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Tag: RivenVR

Mysterium 2026
The XXVII Mysterium was held in Portland, OR, on July 24–26, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

Belford wrote a two-part summary in his blog, giving his perspective mainly on Cyan’s panel.
Friday started with the Opening Announcements, with a few words and reminders from the convention chairs.

☛ In the A New Age of Myst Tabletop Gaming (link TBA) panel, Kefrith introduced four new homemade tabletop games themed around the Myst franchise. Three are custom re-themed versions of existing card and board games, while the fourth is a brand new design.

☛ In the Gehn’s Grab Bag (link TBA), attendees took game pieces, cards, instructions, and like Gehn made games with no written rules.

☛ Twice during the convention, Curator played the 2024 Mysterium Marker Missions (link TBA) on stream (which you can get via Mir-o-Bot).

☛ The rest of the day was dedicated to events that were not streamed. In the voluntary event Achenar’s Journey, people were randomly grouped and assigned a puzzle packet to solve. Annacat explored the music of the Myst series through dance and creative movement, teaching a simple short choreography. She also guided attendees through warmup and cooldown exercises each morning and evening. In the bring-your-own craft project Wharkin’ Hard ’n Hardly Wharkin’ event, attendees brought sketchbooks, knitting, crochet, drawing tablets, embroidery, quilling and such.

Saturday started with the Creature Feature (link TBA) game: the cerpatee went extinct, Haven needs a new apex predator and it was up to the players to design one, either in teams or individually, using randomly selected Earth animals to create a creature that can fix Haven’s ecosystem.

☛ In the Restoration of The Great Shaft (link TBA) panel, Murry and Calum Traveler showcased the upcoming Descent location (thanks to the hard work of Calum, Tweek, Ametist, Ehren, TikiBear, Semjay and Maurus) and detailed some of the unique challenges in building it while keeping continuity with previous, often inconsistent depictions in DIRT, the novels, Myst V and Uru Live itself.

Besides the familiar access from the Eder Tomahn, it will also be possible to enter from the Cleft area to the caldera, with a newly installed elevator platform. The location will have brand new music by Semjay and Maurus, mixed with the existing one. The tunnels have been extended compared to Myst V, to match the novels and to fix a geometric issue with the top of the Shaft, that would otherwise protrude above ground level.

All the sections up (well, down) to the elevator platform are functional and roughly familiar if you played Myst V. There are plans for the sections beyond that, including the Bug Cave from the Intangibles assets; Semjay is working on this part.

There is no planned released date, but Descent will be split in phases: phase 1 and 2 are the tunnels and the Shaft, phase 3 is the Bug Cave. Initially Descent will be released as a public instance, possibly with all puzzles already solved. For the future, they’re planning on a private instance that will be reached from Rainy Cleft, climbing up the volcano to the caldera.

☛ In the Myst Documentary (link TBA) panel, Philip Shane gave a few updates on the status and the many difficulties of the Myst Documentary. He was joined by collaborators Randy Woods (writer), David Van Taylor (consulting producer), Joshua Reinstein (editing, history cataloging), Ben Reichman (editing), John Clark, Hollister Starrett (music), Elana Bogdan (web design), and Khatie Postma (community manager). He showed various completed scenes: building Cyan’s office, outtakes from the Making of Riven footage, Rand and Robyn discussing puzzles for Myst, and the preparations for Obduction’s launch. Apparently there was a plan for a Coke–Myst Online co-branded ad.

☛ In the Cosplay Contest (link TBA), participant competed for the best interpretation of Achenar in Haven.

☛ In the Trial of Daddy Atrus (link TBA) panel, the Giant Bomb crew put Atrus on trial to decide if he’s guilty of being a bad father, and how much he’s to blame for their atrocities.

☛ In the Flimsiest Page (link TBA) panel, a parody of The Weakest Link, participants tried to impress everyone with their knowledge of Myst lore, often embarrassing themselves for getting it completly wrong.

☛ 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 What Would Achenar Build? (link TBA) game, in which participants were split into groups, given a random pile of things, and given a task to build. Then each group presented their creation, to be judged based on creativity, best looking, and so on.

☛ In Cyan’ State of the Union panel (possibly the first in-person report not held in Spokane), Hannah Gamiel and Eric A. Anderson gave a few updates on Cyan’s activities in the last two years. The talk is also summarized on Cyan’s website.

They started with a brief recap of the last two years: Riven’s many awards, the addition of Rime to Myst, the layoffs, the console ports of Firmament, Myst and Riven, the re-release of the novel trilogy ebook, updates for their classic games and Steam Deck verification, Steam bundles with Blue Prince, Outer Wilds and other games. Obduction was developed with early version of UE4, so further updates and ports are difficult; updating to a more recent release will take work and would lose support of certain features. Spyder is back, and posted recently on Cyan’s Discord, hinting about a link to an ARG teaser page.

The main course was a presentation called “Paths Not (yet) Taken: Scraps from Cyan’s Development Past”, in which they showed concept art and prototype shots from various cancelled projects:
- Latus (2004): one of the most known projects, it was an experiment in linear narrative, an episodic spy series with many interwoven storylines;
- Obduction v.1 (2005): “Myst meets Halo”, Cyan at some point wanted to try making a shooter-style game with narrative twists. Over time the idea morphed into a game about a farmer trying to rescue his dog, who was abducted by aliens; then a scenario of a televised intergalactic game show where aliens would kidnap humans to compete for prizes. The Obduction that was released only kept a few ideas from the original concept;
- DiSC v.1 (2006): the Cyan crew used to really be into disc golf, and actually started working on a disc golf game for the Wii, with powerups and wacky environments;
- Lift/Lyft (2007): a game about flight and exploration, in a massive world with floating islands, alternating between third-person exploration on the ground and first-person flying combat;
- Origami (2007): a much smaller, top-down action game about fighting paper monsters. Both Lift and Origami used Plasma 3.0, only used in Hex Isle;
- Latus v.2 (2010): the second attempt was a timeline game in a 3D world, in which you could move along the timeline, seeing the ripple effects of small changes, opening new locations and new options as you progressed, exponentially expanding the possibile branches;
- Goldfish (2011): “a love letter to the D’ni Cavern”, it was a game set in D’ni but not about Atrus. Some concepts and ideas were reworked for Obduction and Firmament;
- DiSC v.2 (2016): similar to DiSC v.1, but in VR; they even had a prototype, but it didn’t go anywhere;
- Goldfish v.2 (2023): a new take on the concept, quite ahead in design progress. This one is not in active development, but may still happen one day;
- Eric has also been modeling the whole D’ni Cavern in Unreal, including Ae’gura and the City Proper. It’s a “backburner side project” that “might come in handy someday”;
- Minnow: DarkPath (2025): a puzzle game under time pressure, set on a boring D’ni machine tunneling at high speed through the earth;
- Minnow: WhoD’nit (2025): a murder mystery visual novel in the style of Phoenix Wright; Guildmaster Kadish makes an appearance;
Then Eric and Hannah showcased Anglerfish (2024): a D’ni-era thriller with a darker tone, heavily under development towards the end of Riven production and teased as “Prefall” in early 2025, before the layoffs. The player is sent to fetch a Linking Book by a Guildmaster named Damreus, who’s also editing the Age as you’re exploring. They built a fully playable prototype, and showed a publisher pitch trailer (spoilers warning). It has more storyline and gameplay spoilers than you’d expect from a Steam game trailer. The game is not currently in production as they could not get it funded. Both the attendees and the stream chat were very clear they want to see it completed!
The trailer was quickly featured on a number of online gaming websites (Criticalpixel, Games.gg, PCGamer, RetroArcade, RockPaperShotgun, VideoGameGeek, The Front List).

Mudfish is the project Cyan is currently developing, a first-person adventure in the Myst setting, with “denser, more intricate game spaces”. The name is intentionally connected to Mudpie, Uru’s prototype.

They’re not focusing on VR for the moment, as the team is too small to target all platforms. They’re planning boxed editions of Myst and Riven for PS5, Xbox, and Mac/PC. PS5 and Xbox boxes will have actual discs, while PCs will just get a Steam code. They’re also working on deluxe hardcover reprints of the Myst novel trilogy. As for The Book of Marrim, the manuscript turned out to be very incomplete, and the lore and story didn’t match the direction they’ve been following for the last twenty years. So BoM is a dead end at this point.

Also, 2027 will be a year of anniversaries: Riven will be 30 years old; Cyan will be 40 years old, reportedly the oldest surviving independent game studio in the US. There are talks about a possible exhibition in Spokane, which led to the announcement of next year’s Mysterium location: Spokane, WA!

☛ The Closing Ceremonies (link TBA)wrapped up this year’s convention and ran the prize drawing.

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

Looking forward to next year!
2 August 2026
November 2024 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for the 175th All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

Contents
Mysterium

☛ 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.

OpenUru

Calum Traveler mentioned that the latest update for MOULa is on the Staging server, and may be released in one or two weeks!

The Cavern Today

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.

Events in the Cavern

☛ 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:
- Facebook group MOULa : Anniversary – Holidays – Events;
- Facebook page Myst Online: Uru Live (again);
- Discord server MOULa Events, #announcements channel; or
- Discord server Official Cyan Chat, #cavern-events channel.
D’ni Language Classes

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.
More about the D’ni Language Classes
- Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn, preferably on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317), or via KImail (KI# 80428). Be sure to include your KI number, so that Rehn can send you a reply!
- The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Classes are individual.
- Daytime openings are on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, at 10:00, 11:00 or 12:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
- Evening openings are on Monday, Tuesday, 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 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 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 😉
More about the Story Nights
- 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

☛ 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!
5 November 2024
The Cavern Today 49: Return to Riven
“Endings and beginnings are within the Fissure…” Cyan’s Riven remake finally released earlier this year – and there’s a lot to discuss! So, for our Autumn 2024 edition, we’re bringing you our longest episode to date, featuring:
- Cavern News with Dalken Starbyne
- TCT Talk with Ankhangel, Esto and Maurus: Riven 2024 non-spoiler discussion, Mysterium 2024, and the future of the D’niverse
- Music Piece: “Abandoned Homestead” by Maurus
- Chapter III of our D’ni history series “Deep Dive with Esto Centura”
- TCT Talk Continued: Riven 2024 SPOILER discussion
The Cavern Today is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify & other services – as well as The Cavern Today’s website.
1 November 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!

22 July 2024
July 2024 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for the 171st All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

Contents
Mysterium

☛ The Mysterium convention is coming this week! A schedule of all the events has been posted. For those who will be unable to attend in person, most of the panels will be streamed on the official Twitch and YouTube channels.

☛ There will be a few Cavern-related events, including a marker mission. In particular, on Friday 12 at 12:15 KIT there will be a panel with the fan developers, who will discuss the ongoing restoration work and showcase some ongoing work, possibly including some news about Descent and a video from the Explorer’s Emporium.

After that, Kelly Coston, Curator and Drew will host a marker mission run, which will be handed out at the start of the event and remain available aftewards.

☛ All the Mysterium shirts will again be available in the Ae’gura Guild of Messengers Pub lobby.

☛ The Creativity Prompt for July–August is “Serenia”, the deadline is August 31st. Entries for the “Blooming” prompt for May–June were from Redwoodrroad, Calum Traveler, Laughingpineapple, Talashar, Belle.

Events in the Cavern

☛ Another Summer Festival is coming, on August 5–11, organized by PodHopper. This year the festival will also be a comeback for the D’ni Palooza, a music event that was last celebrated in 2013, so the focus will be on music. Anyone who is involved in music in some way, be it original or cover, solo or group, will be welcome to participate! If you have ideas for events, feel free to contact PodHopper (#7116825) to discuss and plan.

The deadline for submitting music is July 20: you can submit 15 minutes or more, divided in any number of songs, and you can pick any music genre for each song. This year a few events will take place in time blocks later than 16:00 KIT, like Sky’s Cooking Session and Ayoheek Night. There will be several activities like the Cone Race, a Wall game, an Ayoheek game and maybe more.

A definitive schedule is still being worked on as new events are being added; it will likely be a full week of activities in the Cavern!

☛ On July 1st, Skyisblu prepared a strawberry shortcake, since summer is in full swing in Quebec, and the strawberries are plump and juicy and delicious right now.

On August 5, the Cooking Session will fall in the midst of the SummerFest, so Sky will present a recipe that involves the least cooking possible, equal parts tasty and refreshing, for the hottest days of the year. There will be two sessions: one at the usual timeslot of 12:00 KIT, and a second at 18:00 KIT to allow for more explorers to join in the fun. The recipe will be the same.

The sessions will be streamed on 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 19 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic will be “space 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.

☛ 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. You can PM “link” to Mir-o-Bot (#32319) or Minbot (#9292763) to join the sessions.

☛ Babbel will host her next classical music program in the Hall of Kings in Ae’gura, on Monday 15 at 12:00 KIT. The theme this month is “Insects in Summer“.

☛ 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:
- Facebook group MOULa : Anniversary – Holidays – Events;
- Facebook page Myst Online: Uru Live (again);
- Discord server MOULa Events, #announcements channel; or
- Discord server Official Cyan Chat, #cavern-events channel.
D’ni Language Classes

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.
More about the D’ni Language Classes
- Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn, preferably on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317), or via KImail (KI# 80428). Be sure to include your KI number, so that Rehn can send you a reply!
- The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Classes are individual.
- Daytime openings are on Monday to Friday, at 10:00, 11:00 or 12:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
- Evening openings are on Monday, Tuesday, 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 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 have begun a new season, starting from the very beginning: the story of the D’ni creation myth. 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 😉
More about the Story Nights
- 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

☛ Work on the Age of Mirtahm has been suspended for the time being, as TikiBear and Ametist are assessing how much more and what work needs done to make it up to the standards of devs and testers.

☛ The 3D remake of Riven was released on June 25, with very positive receptions; a post on the r/Myst subreddit has a large list of reviews from various gaming websites. A page on Cyan’s website has a few solutions to common problems, and answers to common questions.

If you haven’t bought Riven yet, you should be aware of a few bundles: Riven (2024) + DLCs on GOG and Steam, Myst (2021) + Riven (2024) on Steam, Riven (1997) + Riven (2024) on Steam.

☛ In July, the Fan Age Expeditions in Deep Island will start with the mind-bending Relativity by Karkadann & Tachzusamm; they will then solve the puzzles in Lohdehvis by Takku Petreya and Rahsoo B’ahrotan by Calena; next, they will explore the alternate-reality Ae’gura known as City of Dimensions by the Open Cave Team. The month will end with some puzzle/educational Ages by Ametist and Corvus: Hallway, Matte, ReGahlpo.

A couple of Ages from the same time period – Turtle Isle by DenDwaler and R’Oshanhnin Korvahkhn by Calena, Dustin, Wamduskasapa and Tachzusamm – will unfortunately have to be skipped, as there are unsolved bugs affecting these Ages.

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

The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, August 3 (Leesahn 26, 9680) at 13:00 KIT.

Until then!
8 July 2024
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.

11 June 2024
TCT 48: In Review
Happy Easter! For our Spring 2024 edition, we bring you:
- TCT Talk with Ankhangel, Dalken Starbyne, Esto Centura, Maurus, and Sh’aeri, covering Riven hype as well as a TCT year-in-review
- Chapter II of Deep Dive with Esto Centura, exploring the Preafter era
- Sh’aeri’s That’s Just Me Of Course, reflecting on 20 years in D’ni
- Musical Piece: “Rowena Forest” by Sasha Strange
- A Riven Sound Effect Mystery?
The Cavern Today is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify & other services – as well as The Cavern Today’s website.
1 April 2024
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.

21 December 2023
October 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for the 162nd All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

Contents
Mysterium

☛ Submissions for pins are now open, until March 31, Pins are not required to follow the Mysterium 2024 theme of Serenia, and/or the host city of Montreal. Shirt submissions are also open, until February 25.

☛ A new COVID vaccine has been made available for the latest variants of the virus. The Committee recommends everyone to get it as soon as possible. Also, there have been reports of pharmacies no longer updating or providing vaccine cards; if you are looking for an updated proof of vaccine, it is advisable to specifically request a card, or look into electronic vaccine records if available.

☛ The creativity prompt for October is “Noir”; the deadline is October 31. Entries for the “Back to School” prompt for September were from Calum Traveler, Talashar, Redwoodrroad, Salvo Ludus.

Events in the Cavern

☛ October 31 is the 26th anniversary of the release of Riven: the Sequel to Myst! Cyan is still at work on the VR remake, some glimpses of which were shown and discussed at this year’s Mysterium.

☛ Skyisblu hosts “Cooking Sessions with Sky” (on her Twitch channel) every month on the first Monday at 12:00 KIT in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood; recently she made okonomiyaki. The recipes are explained in both English and French.

Every month is something new and different, a lot of times inspired by what is coming from Skyisblu’s garden, or what is in season in her corner of the world. She also tries to answer any questions regarding the recipe she is cooking, other dishes or cuisines, and takes suggestions for future sessions.

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 13 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic will be robots in video games. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

☛ Karel will host a Music Session in the Ae’gura Messengers Pub on Friday, October 13 at 13:00 KIT; the theme will be “Game Music over the Years“.

☛ Diranda, on behalf of the Guild of Authors and Artists, invited everyone to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2023. They will hold workshops, write-ins, writing sprints and other NaNo-related gatherings in the Cavern as well as on their Discord server.

Event dates will be posted soon; they will try to accomodate schedules as best as possible, so if you are interested, you should get in contact to help plan the events. They plan to have a concurrent event for artists as well as other creative types, including Age writers, to join in the fun. Suggestions for concurrent activities are definitely welcome.

If you would like an invite to the Guild’s Discord, or for more info and questions about NaNoWriMo events, you should contact Diranda. For more about National Novel Writing Month, you can visit the official website.

Magic Ages

Mister Magic is back in the Cavern! He has now restored all of his Magic Ages, including the fireworks, and the numerous Magic Games are playable again. Mister Magic is currently working on making the Fabulous Magic Treasure (FMT) available to players again.

To get help with the magic commands in the game, send “help” in PM to one of the bots with and they will send you a KI-mail with all the commands:
- Magic Bot #27527,
- Mimi Bot #71459,
- Magic Treasure #26224,
- Magic-Treasure #24891,
- Mimi Treasure #21190.
You can ask questions regarding the Magic Ages and everything that goes with them on the dedicated channel on the MOULa Events Discord, or on the dedicated thread on the Mystpedia forums.

To celebrate the return of the Magic Bots (and as a thank you to Mir-o-Bot for remaining loyal despite all the difficulties), there will be a party, on Saturday, October 14 at 11:30 KIT, in Mir-o-Bot’s Kalamee (to get there, PM “to kalamee” to Mir-o-Bot, #32319).

Eternal Seeker will provide the music, and the Nulp Dance Group will open the evening with a short but cool performance. In order to see all the effects, it is important not to use an internal client. Please come to the party with the vanilla MOULa client. After the performance, the dance floor will be open.

Dances

There will be no ‘guided dance’, but you can dance with a partner of your choice, with the help of Magic-Bot. There are different dances for this:
- dancewith [name] [x]
  - abbreviated: dcw [name] [x]
- slowdancewith [name] [x]
  - abbreviated: sldw [name] [x]
where [name] is the avatar name of your desired dance partner, and [x] is the number of repetitions (max 3). All the seven dances that were available with the ‘guided dances’ are also available:
- minadance [x] [name]
Odd numbers are slightly faster dances, even numbers are slightly slower. Be polite and ask your desired dance partner to dance beforehand 😉

Note that after calling the command, you will automatically be teleported to your dance partner and take a step backwards to assume the correct position. Make sure that your dance partner is not looking into an abyss, otherwise you would fall!

If you need a KI note with a recap of the commands, you can ask Minasunda to send you one when you are in the Cavern.

OpenUru

☛ Calum Traveler mentioned an upcoming fix to a long standing issue: in 2007 the DRC locked open the doors to the Library and Museum in Ae’gura, due to technical issues with the automatic sensors that were causing the doors to close in peoples faces, or stay shut when they should have opened.

After almost 17 years, thanks to the hard work of Hazado, the functioning of these doors will be restored to proper functionality, opening and closing for a person coming close to their sensor regions, but staying open if multiple people are close by and not closing again until all people have transited. If someone links out while inside the sensor region, the doors will not close again until another person has gone through.

☛ Rarified gave a brief comment about the update schedule for MOULa. If all goes well, they should be able to send Cyan the new material later this month, with a possible release date for mid-November.

☛ TikiBear announced the restoration of the Age of Mirtahm, by Ametist and himself. There is no set date yet for when the Age will be made available.

Mirtahm was found by Rebus and his friends, and is apparently deserted, after a cataclysmic flood that leaves much under water. There are structures remaining above the water that they have been restoring.

From what they have found, the D’ni rescued and evacuated the original inhabitants. They then stayed for some time, with a small crew, to excavate a mineral. Now, after some cleanup, the Age is peaceful, if moody. There will be plenty of swimming and diving, though there will be fauna to contend with.

☛ Semjay is still working on refurbishing the Explorers’ Emporium (currently available on Deep Island); she is hoping to have it ready for testing by Christmas.

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 finished the 101 lessons 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# 80428), 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 Tuesday 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 telling the story of Myst: The Book of D’ni, as told in the novel. After that, they will begin the story from Myst III: Exile. 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 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

☛ In October, the Fan Ages Expeditions in Deep Island will explore Jo’nae and Jo’nae Hood by Jonnee (from the book room in Janga, if possible), Takla Ma’kan by the German group H’Uru (not to be confused with the Writers’ developers group), and Paah’kweh by BobLishman.

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 4 (Leevofo 12) at 13:00 KIT (20:00 CET).

Until then!
9 October 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!

18 July 2023
News Roundup #26

Cyan news

☛ 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!

Mysterium news

☛ 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!

9 February 2023
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.

14 December 2022
November 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for the 151st All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

Contents
Mysterium

Mysterium 2023 will be held in Spokane, WA from June 30 to July 2. Earlier than usual, because Spokane will be busy with events in late July–early August, and hotels are booked solid for July and August. No details on the specific hotel are available yet, but prices will likely be higher than usual too.

2023 marks the Myst franchise’s 30th anniversary, so the theme of next year’s Mysterium will be: “The Evolution of Myst”. The world and the franchise have evolved over the years, and the convention will showcase this evolution.

Submissions also started opening. First is the T-shirt artwork: every year the community is invited to create the artwork, and a lot of cool directions could be taken with 2023’s theme. The deadline is January 7, 2023. As always, the creators of the winning designs will each receive a free T-shirt. And, similarly to the past couple of years, the shirt design will be added to the wardrobe in MOULa.

Next are event submissions: projects you want to show off, deep dives into D’ni culture, awesome group activities, and more are all welcome. The deadline is April 29, 2023.

The community Discord server has recently gone through some minor housekeeping. Most importantly, they have revised and clarified the rules: most of it was codifying what was already enforced, but please check out the #rules and #announcements channels when you have a chance. The server is also now verified, which means it got a custom (and easier to remember) invite link.

The Mysterium prompt for November is “Fall” (not necessarily Autumn); the deadline is November 30. Winners of the “Spooky” prompt for October were Redwoodrroad, Calum Traveler, IwonK, Talashar and Delcolux.

Riven

On October 31 Cyan released a teaser video showcasing the Riven logo, confirming they are indeed working on a modern remake of Myst’s sequel. No release date has yet been revealed. For more details, check our dedicated post.

Town Hall

The Rei’schu expedition was held over the Discord. There are transcripts available on the story forums. In the next MOULa update, the first draft of these transcripts will be added to Eder Naybree, until their permanent resting place is ready.

OpenUru

The team of artists, programmers, and janitors were quite weary after last summer’s update, so they took things easy this time and combined the time of the third and fourth quarters. There are new Ages, new places to poke at, and fixes (including a possible fix to cull the lag in Eder Naybree on older machines).

Contributions for the next release have been frozen, and testing has started on the Minkata shard. The more people testing the better, so please join if you can (details at the bottom of this section). Testing will continue until late November; if all is well, they will deliver the update to Cyan, to be tested on Staging for about two weeks, then deployed early–mid December.

For the Descent shaft, a very preliminary set of areas are already being tested on the Minkata alpha test shard, but development has mostly been put on the back burner until more effort can be dedicated to it, probably some time in 2023.

Rarified is committed to bringing the backlog of improvements to the game client from the Guild of Writers’ H’uru codebase (including the transition from PhysX 2 to PhysX 4) to MOULa. An early ‘draft’ of the new client on yet another Minkata shard may be released the first quarter of next year, to start the migration process.

Backward compatibility came up. While the GoW codebase only supports current versions of Windows, Rarified is going to try to continue building MOULa clients to be as backward compatibile as possible; but there will be a time when Win 7 and older will not be able to run it.

Editor’s note: it should be noted that Windows backward compatibility and a native client on macOS and Linux are conflicting objectives, and developing for the latter involves changes that may overall improve the client’s performance and security. Also, while users of older versions of Windows have been penalized only in recent years, macOS and especially Linux users always had to go through hoops to be in the Cavern.

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.

Events in the Cavern

☛ Tehlrov K’hris announced an Unwritten campaign, “Read Between the Lights”, hosted by Zekh, with three players/characters:
- Pritika Chatterjee, a well read teacher with an eye for solving mysteries, played by Ereshkigal;
- Mikito “Mike” Takahashi, a curious nomadic encyclopedia with a heart, played by Tehlrov Kh’ris; and
- Carmen Durand, an eclectic art school dropout, played by Belle.
The first session will be held on November 19 at 12:00 KIT and will last about three hours. The campaign is expected to last 4–5 sessions, and will be streamed live on Tehlrov Kh’ris’ Twitch channel.

The in-Cavern location will be a secret, but if you find them, please refrain from text or voice chat as they will need both to play the game.

☛ IwonK announced her Wonky Talk on Friday, November 18 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood, by the ahyoheek table. This month’s topic is spooky and horror games. If you have ideas for interesting games she could talk about (and draw), feel free to contact her.

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# 58324), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
- The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Daytime openings are currently on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT;
- evening openings are on weekdays 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 the Fall as told in the book Myst: The Book of Ti’ana. This is a multi-part story that will last for about three more months.

R’Tayrtahn is in the process of uploading the backlog of videos from previous sessions to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay 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 November, the Fan Ages Expeditions will look for Gary’s whereabouts in Iceworld by Denost, part of a larger Age that also includes Somewhere and Elsewhere, inhabited by the Jhibis and the Guardian. Then, they will begin the exploration of Elodea by Dulcamara.

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

October ended with the CavFunding at 99% (CavCon 3) and the reserve at 519%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 46,130 (⇑374), with 1344 unique visits.

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

Until then!
8 November 2022
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.

1 November 2022