Documentary – The Guild of Messengers

News roundup #9

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:52:54 +0000

Virtual Mysterium will start a few hours from the time of this post! New guests have been announced (Russell Brower had to decline), and the schedule has been released (blue events are streamed on both Twitch & YouTube; red events only on Youtube; green events are discussion rooms on Zoom). See here for more info on how to access the virtual con.

Jack Wall, in collaboration with Tim Larkin and Cyan, has re-released the soundtracks from Myst III, Myst IV, Uru, and Myst V through his record label. They are available for purchase digitally from iTunes, Amazon, and Google, and can be streamed on various services worldwide.

A live Q&A was hosted by Philip Shane (The Myst Documentary) with Myst and Riven co-creator Robyn Miller.

About three hours before the Opening event, at 15:00 KIT, Korov’ev will host an Uru Installfest on Zoom, demonstrating how to install Uru Live and the various shards.

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News roundup #8

Sun, 19 Jul 2020 21:13:36 +0000

The Kickstarter for the Myst Documentary directed by Philip Shane has started! It will end on August 13 at 15:25 KIT, and has a goal of $200,000.

A new round of special guests have been announced for Mysterium 2020: Stephan Martinière, Mike “RIUM+” Ando, Geneviève Lord, Rand Miller, Philip Shane.

More events have been announced for Mysterium 2020: What Would Atrus Build, the “Praise Gehn” sing-along, topics for Virtual Social rooms, and deadlines.

Numinous Games, the developers of Area Man Lives – Cyan’s latest Venture – launched the Playability Initiative: “Using Gaming to Celebrate Creativity, Nurture Togetherness, and Activate Empathy, in service to the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Community and Beyond”.

Karl Johnson, Senior Software Engineer at Cyan, Inc., wrote a post about keeping the user comfortable in a VR environment.

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News roundup #6

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 21:42:44 +0000

The gaming channel Just Add Monsters recently interviewed Rand Miller and Neal Lorenza about the Switch port of realMyst.

The Myst Documentary crew has launched a new interactive website and a mailing list. The director, Philip Shane, will once again make a presentation at the virtual Mysterium.

On June 25 at 5:30 pm PDT, Cyan will host their first Unwritten Livestream, on their Twitch channel.

There are quite a few updates on the Mysterium convention front:

Mysterium 2021 will be held on July 16–18, at the Westin Alexandria Old Town hotel in Alexandria, VA, at a rate of $100/night.
The hotel will be cancelling the 2020 bookings in the next couple weeks, so those who reserved a room should not need to do anything.
If you purchased a registration, you will have the option of rolling it over to 2021, or request a refund.
There is still time to submit virtual event ideas, but not for long!
If you have any Cyan related costumes, you can record a pair of videos of yourself before and after putting on the costume, and they will be edited together into a video to be played during the convention.
The T-shirt store is open for preorders: the T-shirts have the new “~~2020~~ 2021” logo, and designs from Squee (front) and Shoom’lah (back). $2 from every T-shirt sold will be donated to Campaign Zero and Gameheads, equally. If you would like to make your own donations, the Committee has some recommendations.
There will be a virtual Open Mic Night: you can send song parodies, poetry, skits, and anything else you can come up with, until July 20, and they will be strung together and played during the virtual Mysterium.

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Weekly news roundup #2

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 00:15:42 +0000

On Thursday, a small update for MOULa was released, 918.OpenUru#153:

the status message on the login screen now works, and also displays the donations coverage for the previous month;
marker games are now limited to 300 markers, as some of the larger decoration sets were causing issues to the server. However, the problem persists, so for a while all marker games will be disabled.

Cyan also retweeted the announcement from Limited Run of the pre-orders for the physical edition of realMyst for the Nintendo Switch, on February 28 at 10 am ET.

A new update for Firmament was also published, with a video giving some insights into the development process.

If you enjoyed Ars Technica’s recent interview with Rand about the making of Myst, a nearly 2-hour long extended version came out on Friday.

The Digital Antiquarian wrote a detailed essay on the history of (the original) Myst, in the context of what people were playing in 1993.

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20th Mysterium, Day 3

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 22:03:52 +0000

The third day of Mysterium has come, and alas it is the last. If you could not be present, remember that you can follow the convention live on Twitch and Discord.

The day started at around 10:00 pm, with the Mystcraft panel (hosted by Dan ‘Floydman’): a Minecraft mod written and maintained by XCompWiz based on the Myst universe, letting the player crafting descriptive and linking books with actual symbols. Add-ons are available (the ‘Yeesha magic’) that allow special effects like rain. Mystcraft requires Minecraft 1.12.2, not the latest version; the plan is to ultimately update the mod to the latest version. XCompWiz also made a mod named LookingGlass, that allows to create live views of the ages, but is not currently updated to the version required by Mystcraft.

At around 11:00 pm, at the What Could ̶A̶t̶r̶u̶s̶ You Build? panel, Mike ‘RIUM+’ Ando showcased the latest of his many Myst universe projects: a (relatively) easy to build, self-adjusting D’ni chronometer, which he used as an example of how, with enough perseverance and will to learn, anyone can complete similar project, now more than ever thanks to online resources that can streamline anything from programming to designing and ordering circuit boards.

RIUM+ also revealed the precise definition of the D’ni span (twice the length of a pendulum with a period of 5 prorahntee is 5 spans, equal to 4.82 m or 15.8 ft), and noted some incredible coincidences in D’ni and surface units.

After the lunch break, at 1:45 pm, the Myst Documentary panel (hosted by Phillip Shane) showed some clips of the upcoming documentary that, while chronicling the making of Firmament, will also tell the story of the creation of the Myst series, and the unique community that has grown around it.

At 3:15 pm it was time for the Closing Ceremonies: the Committee wrapped up the weekend, asking feedback from the crowd, and concluded the convention in style by giving great prizes to the winners of the puzzle games.

And so the 20th Mysterium Convention was over. Some attendees had to leave right then, some stayed for the night, chilling out with new and old friends, chatting about games, puzzles, and ideas.

Unlike previous editions, this time no city was announced for the next edition; it will be announced by September.

Once again, kudos to the Mysterium Committee, that did an astounding job at organising and managing the event, from moving more than 200 people to the Cyan HQ and back, to getting four of the best composers in the gaming industry in the same room.

Looking forward to next year!

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