As expected, Mysterium has been a blast so far. Sadly, a bunch of people couldn’t come (especially including River, who I met last year and who was awesome). Still, its a great group. Friday was a lot of just hanging out, talking to people, and the start of the heek tournament. There was much call for my electronic version; now that people know its close to done, I think there may be a riot if I don’t finish it for next year, heh. Friday night, the Great Tree (a group that I am technically a member of, even though I have sort of disappeared) threw a dance party, complete with fire-marbles (glowy sphere things), and a disco ball. Of course, the disco ball was not automated so people (often me) had to go and give it a spin from time to time. MJ was DJing, and GreyDragon led various dance things (dance-off, conga line, etc). No, all I joined was the conga line, don’t go thinking crazy things ;p
Today, Saturday, was the trip to Cyan Worlds HQ. CYAN WORLDS HQ! Oh, that was just a dream come true. Literally, I’ve been wanting to make it to Cyan for years; these people are my inspiration for going into gaming! Rand came out and gave us a tour of the building, even digging things out of the vault. We got to see the original prop for the Riven book that Atrus is writing in at the end of Myst and start of Riven. It was a dictionary :D. I got all sorts of great pictures. They also had a ‘gift shop’ open in a back room, selling all sorts of memorabilia. In fact, it was all stuff that we consider to be super rare and hard to find…
…They had big boxes of the stuff. That hardcover copy of the Book of Atrus I found at Powells? They had a box of that one, along with the other two. So I bought the full set of three, along with some other stuff I thought I’d never get to see.
Then we went over to the other building, which was built as they ramped up URU, expecting to have such a huge team. Of course, they did, but then they all had to be let go progressively as Cyan had less and less funds. They aren’t even using the building at the moment, but they got the AC going just for us (102 degrees today). We had a bit of BBQ in there (no D’nied Eggs, sadly), then a few talks. First was Blade and Eleri (as Echo and JD Barnes), along with Brian Fioca (founder of the Greta Tree) and the Cyan employee who had played Douglas Sharper back in the days of URU Live. Yes, most people reading this don’t know what I’m talking about, but *shrug*.
edit: that employee was, in fact, Ryan Miller. One of the Miller brothers ;D
That panel talked about the experience of interactive storytelling and that sort of thing; essentially, as discussion on practical applications of Dean’s storytelling/ARG class.
Next, Rand went up there to do a Q&A. It was all very interesting (and recorded on video). Essentially, as far as open sourcing Myst Online, they were working on it until an actual (small) paid job came in. He said something like ‘as soon as we run out of stuff that’ll make us some cash, we’ll get back on that’. He’s really cool to listen to in person.
Before the first panel, I had been in a short line to talk to Rand and get him to sign my new hardcover BoA, but they pulled him away for the start of the panels just as it was my turn. So he throws his hand over my shoulder and says, “It always sucks to be the next in line like that doesn’t it? Make sure you jump to the front when we’re done”. Got a handshake out of it though. Then he did make a point of finding me when the panels were over, signed my book, got a picture, and we had a chat. I thanked him (and Cyan as a whole) for the inspiration to go into this field, to which he replied “are you sure you want to be thanking me? *chuckle*”. Talked about the program at WPI and such, and as I left he said, “well, if you ever decide it was a bad decision… this conversation never happened and you can’t come back here”
Rand is awesome!
We then did What Would Atrus Build, with my team making a Quab washer. We also made a quad dryer, and used some spare foam to make a Squee-Gee. I had to write up a pitch for the judging that was pushed back to tomorrow (Rand had to leave, and we overstayed our welcome by a lot so the committee will just judge again). Due to a joking pitch I made this morning for the Squee-Blower my group made last year, I am now forced to do this pitch in Billy Mays style. Unfortunately (for me), it will be recorded.
Then, we left Cyan and went back to the hotel, where a bunch of people gave up on the GPS marker hunt and went to some amusement park. It was fine because the teams were a nice size in the end. We drove off to a park to do the marker hunt, which my team won due to a tripplet of us hunting markers, and a good team of puzzle solvers figuring out the coordinates as we worked. The thing is, the GPS is only so-so, and there were lots of trees in the park. We walked all the way up a decrepit stone staircase and along some private property to come to a barbed-wire, chain-link fence whose other side was reachable from where we started… we had to schlep all the way back. Then someone got the idea that high-ground would be good, so we climbed this super-steep hill covered in hollow dirt and loose rocks, only to find nothing at all (not even much better GPS reception. I thought I might kill myself trying to get down from there! But, between solving all ten puzzles (even if we didn’t find the markers at the solution coordinates), the markers we found, and being the first to solve the special puzzles, we won by three points.
Then, it was 9:30, and we hadn’t had any dinner, so we found a Wendys and got back to the Hotel. Sat around, messing with people watching our live video feed, and that’s about it. Judging and closing ceremonies tomorrow, and maybe some star-gazing trip for anyone who sticks around after the con’s end.
-K