Thanks once again to everyone for making this year’s Mysterium a success! We had over 800 people registered, and our peak on Twitch was over 6,000 viewers! We have a few updates to share as we wrap up the convention.

T-shirts

If you have been waiting until the last minute to order a t-shirt, well, now is the last minute. We will be closing shirt orders this Saturday (August 22), and the next time you will be able to purchase one will be for Mysterium 2021. If you ordered a shirt, we will be contacting you soon, and we plan to ship orders in September.

Survey

If you registered for Mysterium, you will be receiving a survey by the end of August. 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.

YouTube Videos

All of the videos from the convention are now on YouTube. The official events can be found in this playlist, and the watermelon videos and other fun stuff previously exclusive to Twitch can be found in this playlist.

We’ll have more news on Mysterium 2021 in the coming months. In the meantime, enjoy the last few weeks of summer!

–The Mysterium Committee

Special Guests

• Adrian “Okaydrian” F.E. is a Twitch streamer and gaming host, having interviewed several famous names online as well as at Comic Con, PAX, E3, and the White House.
• Eleri Hamilton is a curator for Cyan’s lore archival project, and a leader at Inkworks Productions and the game Unwritten.
• Veronica Hamilton is the primary developer for Unwritten and part of the leadership at Inkworks Productions, now partnered with Cyan Ventures.
• Claire “Shoom’lah” Hummel’s artwork has been a part of the Myst community for years, including concept art for Obduction and one of the two designs for this year’s convention t-shirt.
• Karl Johnson started with Cyan in 2003. Having served several roles since then, he is currently a developer, paying particular attention to comfort and motion sickness in VR.
• Eva “laughingpineapple” Jucci has contributed a variety of artwork, writings, and cosplays over the years.
• Blake Lewin is a thirty year veteran in the games industry. He helped to revive Uru on Gametap, and wrangled the rights to Myst III and IV back to Cyan from Ubisoft.
• Nate Lewin has handled sound design for numerous games, films, and TV commercials, as well as recording several of his own experimental projects.
• Keith “Tweek” Lord has been contributing artwork to the Myst community for the past 20 years. He also really likes waffles.
• Jamey Scott was the audio director for Myst III with Presto Studios. He is currently the sound designer for the HBO series Raised by Wolves.

See their full bios and the rest of the list on our special guests page.

Streaming & Zoom

There has been some confusion as to the use of Twitch, YouTube, and Zoom. The events on the schedule page are color-coded according to where you’ll find them. Events shown in blue are streamed to both Twitch and YouTube. Events shown in red are streamed exclusively to YouTube. Links can be found on the schedule below each event’s description. None of these items require Zoom to view them.

The third category, green, is for discussion rooms, which will be held on Zoom (think of the un-conferences and casual discussions that typically pop up during an in-person Mysterium). While the Twitch and YouTube streams will be available for public viewing, you will need to be registered for Mysterium, and must download Zoom, to participate in any of those discussion rooms. We will be sending an email to registered attendees later this week with more details on how to join those rooms.

TL;DR – Other than the discussion rooms, everything on the schedule will be viewable through YouTube and Twitch. Zoom is only needed to join discussion rooms.

Also, the nature of an online convention means that we’re able to hold multiple events at the same time this year. Don’t worry, though – all events (except for discussion rooms) will be recorded and posted to YouTube for you to watch later.

Digital Activity Book

As mentioned in previous posts, the activity book we had planned for this year’s Mysterium is available for download in a digital format. Click here to download the activity book, and here for the solutions.

We will provide more information later this year about the printed book for next year’s in-person convention.

Discord Channel Updates

We are reorganizing the Mysterium Discord server with some new channels to use during the convention. To make it easier for you to know where to post, we’re putting everything in a brand new category: Mysterium 2020 Online! The full list of new channels and their descriptions can be found in the #rules channel on the Discord server.

Unwritten @ Mysterium

You might have seen on our calendar that Eleri and Vee will be running an Unwritten campaign during this year’s convention! You still have a couple more days to sign up (please do so by August 5), using this form.

Hope to see you all online this weekend!

–The Mysterium Committee

We have a big announcement: the schedule for this year’s online Mysterium is now live!

Schedule

The official schedule can now be found on the schedule page of our website. Links to our streams on Twitch and/or YouTube can be found under each event. To start the weekend, Philip Shane, the creator of the Myst Documentary, has brought Rand and Robyn Miller together for a special reunion panel the evening of Friday, August 7.

Special Guests

We have quite a few more special guests to announce:

• Eric Anderson is a veteran of Cyan’s art team. He was the Art Director on Obduction, and is currently Cyan’s Creative Director.
• “Moiety” Jean Fioca has been making all variety of crafts for years, both inside and outside the Myst fandom.
• Amy Green has created such Numinous Games titles as That Dragon, Cancer; Untethered; and the upcoming Cyan Ventures collaboration, Area Man Lives.
• Ryan Green has over 18 years of experience in the industry and is currently flexing his artistic muscle with Numinous Games
• Dan Irish has experience from across the spectrum of game development teams. While with Ubisoft, he served as a producer for Myst III.
• Michel Kripalani was the founder and CEO of Presto Studios, bringing us titles such as Myst III and The Journeyman Project.
• Robyn Miller co-founded Cyan with his brother Rand. He worked on Myst, Riven, and Obduction with Cyan, and now experiments with all manner of creative arts.
• Mike Perrotto has over 20 years experience combined in healthcare and software, and specializes in creating accessible video games. He is currently working with Numinous on Area Man Lives.
• Phil Saunders was the Creative Director for Myst III at Presto Studios. He is now known for his concept designs on many major motion pictures.
• Bill Slease held many roles at Cyan during the Uru years. He is now a professor and an author of comedic Arthurian novels.
• Rod Stafford spent 30 years in the film and game industries. While at Cyan, he worked on both Uru and Myst V.
• Ryan “greydragon” Warzecha is Cyan’s resident tiki bar authority. He has worked on games from Uru up to Obduction, and is now Head of Developer Relations for Cyan Ventures.

We’re still not done announcing names! Check out the list so far on our special guests page.

Q&A With Robyn Miller

Philip Shane will host a live Q&A with Myst & Riven co-creator Robyn Miller on Facebook tomorrow afternoon, July 28. You can pre-submit questions on their post here.

Reminders

You still have a few days to send in your Praise Gehn and What Would Atrus Build submissions. We have also extended the deadline to August 2 for discussion topic ideas for our Zoom social rooms during the convention. See our submissions page for details.

-The Mysterium Committee

Special Guests

• Mike “RIUM+” Ando is Mysterium’s resident mad scientist. When not time traveling, he is often found building Myst-inspired creations (and presenting them at Mysterium).
• Geneviève Lord has had a career spanning five different countries across North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. While with Ubisoft in Montreal, she was the producer for Myst IV.
• 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. He is currently kickstarting the Myst Documentary.

Praise Gehn!

Reminders

-The Mysterium Committee

Hopefully you are all staying safe while still enjoying the summer. In some happy news, we have plenty to share about this year’s online convention.

Registration

Registration for our virtual Mysterium is now open! See our registration page for details. There is no charge this year (although donations are certainly appreciated), but registration is required to join our online event. Registration will remain open until August 9, but note for registrations during the convention there may be a delay before you are able to participate.

Special Guests

One of the positives of holding an online convention this year is that we can invite an array of special guests without paying for plane tickets and hotel rooms. We’re pleased to announce the first round of guests for this year.

Remember our guests from Mysterium 2019? Well, all of them are back! That means Russell Brower, Chuck Carter, Tim Larkin, Marty O’Donnell, Katie Postma, and Jack Wall will all be joining us during the weekend:

• Russell Brower is best known for his work on games from Blizzard, including World of Warcraft. He is currently lending his talents to Cyan’s upcoming game, Firmament.
• Chuck Carter helped create the beautiful artwork for Myst. More recently, his new studio, Eager Games, partnered with Cyan to release their first game, Zed, last year.
• Tim Larkin has created music and sound design for several Valve games, including Portal, Portal 2, and DOTA 2, but before that he wrote the scores for both Uru and Myst V.
• Marty O’Donnell is best known for the Halo soundtrack, but of course Myst fans know him as the sound designer for Riven.
• Katie Postma previously worked for Cyan and Ubisoft as the Myst franchise community manager. She is currently Project Manager for the Myst Documentary.
• Jack Wall, known for his scores to game franchises such as Mass Effect and Call of Duty, contributed the haunting music in Myst III and IV.

We have quite a few more to announce as we get closer to the event, and we’ll be updating our special guests page regularly with new names. Stay tuned, because they get even more exciting from here!

Hotel Room Cancellations

If you booked a room at the Mysterium rate for the in-person 2020 convention, your reservation should have been cancelled by now. People have generally not been receiving email notifications of the cancellations, so check your Marriott Bonvoy account if you have one, or look up your reservation using the booking reference you received when you reserved your room.

Also, if you previously bought a registration for the in-person convention, you should have received an email from us with instructions on refunds and rollovers. If you didn’t, please get in touch ASAP!

Reminders

Reminder that submissions for Pass The Book and Open Mic Night are still open, as are T-Shirt pre-orders. We are also extending the deadline for Pass The Book to July 12th, to give you an extra weekend to record your videos.

We’ll have more to announce – and more special guests to introduce – soon!

– The Mysterium Committee