who is the chef at a French crêpe restaurant in a suburb of Montréal, Canada, got started in MOULa in March 2021, after rediscovering the Myst games. With her background in cooking, it seemed a natural progression to host a cooking stream, inspired by IwonK’s drawing streams.
☛ Since 2022, she hosts a monthly live stream called Cooking with Sky, where she chooses a recipe, usually something in theme with the season but sometimes based on events happening in the Cavern. She cooks the recipe at least once before the live stream, to test the quantities, cooking times, or changes she might make, including a second batch to speed things up, if needed.
☛ She holds her event on the first Monday of the month, in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood.
☛ The day of the event she sets up the kitchen ‘studio’, preps the ingredients and select the dishware. Stage fright still kicks every time she goes live! But the reassuring greetings of her friends get her over that initial hurdle.
☛ The October 7 stream was, of course, themed after Halloween: candy corn cookies. If you missed any of the previous sessions, all of the recipes and accompanying videos are available on her weblog.
☛ Babbel, who is from a small village in the north of the Netherlands, first learned about MOULa from PodHopper’s website, but it took years before she completed all the Ages.
☛ She hosts a monthly event called Classic With Babbel, where she broadcasts classical music with a theme. She started hosting this event in October 2022.
☛ The inspiration came from noticing a lack of classical music programs in the Cavern. After the first broadcast, she decided to make it a monthly event.
☛ She holds her event on the third Monday of the month at 12:00 KIT, in the Hall of Kings.
☛ She plans her event by picking a theme, based on things around her or the time of the year, then looking for information in books, on the Internet, and from other explorers’ suggestions.
☛ This month, Monday 21, will be the second anniversary of her program! She is working on a light program with some popular classical elements in it.
☛ Discussions and more info can be found on her Discord server, or on the Urutunes forum section.
Shokhootahn Rehn 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.
Story Night Europe and Original Story Night will next retell the story of the 14th king, Naygen. The rest of the month they will cover Hinahsh, Needrah and Rahkeree. 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 😉 The channel is current through February 20, 2021.
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 😉
☛ In October, the Fan Age Expeditions in Deep Island will explore the deep Age of Elodea by Dulcamara, from the Upperworld to the Underworld, along the Tunnel Passage and into the Treasure Vaults, trying to solve its puzzles and find the lost treasures.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, November 2 (Leevofo 11) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
Here is the summary for the 173rd All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!
☛ The theme for Mysterium 2025 – which will be held in Atlanta (GA) – will be Myst V: End Of Ages, since next year will be its 20th anniversary. The Committee for 2025 will be Yuki (Drew Salad) and Curator (Fant Steele).
☛ T-shirt and pin design submissions are now open through February 26, 2025. The 2024 Puzzle and Coloring Packets are now available for download at the Mysterium website.
☛ The Creativity Prompt for September–October is “Falling” (anything that involves falling), the deadline is October 31st. Entries for the “Revelation” prompt for August were from Calum Traveler, Kefrith, Tomatoes, Talashar, Redwoodrroad, Laughingpineapple, ZeTomato.
For this month, Claidi asked a few event hosts to talk a bit more about themselves.
☛ For IwonK, who is from Poland, her first Myst game were Myst III and IV. She got started in MOULa as a regular in late 2020, but has been lurking around for longer; she skipped the GapeTap era because it required a third-party software download she didn’t trust, and because she was a student at the time and couldn’t afford it.
☛ She hosts a monthly live stream called Wonky Talk, where she talks about various games and draws their main characters or vehicles. She picks a theme every month and ask the audience for game suggestions. She started hosting this event in 2022, after Nosila asked her if she would like to host an event for the International Women’s Day; the first livestream was of course “Female Protagonists in Video Games”.
She recently started a second format: Wonky Draws, where she randomly pick topics, techniques and supplies, applying them for just one drawing.
☛ She draws inspiration from the community, getting a lot of suggestions for games to talk about and draw.
☛ She holds her event on a Friday in the middle of the month, in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood, where the participants sit around the Heek table listening to the stream.
☛ She plans her event by picking a topic, then asking for games suggestions; she then lists about five games to talk about and research them online and in magazines. If possible, she plays the games herself. She writes a script, makes drawings digitally, then prints them out using a very light blue ink, invisible to the camera but visible enough to trace them.
☛ She also plans what kind of cookies to bake for the stream! She tries to keep them at least somehow connected to the theme of the stream.
☛ In September there will be no stream; the next one will probably be in October.
Shokhootahn Rehn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Another student finished the 101 lessons: Jes’ka!
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.
Story Night Europe and Original Story Night will next retell the story of the ninth king, Solath. 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 😉 The channel is current through February 20, 2021.
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 😉
☛ For Ereshkigal, who is from the Netherlands, her first Cyan game was realMyst (2000). She got started in MOULa in 2022, after getting Uru: CC with a Steam bundle. She found Calum Traveler’s blog, and decided to get involved with the community.
☛ She hosts a weekly event called Ancient Stories, where she tries to give a sense of how alien yet familiar, the distant past can be, in the same way D’ni is alien yet familiar. She started hosting this event in 2024, after Nosila asked her if she would like to host an event for the International Women’s Day; the first livestream was of course “Female Protagonists in Video Games”.
☛ She drew inspiration from her love of archaeology and her experience with living and working near a lot of Roman remains, including an old burial hill and a remaining stretch of the garrison road that once ran alongside the Rhine.
☛ She holds her event every Tuesday at 11:30 KIT. The location changes with each new story: the magical garden of Kalamee for Gilgamesh, the lotus pond in Fahets Highgarden for the Ramayana, and currently at the fountain in Eder Bahvahnter for Mary Renault’s Persian Boy.
☛ She plans her event by marking out sections in the text she will read, and usually some messages that the chapters convey. For the Ramayana she read from multiple sources (including one she wrote herself), which she keeps open next to the MOULa window.
☛ In the next sessions she will continue the story of Bagoas and Alexander on their way to India. She will be travelling to India herself, so there will probably be a three-week hiatus. After that, she has a lot of other storis lined up, including a real ghost story from ancient Egypt.
☛ Babbel will host her next classical music program in the Hall of Kings in Ae’gura, on Monday 16 at 12:00 KIT. The theme this month is “Latin American Classical Music, pt. 1“.
☛ In September, the Fan Age Expeditions in Deep Island will explore the vast Age of Iceworld by Denost – the ‘sequel’ to Somewhere – to solve its puzzles and learn about the fate of its first explorer, Gary. After that, they will begin the exploration of Elodea by Dulcamara, starting from the Upper World and descending into the deeper levels.
☛ 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:
#announcements channel; or#cavern-events channel.And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
August ended with the CavFunding at 81% (CavCon 2.8) and the reserve at 611%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 52,038 (⇑238), with 1085 unique visits and 10,945 total visits.
July ended with the CavFunding at 113% (CavCon 4.1) and the reserve at 620%, with no extra expenses.
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, October 5 (Leevot 18) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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.
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!