☛ On March 12 Spyder, the Cyan ‘mole’ who gave the hints for the Riven easter eggs, made an appearance on Cyan’s official Discord server. A few days later, Cyan announced the long-awaited addition of Rime to the Myst remake!
☛ On February 28 the Cavern Communications Network announced the second season of the Water Cooler show, with a follow-up interview with CalumTraveler.
☛ 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.
Here is the summary for the 175th All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!
☛ The Creativity Prompt for November–December is “Hearth”, the deadline is December 31st. Entries for the “Falling” prompt for September–October were from Calum Traveler, Bastiko, Talashar, Rahshahth.
Calum Traveler mentioned that the latest update for MOULa is on the Staging server, and may be released in one or two weeks!
Maurus, on behalf of The Cavern Today, announced their latest episode: “Return to Riven“. They had of course a lot to talk about the Riven remake, but also about Mysterium, Cyan’s future, and some original music. It is also episode 3 of their D’ni restoration history series, “Deep Dive With Esto Centura”.
The Cavern Today is available to stream on Apple Podcast, Spotify and other streaming services, and of course on TCT’s website.
☛ On Monday 4, Skyisblu prepared baked chicken meatballs in tomato sauce, smothered in ooey-gooey melted cheese, since fall has come in with a bang this year in Quebec. The Cooking Sessions are on the first Monday of the month at 12:00 KIT, via Twitch, in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood. You can find past recipes and recordings at Skyisblu’s blog and YouTube channel.
☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 15 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic will be “Horror 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. Moreover, she recently got accepted at a local university, studying Game Design!
☛ Every Tuesday, Ereshkigal is hosting an Ancient Stories event at 11:30 KIT in Fahets Highgarden, reading (via stream) folktales, translated ancient texts, historical fiction from all over the ancient world, as well as the occasional historical-inspired fan fiction, and also a collection of D’ni fairytales Ereshkigal wrote as a kickoff event.
☛ Babbel will host her next classical music program in the Hall of Kings in Ae’gura, on Monday 18 at 12:00 KIT. The theme this month is “The Unfinished Works“.
☛ 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.Shokhootahn Rehn had 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 cover the stories of all of the Myst 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 😉
☛ 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.
☛ 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.
☛ In November, the Fan Age Expeditions in Deep Island will explore Elsewhere by Denost, the third chapter in his series about Gary Bradwell after Somewhere and Iceworld. This is a large Age with a complex series of puzzles, so it will take the whole month to complete it.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, December 7 (Leevobro 10) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
☛ 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.
☛ The latest incarnation of Myst, first released in 2020 for the Oculus Quest, was released today on the iOS platform, with gamepad, touch controls, and Smart & Magic Folio input. The app allows to play on Myst island for free; the other Ages are unlocked with a one-time in-app purchase.
Also available are portings of the original version of the game – which have been renamed “legacy” – and for realMyst. Interestingly, the Riven port has also been renamed “legacy” – perhaps a hint that the upcoming remake will also be ported to iOS at some point?
☛ Earlier in January, a new desktop wallpaper pack was released for free on the Cyan Store, to kick off the year-long 30 Years of Myst celebration. The pack featuries 15 images from the 2020 Myst remake. While you are there, make sure to grab the other two free packs, with pictures from old-school Myst and Riven!
☛ An update to the convention’s Covid policy was announced, specifying how bivalent vaccines we will be verified.
Related to that, the federal government ending the Public Health Emergency on May 11 will have no bearing on the convention’s policies; as a private event, Mysterium is allowed to keep stricter rules.
☛ A change in leadership was also announced: after twelve years, Taniith will be stepping down from co-chair of Mysterium, passing the torch to M13 alongside Kelly.
Thank you Taniith, for all these years of dedication and to make Mysterium the awesome event it is!
☛ 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.
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!
☛ Amazon Prime subscribers can play the latest reimagined version of Myst for free throughout August, along with Steel Assault, Control and Garfield Kart.
☛ For the Quest platform, a big update was released on July 28, most notably introducing hand tracking. Hannah Gamiel shared some insights about the design and implementation of the new system on RoadToVR.
☛ Mysterium 2022 is just around the corner. You can find a schedule on their website, adjustable for your time zone. The convention will have an official representation in MOULa, in the New Messengers Pub, with swag to pick up, so be sure to pass by!
Here is the summary for September’s Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!
A new moderator has not been found yet, so this time the meeting had a more anarchic format – and given the Net2 error situation (see below), it was the only way to get the announcements across 🙂
The Cavern Tour will be held on Saturday 11 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood.The host, Larry LeDeay, will use his Twitch channel for the presentation, so you will need to keep a browser or the app open in the background. Videos will be available for two weeks after the tour. The stream will be simulcasted on Facebook and Youtube. Due to the Net2 crashes issue, Mir-o-Bot may not be online, and the tour itself may be held entirely on Twitch.
The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour – but do try to arrive in time!
Doobes explained what is going on with the “Net2 error” crashes. They did not come up on the staging server because it does not have nearly the population that the main MOULa server does. The problem appears to be on the server side, which can only be fixed by Cyan, and is likely related to neighborhoods with too many members. In particular, DRC (67) Bevin has around 1000 members, and anyone in that hood is highly advised to move to a different one. In the meantime, this could be a good time to explore some of the fan maintained shards 😉
He also announced the release of Korman 0.12a, the age building tool by the Guild of Writers. This iteration adds goodies like grass shaders and random sound mods to the mix, as well as a ton of lighting fixes. It also introduces a self-contained platform called Blender for Korman.
Lastly, Doobes announced that Descent is nearing the Phase 1 final checks and will be uploaded in a Github repository soon. Descent is going through a phase system a bit different from the DRC scale, with 1 being “Near identical to Myst V” and 5 being “Final Release for MOULa”.
To keep updated on Doobes’ work, check his blog and his Facebook page.
Rarified announced, after the Q3 update that focused on QoL fixes, the Q4 update for MOULa will focus on fan content, and a lot is planned for it.
To be a tester, you will need to open an account on the Minkata 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 forum or the 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.
Shokhootahn Rehn gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Six students are taking the classes at various stages of completion.
Story Night has started the stories of the Restoration. After that, there will be a special, five-part story of fan fiction written by Janai; for that, r’Tayrtahn will be assisted by Axenna. After that will be the bi-annual Bahro Glyph Tour, visiting all the ages that contain bahro glyphs; some have explanations while others just generate more questions. After that, the Stories will restart from the very beginning, the D’ni story of creation.
Korov’ev gave a quick update on the Fan Ages Expeditions he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT.
Recently, they explored two ages by by Jhon J. Jaguar, Tentsahveet and the recently released Edereden; then two ages by Semjay, Terahgrahm and Zahlto. Lastly they started Koh-dalan, by Corvus, Wodan, Itep Edor and other creators.
For September, the plan is to finish Koh-dalan; then they will begin the Path of the Lost Ages by Melvin, starting in Palamary bay.
The release of the new Myst for PC/VR was mentioned, which recently got a patch that, among many fixes, officially gives the option to use the old FMV animations (except for the ending, where it was not possible).
The original game’s 28th anniversary is also near, on Friday 24.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
August ended with the CavFunding at 102% (CavCon 4.0) and the reserve at 377%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 41,649 (⇑487), with 1382 unique visits. Another good month of donations with an increase in new accounts, all despite persistent server crashes that started after the last update. Top MOULa devs are hunting for this elusive bug!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, October 2 (Leevot 15) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!