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

Hello! We have some news to share regarding future Mysterium locations.

Location Bids

Have you ever wanted Mysterium to come to your city? Well read on, because we’re changing up how we handle bids.

In the past, we’ve opened bids one year at a time. We’ve decided to change that, and bids are now accepted year-round. Starting with Mysterium 2022, bids will be accepted at any time up to April 1st of the year before the convention. For 2022, that means bids will be due by April 1, 2021. You can find all the details on our Location Bidding page.

If this seems daunting, it shouldn’t. You are not expected to gather every possible piece of information at this point. The goal of a bid document is simply to explain why your city would be a good place to host – and why you would be a good person to lead – Mysterium for that year. In particular, your city should be relatively accessible and offer hotels at a reasonable rate. We’ve provided sample bid documents from Mysterium 2020 for you to use as a reference. Good luck, and we’d love to bring the event to your city!

Submission Reminder

We’re still accepting submissions for activity book pages, events, and writing & artwork for Mysterium 2020. The next deadline is for the activity book on April 19, so you still have a week for that! See the Submissions page for more information.

– Mysterium 2020 Triumvirate: Capella, Drew, and Dan

Happy Spring! We have a few items to share.

Pins

We’re pleased to announce we have selected three pin designs for this year. The first is a lamp by Xemylixa, based on the ones in Kirel and Serat. The second is a pinecone from Obduction by laughingpineapple, and finally, we have a bomb from Obduction by Rayne.

We plan to include these with early registration (register by May 31).

COVID-19

We have received several questions about the coronavirus and its impact on Mysterium. The truth is we do not currently know how this will play out. You may have heard some events this summer have already been cancelled, such as E3. However, those are predominantly large-scale events that require substantial advance notice of a cancellation. Fortunately, we are a bit more nimble and can wait a few more months before making a decision. We have no plans to cancel or postpone the event at this time and we hope that by August we will all be able to go to Mysterium. In the meantime the best thing you can do is follow the recommendations of the WHO, or your national or local health department.

Submission Reminder

We’re still accepting submissions for activity book pages, events, and writing & artwork. The next deadline is for the activity book on April 19. See the Submissions page for more information.

We’ll post another update soon. Everyone stay safe, avoid crowds, and wash your hands! Maybe use this time of social distancing to catch up on any Cyan games you haven’t played.

– Mysterium 2020 Triumvirate: Capella, Drew, and Dan