Author Archive: Shadow Dan

Mile High Mysterium

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Dan

Mysterium will be in a hotel, not on top of a mountain

Greetings from your Mysterium 2022 chair! You’ve probably seen my name on some blog posts and announcements over the past few years, and I’m looking forward to welcoming you all to Denver next summer! That said, we have quite a bit to announce regarding next year’s event.

Dates

This is probably the information you all are most looking for. We can officially announce Mysterium 2022 will be August 12-14, so feel free to start planning! We will be returning to our traditional in-person schedule with events being most of the day Friday and Saturday and ending around noon on Sunday.

Theme and T-shirt designs

Mysterium 2022’s theme will be based around Myst III: Exile, celebrating its 21st birthday next year (so buy it a beer while you’re in town!) with a particular emphasis on Voltaic (think Colorado’s red rock and canyons). With that we are also opening submissions for t-shirt designs. If you’re looking for ideas, aside from this year’s theme, Colorado is particularly famous for its mountains. We will also favorably look upon any design incorporating Blucifer, Denver International Airport’s demon horse sculpture. See our submissions page for more information.

Survey Highlights

Thank you to everyone who filled out the Mysterium 2021 survey. We hope you all like the more streamlined format relative to previous years. A few recurring items we noticed:
  • Rand Miller’s let’s play was really popular. We can see if he’d be up for doing something like this again, as well as adding Robyn to the party!
  • People appreciate the opportunity online activities give when it’s impossible to be physically present. Going forward we will look into some hybrid events that are held both in-person and online.
  • Back-to-back panels are tiring. When we run panels in the future we’ll plan for short breaks between them.

Starry Expanse

We additionally received several survey responses asking for an update on Starry Expanse. While Mysterium provides a platform for announcements, we cannot guarantee regular presentations or updates on specific topics. Future updates regarding Starry Expanse are solely at Cyan’s discretion.

We’ll have plenty more to share in the coming months, including more details about next year and additional participation opportunities.

Until then,
Dan
Mysterium 2022 Chair

Last Call for T-Shirts

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We hope you all enjoyed this year’s online Mysterium! While we couldn’t be together in person, it did mean we could bring in special guests we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.

T-shirts

We still have most sizes available in women’s cut t-shirts, so if you want one, order it now from our store page! We’ll be closing the shop on August 15. If you ordered a shirt, we will be shipping that later this month.

Livestream Videos

All videos from this year’s Mysterium are now available on YouTube and Twitch. You can find the complete playlist here (YouTube) or here (Twitch). This includes the Myst Documentary video that was previously interrupted during the stream.

Survey

If you registered for Mysterium, you will be receiving a survey in the next few days. Please fill it out – it gives us valuable feedback on what worked, what didn’t work, and what you’d like to see at future conventions.

Committee Volunteers

Mysterium doesn’t happen without the help of our amazing all-volunteer staff. If you enjoy Mysterium and would like us to continue to be able to put on a fun event, please consider helping out by volunteering with the Mysterium Committee. It can be as large or small a commitment as you’d like – even just assisting behind the scenes or running a single event would be a big help! If you think you might be interested or just have questions about ways to help out, send us a message via our Contact page.

We’ll have some more news soon about Mysterium 2022, including dates and t-shirt design submissions.

–The Mysterium Committee

Almost Time!

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Mysterium is less than a week away! We have even more guests to announce, as well as some last minute information you’ll want to know.

Schedule

We published the schedule a couple weeks ago, but just in case anyone hasn’t seen it yet, check it out on our Schedule page. Links to the streams for each event on Twitch and YouTube will be up there before Mysterium begins.

Myst IV Panel Questions

Reminder: we’re taking questions in advance for the Myst IV panel featuring Meinert Hansen and Brian Wrench. We cannot guarantee that we will take any questions during the panel itself, so if you have something to ask, submit it by Thursday, July 15, using this form.

Mysterium Shirts

You may have seen a cryptic announcement regarding a couple t-shirt designs in Myst Online. Well, the second of those is the Mysterium 2021 t-shirt! All you have to do is login to your Relto any time between July 16th and July 23rd and the shirt will be in your wardrobe.

Special Guests

Yep, there are even more special guests!
  • Eric Anderson is a Cyan veteran, involved with Uru, Myst, and Obduction
  • Blake Bjerke rejoined Cyan last year and is continuing work on both Myst 2020 and Firmament
  • Abner Coimbre previously worked at the Kennedy Space Center and now helps to streamline work for the team at Cyan
  • Brandon Collins started in QA at Cyan and moved to development for Obduction, Myst 2020, and Firmament
  • Mark “Chogon” DeForest started with Cyan way back in 1995 and has since been involved in almost every Cyan project
  • Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn has been creating content for Uru since 2007 and helps others learn how to create their own ages
  • Hannah Gamiel has been involved in business development, production, and programming, and is currently the Development Director at Cyan
  • Eleri Hamilton is a leader at Inkworks Productions and continues to work on the Unwritten role-playing game
  • Veronica Hamilton is the primary developer for Unwritten and runs the game monthly on Twitch
  • Mike Hines helped create the engine used for realMyst and Uru and is now an Art Lead at Oculus
  • John “Marten” Johns originally joined Uru Obsession in 2003 and now volunteers for the OpenUru project
  • Adam “Hoikas” Johnson is a core developer for the open source Uru client
  • Karl Johnson has been with Cyan since Uru as a tester, producer, and engineer
  • Keith “Tweek” Lord has been tweaking Uru since 2004. He also loves waffles.
  • Autumn Palfenier is an animator with Cyan who has been involved in a wide range of projects from indie to AAA
  • Darryl “dpogue/Paradox” Pogue is focused on porting Uru to both MacOS and Linux
  • Katie “Kha’tie” Postma is a fixture in the Myst community, formerly with Cyan and now Social Media Manager for the Myst Documentary.
  • Paul “rarified” Richards is a coordinator for fan content and code changes in Myst Online
  • Derrick Robinson has been in Cyan’s art department for more than a decade and is currently Art Director
  • Bill Slease served multiple roles with Cyan ranging from art to game design to content direction
  • Josh Van Veldhuizen has been with Cyan since 2008 and is currently QA Manager
That’s it for announcements. We hope you’ll join us online next weekend!

–The Mysterium Committee

Registration is Open!

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Hello! Hopefully some of you have been able to rejoin society as things begin to reopen for the Summer.

Myst IV Panel Questions

As we mentioned in our previous post, we have Brian Wrench and Meinert Hansen joining us this year for a panel on Myst IV: Revelation. To facilitate question gathering for this panel, we have decided to request questions in advance. Feel free to ask anything, as long as it’s on-topic. Submit questions using this form by July 15. Currently this is the only panel for which we’re planning to require pre-submitted questions. If that changes, we will give plenty of advance notice.

Marker Missions

Since we won’t be together in person, our usual marker missions involving markers scattered around the hotel won’t be possible this year. Instead, we are running one in Myst Online! If you aren’t familiar with Myst Online, that’s ok! We put together a guide for you. The game itself is also free! There are some steps that you’ll need to do to prep for marker mission participation, and that part can be time consuming, so don’t wait! See our Marker Missions page for instructions and additional information.

Registration

Registration for Mysterium 2021 Online is now open! As with last year, all events will be streamed, and registration is not required to watch; however, you will need to register (it’s free again this year) to participate in any interactive content. See our Registration page for details.

Special Guests

We have a few more special guests to announce:
  • Chuck Carter helped create the artwork for Myst. He is currently working on a playable version of the original concept for the Selenitic Age using Unreal Engine 5.
  • Rand Miller co-founded Cyan over 30 years ago, bringing us the worlds of Myst and its sequels, as well as the upcoming game Firmament.
  • Philip Shane is an award winning documentary filmmaker, working on such films as Being Elmo and The Beatles Revolution. Myst fans know him for his upcoming Myst Documentary.

Check out their full bios and the complete list of guests on our Special Guests page.

We’ll have more to announce in the coming weeks. Hope to see you all online next month!
–The Mysterium Committee

Special Guests

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Shorah! This will be a long one, as we have quite a bit to announce, including an important update regarding the Mysterium 2021 hotel.

Schedule

We are still working out the schedule for the convention, but the bulk of events will be on Saturday and Sunday. Friday content, if any, will only be in the evening (likely no earlier than 5 PM Pacific Time).

Special Guests

As with last year, we will be inviting some special guests to speak at our online convention, and we’re pleased to announce the first batch:
  • Meinert Hansen has a slew of credits in games, TV, and movies, but Myst fans should know him as the art director for Myst IV.
  • Robyn Miller needs no introduction, but you of course know him as the co-founder of Cyan and composer of the scores to Myst, Riven, and Obduction.
  • Brian Wrench now runs a psychotherapy practice in Quebec, but long ago he played Sirrus in Myst IV.
We’ll have more names to announce as the event grows closer. Check out our special guests page for everyone’s full bio.

Event Submissions

We’re still accepting submissions for events, so if you have something you’d like to present, please let us know! We will give priority to events submitted by May 31, but if time allows, we will consider anything submitted as late as June 20.

Mysterium 2021 Hotel

The Westin Alexandria will not be cancelling our room block. While there will be no official events held at the hotel, you may book rooms at the Mysterium rate if you wish using the link on our location page. Note: this also means if you booked a room that it will not automatically be cancelled. You will have to cancel the room yourself via the Marriott website or by phone. This is a change from our previous announcement.

Mysterium 2022

Several people have asked if we would be able to once again push Mysterium in DC out a year. We can say now that we do not have a location set for Mysterium 2022. It is unlikely to be in DC, however, as we will be going through the normal bid review process for various cities around the country.

We’ll have more to announce and more special guests soon. In the meantime continue to stay safe, keep in touch on Discord, and enjoy the upcoming Summer.

—The Mysterium Committee