TCT 48: In Review

AROUND THE WORLD

and across the ages, this is The Cavern Today. I'm your host, Ankh Angel.

Cyan has certainly been busy. Not only have they been dropping regular screenshots and

details of their work on the upcoming remake of Riven, they've also confirmed the game will

launch sometime this year. Needless to say, the embers of excitement in the fanbase have

been firmly stoked. For this, our Spring 2024 edition, we'll be discussing all the details

from recent announcements that have us most excited, as well as taking a moment to reflect

on the past year, which was incredibly eventful for us here at TCT. We'll also be bringing you

Episode 2 of Estos Cinturro's Dunny History Series Deep Dive, Sherry's That's Just Me,

of course, original music by Sasha Strange, and more.

News from the Cavern has been a little quiet recently, so for this episode we'll forgo our

usual Cavern news segment and jump straight into our TCT Talk Roundtable. Without further ado,

I'll go ahead and turn the mic over to the rest of the team. Take it away, folks.

You're listening to TCT Talk, our Roundtable chatterbox about the goings-on in the Cavern

community. This month we have with us Ankh Angel, Dalton Starbine, Estos Cinturro,

Dorote, also known as Whoopi, and we have Morris.

Hello, everyone.

And me, Sherry. So, what's up?

What's up? Well, it's been a year. That's what's up.

It has been quite a year.

Holy buckets.

Oh my goodness.

Buckets and buckets of news.

Nah, nothing's happened.

Yeah, it's all a figment of your imagination. It's all a big Truman Show lie. No, Ribbon Remake.

We're getting lots of teasers about that. Lots of sneak previews.

Mm-hmm.

Science men.

Mm-hmm.

Really, really mouthy lately.

Big info drop recently as, A, it started when they put it up for listing in various storefronts,

but then gradually more and more every day almost we've been getting more and more screenshots

coming out about it, more info coming out about it, as well as a new title for the game,

which is sort of tantalizingly this version of Riven is not just called Riven, nor is it called

Riven the sequel to Myst, but is in fact called Riven.

Riven the sequel to Myst, but is in fact called Riven the sequel to Myst, but is in fact called Riven.

New discoveries from the Lost Duny Empire, which is very exciting.

Beyond the Duny Ultra World.

Yes.

Wait a second. Did Chris Metzen go to Cyan and just bunk in or what?

It's like, look, man, sometimes you just got a hot box of maglev with some dank heatrum venom, you know what I mean?

At least it isn't the Myst saga. It's like, you know, in WoW you have the World Soul saga. It's like, okay, right on.

At least the title means something about what's going on.

Of course, yeah, which of course seems to imply that Cyan is very much heavily leaning in here on, yes, this is a remake of Riven.

Yes, it's, you know, we're going to see the world from the old game, but there's a little more to it than the world you experienced last time.

I am so excited.

I am as well.

Especially seeing.

I think it was, was it a Game Informer article?

Yeah, that Game Informer article was, it was beautiful, honestly.

Like, I loved, I loved everything about that.

And all of the little hidden images that they had in there.

Like, you had to go to the gallery to see all of the images that were available.

But just, it was just, oh gosh, I'm so, like, Gann's eyebrows have texture.

Yeah, it looks like they're really getting their money's worth out of UE5.

Yeah, but there's the whole Raspberry thing.

Are they going to include a, you know, from guys who played him?

We need a Raspberry.

We need to bully Rand.

We need a Raspberry.

The whole thing is, I just really want to hear Gann say, Sirius, you're my favorite grandson.

Oh, now we're just getting into favoritism.

It is, it is funny because, again, actually, that's a good question.

The original, I know, obviously, this is not a priority for them.

And I think, actually.

Maybe they made a comment to this effect at Mysterium, if I remember correctly.

But it is a valid question of, Riven had a whole bunch of little Easter eggs in there.

And it's a valid question of, are they going to maybe recreate some of those Easter eggs?

Like, like, again, singing opera.

If everybody's seen that clip of Gann singing opera.

Yeah.

You know?

If not, they should have by now.

They should spend the time to recreate that with the model.

You know, they should actually ship it with a vintage outtake.

You know, I mean, it's one of those things that going up on YouTube with the video game archive, I'm sorry, I'm butchering the name.

I'm terrible at this.

Oh, it's true.

That whole reel that we saw at Mysterium has since been posted to to their YouTube.

Exactly.

The video.

I can't remember the exact name of the video game.

Preservation Society or something.

Something to that effect.

I don't remember the exact name.

The Video Game History Foundation.

It's still on there.

I'm sorry.

That's the one.

Yes.

Yeah.

That whole clip that we talked about that we that we laughed so much about is now up.

Cavern today.

We're professionals.

Ladies and gentlemen.

It's been a long year.

Don't worry.

We'll include the link below.

It's still possible.

I may vanish during an ice storm right now.

Who knows?

Oh, this is all on the way.

That's why you bring your relto.

You can panic link out of a blizzard.

Yep.

Never know when you need to panic link.

That's right.

It's just attached to my belt.

So the video game history foundation for absolutely butchering their name.

Not once, but twice.

You're doing very important work.

Thank you for everything.

My thanks to talk for being the one.

To.

Do it instead of me.

Like, can I just let my mind explode for a minute here?

We're talking about going back to the discussion of Yen and the way that they've been bringing

this background, bringing new life to this character, specifically how they've worked.

They're working with the they're working with SAG AFTRA for one, and they've got somebody

who has studied John Keston's movements from the original.

And then with that, they're able to.

Bring that that performance back to life while maintaining John Keston's original voice.

Like, that's that's amazing.

Like, that is that is a very special level of dedication to the original performance and the original artists that you really don't see a whole lot of.

It just shows to me that they are as invested in making sure that what made Riven special the first time is still going to be there.

It feels like like Rand really meant it when he said that to us, Riven is sacred.

It seems like they've really been treating it that way from all the previews we've seen.

This is absolutely stunningly beautiful, gorgeously detailed.

It's like the opposite of the Half-Life Source situation.

It's like this is everything Starry Expanse was going to be, basically.

And then a whole lot more with the new revelations from.

The Duny Empire, which I think is a really cool hook.

And that's what I like is sacred, but not immutable.

Mm hmm.

One of the first things they did once they got back with Vanderwind, they sat down and they figured out everything that Ginn did in the 30 years between the Book of Atrus and Riven.

And like, that is what for one, my mind's blown that they didn't already have that just because of their the attention to detail that they.

Have always had.

Yeah.

Now that they have that and that they're using that to inform these changes that we're seeing in Riven.

I am.

I am so excited to see.

It thrills my inner archaeologist to bits.

I was an ancient societies kid at the library.

So the whole exercise of seeing, okay, what do we know now?

And how does that change things?

Just sets my brain on fire.

In the most exciting way that you just don't get in games, stories.

The don't work the same way that Miss does.

Well, okay.

The only problem I have with all of this and I don't mean to be a naysayer or do me person,

but do you remember how they tried to bring Peter Cushing back into the star Wars universe?

And at the end scene of like, was the episode three where you've got Hayden, Christianson walking in as Darth Vader,

And then they tried to fit a guy, they tried to make him look like Peter Cushing and you just looked at him and went, no, because that was not Peter Cushing at all.

And, you know, Peter Cushing has had more work in Star Wars, you know, posthumously than he did in the entire run before he died.

So I'm just, I'm just really kind of worried that they're going to try to kind of Peter Cushing this and just please know, I'm just praying to the maker that it really comes off well.

Well, that's what I think, that's what I think struck me so well about this approach, the way it's been described so far.

You know, when you have an actor that's passed away that you can't, you know, use for new footage or performance anymore.

And also the situation going to, moving to 3D.

It's, you know, there's a number of different ways that they could have gone about doing this.

And this, to me, feels like the most respectful way they possibly could have done it.

Right?

I'm recreating the performance from scratch by studying what he did and not re-recording his audio, but in fact, using the same audio.

That feels like, to me, the most respectful way they possibly could have done it.

And that gives me a lot of faith in their approach, for sure.

But still not having it puppeted by a computer.

There's still.

There's still a live performer.

Yes.

With it, looking back at the article, it looks like they're doing facial motion capture.

So there will be real facial movements being used to control the digital John Keston's movements.

So there will be a live performance the whole way through.

And it's that touch of artistry that I think is the real core of what it has to be to respect it.

It's not just animating a couple.

It's not just animating a couple of lines over for something.

There's real artistry going on.

I agree with that.

You know, it's just, I just want to be cautious.

Because when you guys were talking about that, because I have not followed along.

Because I kind of want to be in the no spoilers camp on this one.

Legit.

Yeah.

So it's one of those things where, you know, I love hearing about it.

But it's one of those things I want to turn my eyeballs off because I don't want to see it.

Because Myst, for all of its grace.

Great storytelling is still such a visual game.

It's you sit there and you just have your socks knocked off with how beautiful it is.

You know, it's it's just a thing.

So, you know, that's just me, though.

I will say, though, every every every new they be putting out new ones almost every day, too, on their Twitter feed.

New new pictures or renders or even just objects that they want to render every new little render that comes out.

Just looks so interesting.

So cool.

As beautiful as, if not more beautiful than the game that I remember, you know, yeah, it's like that meme, like you're just beautiful as the day I lost you.

Yeah, that's it.

You know, like if you go back, you know, there's there's color compression and then you kind of think about it.

And this is kind of how it lives in your memory.

It's like the opposite of would you love me even if I were a worm?

But I love like because there's there's things that are fascinating and how similar they are and how beautiful exactly how we remember there.

And there's some things that are fascinating and how different they are.

Right.

So like one example being I find it really interesting as far as differences that we've seen so far.

They're leaning really heavily into even just with the sort of cover art that they've shown so far.

This the fish symbol.

Right.

Which in the game was always sort of, you know, we saw it on the side, but it's this rotated version of the fish symbol.

And it seems like they're intentionally saying, hey, look, doesn't the back of this fish symbol also look like all the gold domes in the game?

Isn't that interesting?

Like they're being coy about it.

And kind of the telescope as well.

Yeah, we get the gold dome and the telescope and it's just it's an angle they really haven't explored before.

Yeah.

It's it's really exciting.

Yeah.

How is there definitely hinting in ways there the directions they're expanding things?

Well, you know, you know what that fish in that orientation also kind of looks like, right?

A fish.

Well, what if you took it and then you just stretched it up a bit?

So like you stretched it vertically.

OK.

Now stretch it vertically more.

OK.

No more.

OK.

Now what does it look like?

Yeah.

Oh.

Yeah.

I carry my Moiti dagger that we got at Mysterium.

I carry that thing on my key chain.

I never go anywhere without it.

It sits next to my pocket knife.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah.

I hope I hope everybody saved their maglev ticket because we're going to be needing it soon.

I'm actually looking at it right now.

Moiti dagger.

Such a simple but effective.

It's just so cool looking and such a like visually you look at that and you know, it is such an iconic design.

Yeah, like what is what part of what makes it so powerful?

So everything feels so perfectly of Riven, you know, like really doesn't feel like it belongs anywhere else.

It's like made its.

This is what Riven is, you know, it's the vendor wind.

Yep, it really is.

There's a tremendous cohesion of vision.

And it's so interesting seeing a lot of these locations that we're seeing in HD for the first time, which is really, really cool.

Of course, that famous hallway shot with the, you know, the red glass domes with the elevator not there, which was on the back of the Riven box.

But you couldn't actually see in Riven.

Yeah, of course.

Of course, keeping with tradition, that's also one of the front renders that they show.

And now you can actually see what's outside of the hallway.

Not lava, it's rock, but it's very cool looking.

And I always kind of imagined that it was like some kind of mirrored gold trick of the light, like it was kind of a shiny golden material with water reflecting upwards or something.

Yeah, because it seems like that whole space is very confusing.

It seems like you go through that water and then it's just, oh, we're under the water, you know, back in a dry.

I remember in the book it's described as being weird, too.

I think it's supposed to be like intentionally weird to be like a display of spiritual power kind of thing.

Mm-hmm.

Well, the water reacts to heat, right?

So, I mean, I don't think we were necessarily far off that thinking that, oh, it's lava, but no, it probably is some kind of a heat source, particularly when you think about what's above this particular hallway, right?

Yeah.

Because that's Survey Island.

True.

Yeah.

All I'm thinking about, sorry, guys, I was sitting next to Esto when this happened, so my word, it's one of those things that I just, I have to say Esto's swoon word, Garo Hefti.

It was such a moment.

And just watching him swoon and going, and leaning over to me going, it's Garo Hefti.

It was a thing, man.

That was a moment for him.

It was just, you know, it's one of those things, like meeting Rand.

My mind is permanently blown from that reveal.

Like, I remember, like, there were oohs and aahs throughout the whole audience, but I was like, oh, my God.

There were oohs and aahs in chat.

You must not have seen me.

We all had the exact same reaction.

I was sitting next to you, Duncan, but no, I did not see you.

My eyes were glued to the hunk of metal that Rand was holding.

Well, because, like, Sherry saw you drooling over it.

Meanwhile, I was also drooling over it, but my form of it was a lot more muted because I just kind of stopped moving.

You're in the headlights, huh?

It was just like...

Barely comprehending what you...

Yeah, like, I knew what I was seeing because it was exactly the way it's described, but I couldn't believe it.

That that was what I was staring at, like, right in front of me, my own actual...

Actual eyeballs.

I mean, so I feel it is journalistic.

It is my journalistic responsibility to state that we don't know with 100% certainty that that's what it is.

We have a very strong suspicion that that's what it is.

And I tried to, like, coax that out of Rand to, like, confirm, is this Garo?

Because I was standing there in that line thinking, I can ask one question and I have two.

How do I...

Couch them together into, like, a single question and tried to get him, get his confirmation.

Is this Garo Hefti and what does it mean?

And, I mean, the answer was, we don't know what it means.

We kind of know what it means.

We kind of know what it means, but we don't know what it means.

I, for one, am absolutely tickled by the implication that Gen didn't know what it meant either.

And he was basically winging it this entire time and basically almost blew himself up.

And that...

That amuses me to no end.

Yeah.

Just throwing whatever he could at the wall and seeing what's up.

Absolute mad science.

Mm-hmm.

And absolutely tracks, like, 100%.

No clue what the hell he's doing.

Dude, it's like letting a non-coder onto your website code.

No wonder he's such a script kid.

The script kid.

Oh, man.

No, but note to Jeff from Cyan.

Jeff, please make the...

What are they?

Like a fleece blanket with the Garo Hefti symbol on it for Dalkin and Esto

so they can tie it around their neck and run around their houses like, you know, superheroes going,

I'm Dutty Man.

So, yeah, they need that in their lives.

Please, Jeff.

Think about that.

Well, I think this is as good a topic as any for us to pivot from Riven to our general look back at 2020.

2023, because it's been quite a journey for us over here at TCT.

You know, towards the end of 2022, we started thinking about, you know, Mysterium is going to be in Spokane.

Do we want to go?

We'd have a chance to have TCT at Cyan HQ.

Yeah.

You know, we started talking about it, and it was a journey from there on out of planning and practicing the format and getting out there.

And what a crazy year it's been for us.

Yeah.

Today, huh?

Hey, we did.

TCT live.

And that was a, that was a thing.

Yeah.

So as you, as our listeners may have probably sussed out by now, the reason that we did that TCT live podcast when we did is because that was our way of experimenting with that format that we knew we were going to have to do if we were going to do a live show at Mysterium.

We were going to have to do something like that, but we wanted to use that as a, as a testing bed to make sure that was going to work.

And sure enough, it worked pretty, pretty dang.

Well, we all had a lot of fun and our visitors had a lot of fun to everybody that showed up to the tavern today hood.

We might do that again sometime in the future.

We're not sure, you know, but, uh, it was a lot of fun.

I think we absolutely can.

Uh, one thing that I would recommend for, you know, it might be a little inside baseball, I guess, but just moving forward, we definitely want to be, be certain that we don't have too many people doing that at time.

Cause we want to make sure that everybody has time to speak.

Yes.

God bless you, man.

Hey, uh, but, uh, as I remember it, it was me in February going, I got my ticket.

Who's going with me?

And I'm like, you got, you guys have to come with me.

You have to, cause we have to do the show live.

And so, yes, but we did it.

I was so proud, but Hey, just so everybody knows I have lost 20 pounds since the recording of that video.

I am going down.

I did it by eliminating high fructose corn syrup from.

Oh yeah, that'll do it.

Difficult as heck.

But the whole thing is, is that, you know, next time we do a show at Mysterium, I'm going to be a little bit more svelte because the, yeah, man, I was like, Oh, look at two ton Tessie.

That's just bad anyway.

So yeah, but that was so much fun.

And the lady who was sitting next to me in the airplane going, are you sure it's not a cult?

It was like, yes, I'm positive.

It's not a cult.

I mean, we have, we have that meme that's floating around the community.

Whereas like, have you finished?

Missed and in the little girl with their eyes welling up with tears going, never, you know, we have a T-shirt idea.

Are you sure it's not a cult?

Oh my God.

Are you sure it's not a cult?

That's just begging to be a T-shirt.

It really is.

I will wear it.

I would wear it.

Yeah, I know.

But you know, it's one of those things.

We got to give Jeff first crack at these, you know, it's not a cult.

But.

But yeah.

That's true.

But hey, Morris, is it about time to release our TCT shirts to the masses?

That would be fun.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's do it.

Definitely.

A couple extra cents.

Pay some of the server costs would not be, not be bad.

Okay.

All right.

We're already here first, folks.

Yeah.

Sorry.

As you guys all know, if you, if you, if you'd like a TCT related clothing,

in Uru, of course, you can pick those up in the new messengers pub,

but we're talking in real life, maybe producing some.

I think way back in the day.

Oh, right.

That was a long story with shipping things that definitely weren't

Dawkins fault, but.

Listen, listen.

Okay.

I gave them very clear instructions.

I even told them to, to not stop at the cleft.

Like they normally do.

I said, okay, it was all listed out.

Wasn't my fault.

We got to get them the, uh, as to that old concept of a quick disposable linking

book with a stencil you can quickly draw in to get them back.

Yeah.

I think, uh, I think I still have a, have a couple from tweak

directions laid out in the club saying, you know, FedEx follow these instructions.

Gotta teach the FedEx guy how to use a linking book.

I'm sure they can figure it out.

Uh, well, Dawkins got all the alternative linking strategies, so yeah.

Oh yeah.

We were just discussing the practicality of the people's elbow earlier.

Yeah.

Hmm.

There's also, uh, the high heel, you know, both your arms are fall, you know,

uh, five, six, seven, eight.

If we determined if momentum carries across a link, I, that is a good question.

Don't.

I've always kind of wondered, no, you don't really have a way of testing that.

What if you accidentally sat on a linking panel?

Ooh, uh, you don't want to know let's see gloves gloves work, right?

So, uh, your, your butt in pants would work, right?

I guess it's, it's, it's just, it reminds me of that Pixar short lifted where the

guys, you know, he's, uh, abducting the human from his house and the little alien

gets him in the window.

But all you see is a.

His butt coming through the window and you see his butt crack a little bit.

I mean, that that's just what I'm thinking about getting pulled through the, uh,

linking panel, be like, oh, but first.

Alternative linking strategies, alternative body contact linking strategies.

Yes.

That was so funny.

The whole, even just with like open Uru stuff, at least me, I'd be getting over

the course of 2023 and more and more involved with those guys over there.

It's such a fun, uh, collaboration.

Uh, collaborative community over there.

Really, really wonderful folks over there.

Like them a lot.

Um, but I was working with, uh, a Harley also known as Calum traveler.

We've been working on putting a new intro together and I had started out by

volunteering, let me help you with some of the audio with this.

And then I started saying, well, actually, oh, Harley, what if you

actually rephrase this a little bit?

So sort of back and forth, collabing in the back of my head, I started thinking,

you know, who would be great if they could read this, I said, I started

thinking, I started thinking in my head, we're going to Mysterium.

Hmm.

And slowly began putting in my mind, this grand plan together of a gotta get

rant read for this at some point, we got to figure it out and that became my

goal for 2023 and you know what, it happened because we got them on the pod.

It happened.

We got them on the pod.

We did, it was such a moment.

I'm still over the moon.

The one question I did want to ask him was, you know, Cyan is so far outside of

like what the AAA companies do, like the Blizzard Activisions and those companies,

you know, and I mean, with all the upheaval that's been going on, that basically like

the big topic for a while was how misogynist and awful these companies were and how

they didn't respect people.

And the LGBTQIA community and so forth.

And I wanted to know from Rand, how do you stay above that?

How do you stay above the fray?

And I mean, the only thing I can really think of as a reason is because they are a

small indie shop and they've always been a small indie shop.

That's why they have such a pristine reputation.

I think, what do you think?

I think, um, that that is, sounds like it's probably a factor.

I think that.

Uh, Cyan's always been a little bit different than the rest of the games industry, just

in general, in terms of their, their kind of their mentality and where they exist in

the space.

They're definitely a lot culturally different from the more moneyed interests.

Yeah.

Like the advertisers and the, the big, uh, you know, cross synergy, get promotion, have

a drink deal kind of thing.

That's not really Cyan's bag at all.

And it's never really been that way.

I think also, um, for those of us who have met Rand in person, um, I would just gesture

at the man.

That's true.

He's just like, yeah, just one of the sweetest people in the world.

Whoopi, hold me.

Sprung a leak, guys.

I would, I would not put it like if I met Rand on the street, just first, first glance,

I would not put it.

I would expect him to be sitting on the beach with a surfboard, giving out sage advice and

nice.

Yeah.

He was actually not the first person to say that.

I'm sure I'm not.

He just gives off that kind of energy.

It's a thing, man.

But no, I, I mean, I definitely get the sense based on everybody that we've talked to everybody

that's done interviews that everybody that works at Cyan just loves it.

Just loves it.

They're working at Cyan.

You know, it's, it's, it really, the vibe I get from everybody that's talked to everything

we've heard from Hannah, everybody, everybody else is there's like just a real sense of like

collaborative energy over there.

It's a healthy work environment, or at least that's what it sounds like.

You don't get a lot of those in this industry.

So it is, um, yeah, it's definitely the one to shoot for.

I think, um, I've heard value.

Val was pretty good too, but, uh.

Dumla would be the one to ask.

Yeah.

Yes, she would.

Yeah, for sure.

She would know.

Uh, we gotta get, we gotta get.

I think, I think Tim Larkin's bounced between both of them a few times among other places.

Tim Larkin wrote a bunch of music for, he's all over the place.

He wrote, he brought a bunch of music even for, uh, for Borderlands, if I remember correctly.

He's all over the place.

Yeah.

He gets around.

Tim Larkin was actually on my mobile.

Yeah.

He's on my most played list on Spotify for my year end.

How did you do that?

Yes, because what I did is I went through Spotify and I got all of the really relaxing

music from the entire Mist series.

And I'm, I put in with it two versions, two separate versions of Peter Gabriel's Curtains

from Mist 4.

And so literally it starts out with the opening from Uru.

Yisha, your mother had a dream.

Yeah.

It starts with a Rand's voice and then it bridges into all the most relaxing music throughout

the Mist series.

And I, and I fall asleep to it every night.

Oh, what a mix.

And I, yeah, exactly.

And I, it's, and I just call it curtains and I literally fall asleep to that every night.

So the songs from Jack Wall and from Tim Larkin are there.

And I'm just like, oh yeah, that makes sense why they would be number one on my Spotify

raft.

Yeah.

This is, this is, this is a franchise with a lot of very good ambient music.

We got to, we got to, but, uh, credit where it's due.

Yeah.

Speaking of which Robin Miller, I was absolutely jazzed to get him on for the interview as

well.

Yeah.

So I was so excited to hear a lot of his thoughts on, on the earlier kind of things, how they

got there.

Absolutely.

I was wanting to bring him up too.

So I'm so glad you did.

Yeah.

Like we so rarely get to hear his thoughts on things.

And it was such a treat to be able to pick his brain about things.

Yeah.

What, what, how awesome it was that we were able to land.

We didn't think we would be able to get both of them.

So it really worked out very, very well.

I mean, we're very, very lucky.

Very, very lucky.

Thanks to them both for appearing again.

Yes.

And for asking us questions that never happened.

I loved that about them, but they, you know what?

We want to ask you guys a couple of questions.

We want to get in your head as big fans of, you know?

Yeah.

For sure.

I mean, love that.

And listen, we know you guys listen, uh, or at least that, uh, sometimes.

So if you're listening now, um, we loved it.

Come back anytime.

That might be a, uh, a good, uh, place for us to transition to our final talking point,

which is going to be thinking about last year.

In general, thinking about last year in review, um, other than the missed universe, what were

our, some of our favorite, you know, sort of gaming experiences of 2023.

And, you know, we've done this before.

We did this last year as well.

We thought it was a nice little tradition.

So we thought I would, uh, continue it and do a little over the fence.

Talk about what, what other universes we had fun in last year.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Uh, I, I discovered subnautica.

Oh, nice.

And remember I.

I'm, I'm a diver.

I, you know, I, I know how to scuba dive.

Uh, so you're already kind of familiar.

Yeah.

And I worked at the living seas at Epcot center way back in the day.

And so it's one of those things that, you know, I'm, I'm used to thinking like that.

So for me, it's just like, oh, okay.

And it's very natural kind of thing for me.

So I enjoyed that very much.

Of course, I'm still rocking my druid and world of Warcraft.

Never going to put that down.

Um, otherwise than that.

Yeah, but, uh, the most, actually I've been working and creating graphics and just, yeah, just hanging out with you guys all year.

So, I mean, I'm sorry, but it's been the best year of my life.

Oh,

how, uh, I've been doing a lot of gaming as, uh, I was streaming for, uh, more of this year, uh, the past year than I hadn't been.

Um, I'm currently on hiatus now, but that's a whole thing.

But, uh, so I've got a whole list, but the, the most recent one that I really, really liked was, uh, a little game called cobalt core, which is a sci-fi themed, uh, kind of roguelite, uh, deck builder game.

That is so interesting that you mentioned that because I, you know, who else was called cobalt core?

Yes, that was what I was going to.

Follow up on that.

Yeah.

Um, because they were at my first Mysterium.

Yeah.

So the little indie band called cobalt core, uh, who have done at least one, uh, missed fan song, um, which is absolutely the brilliant Arcana.

Yeah.

I think if I remember correctly, I think was the official title.

10 or 15 years ago, we had a cobalt core song on the podcast.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Uh,

that's funny that they have the same ties.

Yeah.

It was, it was a funny little bit of, uh, confusion when, um, the friend who, uh, was recommending the game to me was trying to recommend it to me.

Um, uh, cause they just brought it up like in a group of us.

Uh, so it wasn't like just to me specifically, but, uh, and they're like cobalt core.

And I was kind of half paying attention to that in time.

And I'm like, wait, what, what now?

Somebody knows cobalt core.

What?

Um,

there's always that satisfaction when you like recognize another member of the club.

Right.

And then it turned out to be, uh, yeah, it turned out to be this game instead.

Um, but, uh, which it also has very, very fun music by the way.

Um, absolutely beautiful soundtrack.

And, uh, it's, it's fun and cute.

The characters are fun, little cute animal characters.

And it's, uh, kind of a, um, a retro like pixie.

It's a little art ish kind of style.

Um, it's very, very cute.

So if, if anything about that seems appealing to you, I would say, go, go stick your nose in, see, see if it might have more appeal for you.

Going through that same year in review image you posted.

I've heard great things about tunic as well.

I haven't played it yet, but, uh,

Oh yes.

Uh, tunic I streamed, um, at the beginning of the year.

And about, uh, spring and, uh, it's, uh, it's a little bit Zelda.

It's a little bit dark souls.

It's a little bit missed actually.

Um,

There's I, I watched over my housemate's shoulder while she was doing the, the deeper puzzles.

There's a lot of Vistan in tunic, holy buckets.

It's a lot deeper than you think, like even with what you've heard now, it's, it's just, it.

Yes, there's more there.

There's it's one of those, um, and then I need to, uh, pick up Okami again.

Um, that's been on my list for a long time.

Yeah, I was streaming that when I went on hiatus, so I'm, I was in the middle of that, so I need to finish that.

And then of course, VR chat, which, uh, this was technically this year, uh, but my full body trackers finally came in.

So I've been doing some fun stuff.

That, and that's where I got that, uh, awesome picture of me with the, um, the linking book in the on an a cathedral.

Uh,

and yeah, shout out to the VR guild people who built all those really cool models of mist locations.

Yeah, there's, there's a bunch of, of mist worlds in VR chat that have been rebuilt by the, uh, community.

I think, let's see, there's either Sogal, there's, uh, on an a cathedral.

There's, uh,

Kadesh Gallery.

There's, there's the Bevan-style neighborhood, um, which is just called Bevan in VR chat.

Um, there's the Nexus, which honestly, if you want to find any of the other ones, just go to the Nexus.

That's, that's how that works.

One where, yeah, that's, that's the hub world.

Um, there's, uh, at least one version of mist.

At least one version associated with the VR guild.

I should say, um,

Fair enough.

I, I have seen at least three different mist worlds on VR chat on the broader whole.

I went to one that didn't perform super well.

So if there's more now, I'm curious if maybe those perform better.

Uh, well, yeah, it's, it's kind of depends on, on what you mean.

Um, cause like there's, there's one that, uh, is very pretty, but doesn't do much of anything.

Doesn't perform very well.

There's one.

There's one that, um, it was like an early work in progress, um, to try to recreate a lot of the functional elements of mist without using, uh, any of the game assets.

And so it had a number of the puzzles in place, but it had a lot of like stand in stuff and, and all of that fun jazz.

So like the, uh, the, the maze runner was not.

Uh, like a functional script would thing that you could ride in at least yet.

It was just like a series of teleports.

Maze runner.

So they, they, these built a map.

Maze runner was just a maze that you run through, like, and kind of just a running maze.

Yeah.

That was the original plan as far as I know.

So, yeah, maybe it's kind of the elevated thing.

Yeah.

That's super far off.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Um, honestly, Duncan and I have been kind of kicking ourselves, uh, over not.

Yeah.

Giving, uh, VR in general, more of a shout out.

Yeah.

When we were asked about it.

Uh, VR has been a big thing for me as well.

Uh, mostly in the just kind of personal get around, move and do stuff.

I've been playing a lot of, uh, honestly, my, my old favorite hot dogs, horseshoes and hand grenades.

If anyone's ever heard of it, it's sort of an object interaction slash gun simulator.

But the, uh, the actual physical interaction.

Yeah.

I like, I like the combination of all the different interactions of picking objects,

up, uh, using their complex interactions and using them together and just the way the

physics play are, have always been my favorite of any kind of VR experience, even though

it's kind of an older game at this point.

Uh, they did have a big content drop this year as well.

So shout outs to Anton.

And then as long as I'm shouting out my combat SIMs, I also want to bring up ultra kill again.

I kind of brought it up in passing when brand asked us.

Uh, mm-hmm.

Ultrakill also, despite the name, it's actually a really deep experience.

If you're a lore hound, Ultrakill's got it.

It's kind of an ADHD simulator.

It's Devil May Quake is a good description of it.

Interesting.

But it has some really deep story influences.

There's a lot of old school classical renaissance writing.

Some newer stuff like, oh, what is the book?

I can't remember the name of the book that Hakta recently recommended.

That was kind of related to the big update that Ultrakill recently had,

but shout outs to them as well, since we're talking about year-end stuff.

I'll say as far as my year in gaming,

I actually got into this a little bit in the Rand interview, actually.

But...

Towards the beginning of the year, you asked me what I thought my most played game of the year would be.

I would have told you, oh, there's a new Zelda game coming out.

100% that's going to be what I'm going to sink all my time into.

There's no question.

And then Baldur's Gate 3 comes around and surprises me.

Yeah, I played a lot of that, too.

That's not on my Steam, because I had that through GOG.

But yeah, I played.

I am.

Oh.

I haven't played it myself, but just the existence of Baldur's Gate 3 tickles me to no end,

because it really shows that people are really hungry for good narrative

and just a solid sit-down storytelling experience.

The characters are so good, and you can tell that they're so good

because they clearly spent a lot of time working on these characters,

letting the actors influence the direction the characters went in.

Oh, yeah, everyone is just selling it.

To the point where, once you get to the end product,

oh, yeah, every single one of these feels like a real person.

You know?

Yeah.

Like, if you can easily meme all of them, and you can,

then you know that you've created a character that stands out.

You know?

Like, that's really, at the end of the day, the test of...

When they're having funny Twitter comics made about them.

If it's so easy to do, then clearly they've made an impact.

You know what I mean?

Like, yeah.

And technically, I haven't finished either.

I haven't finished either of those games yet.

I still have to finish...

Here's the game to my soul to finish Baldur's Gate 3,

but the amount of hours I've sunk into Baldur's Gate 3,

even without finishing it, is just wild.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

It's just crazy.

It's easily shot up to one of my most played games of all time on Steam,

like, very, very quickly.

I'm tempted to give it a shot.

I'm critically allergic to dice because I have the worst luck imaginable,

but I don't know.

There's a couple clever ways, sort of, around that,

that they give you.

You can use, like, luck points sometimes, you know,

or, you know, there's ways that you can avoid bad dice rolls, I will say.

You can't always do it, but they don't make it...

It's built in such a way that you're not just constantly rolling terribly

and getting stuck in a rut, so...

Yeah.

I don't know.

I guess I'm just, like, in the same camp as Rand as,

why can't I just be this?

Which is, yeah, I mean, that's totally fair.

Valid.

I...

I am also someone who has watched a campaign

literally explode itself over one die roll, so...

I mean, but that's part of the fun, right?

You gotta buy into it, though.

Don't let goblins throw bombs on trains.

No, absolutely let goblins throw bombs on trains.

Do not throw bombs on the lightning rail.

Advice for any Forgotten Realms adventurers.

Do not throw bombs on the lightning rail.

I still totally need to have you guys teach me...

Teach me how to play D&D, because apparently I am missing something.

I will gladly do so.

Yeah, my universe feels sadly incomplete,

because I have not done the tabletop role-playing game yet.

And we've got, uh...

We've got Unwritten, too.

One of these days...

We do.

One of these days, we as TCT will take a crack at playing Unwritten together,

and, you know, no promises to the audience.

Maybe that'll get recorded, maybe it won't,

but, uh, we're definitely gonna have to try it out.

We'll have to see if it's quality for the first time.

Yeah, exactly.

I think in this year,

I've kind of been all over the place when it comes to gaming.

I mentioned in the Rand Robin interview

that most of my time I actually spend designing games

rather than playing them,

but I have had some opportunity to play games

aside from the Cyan offering this year,

which we also absolutely need to talk about firmament at some point

once everybody has beaten it.

I'm on my replay now.

I have.

Many thoughts, but I'm gonna shelve that for now.

Outside of those,

this year, I actually got back into playing Torchlight 2

with some friends.

That was a ton of fun.

I love, love, love, love Torchlight.

If you've ever played Diablo or something like that,

just imagine if it was...

It's that, but it's kind of, like, more cartoony

and just...

It's just fun.

I just...

I love Torchlight 2.

Even if my drops...

Both are abysmal.

That's why I've got my buddies adventuring with me

so that I can trade things that I get.

I enjoy a good dungeon crawler every now and again.

Yeah, there's a certain charm in its simplicity.

There's also...

I think...

I don't know if I mentioned this on a TCT talk

or if we just did it in one of our usual hangouts,

but I really vibe with horror games,

and this year we got...

Dead Space Remake and Resident Evil 4,

and I am just eating those up.

I just love it.

Oh, yeah.

I was watching...

I was watching someone play the Dead Space Remake.

That looks so good.

Just the atmosphere is perfect.

It's so squishy.

Yes, it is.

Squishy is kind of the perfect description.

It's so squishy, I'm gonna die.

I am such a baby with horror games,

because in a game, you're more immersed

than in any other kind of media.

So any kind of horror game, I'm like,

oh, God, every time I get to a corner...

I know, yeah.

I can't take the anxiety.

Nah, there's a reason I stay in the van in Phasmophobia.

Okay, no, guys, I spent the entirety of my time playing Uru,

because remember, it was my first...

It was really my first Myst game after Myst,

but the whole...

The whole thing is that I thought any second

walking through Kadesh,

I thought something was gonna jump around a corner at me.

It was Dalkin.

Paranoia.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I could hear Dalkin breathing.

No, but...

Is that what that is?

It's a stunt Dalkin.

You think you're hearing Baro climbing around.

It's actually Dalkin.

Dalkin.

Yeah.

It's one of those things, 2023...

How do you think I got up on that chandelier?

Dude, you hang off of it.

It's down from there.

I mean, he's been climbing around on stuff for how long now?

But yeah, I always thought something was gonna jump around the corner at me.

And, you know, Chris Metzen at his Geek Is when he did that keynote,

it was really funny, because, you know, he's like,

Geek Is, late night Doom 2 sessions.

And for me, I'm like, no, no, no.

Uru on a stormy night,

not knowing that nothing is gonna come around the corner to get you,

but you automatically assume it is.

See, I can see, I can see how, when you put it like that,

because of how quiet and, like, very still and, like, kind of dark it is in Kadesh,

how, if you're in the right mindset, it could be creepy.

I get that when you're describing it.

At the same time, I'm so sad that that was the experience,

because my whole time getting through Kadesh was,

wow, this is so beautiful, you know?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

I was terrified when I first played OG Myst,

because I got so immersed in it as a little, little kid.

And I was like, oh, my God, I feel so alone.

There's that certain experience that can never quite be replicated

of what having, like, a 16-bit sound blaster card

blasting out that Myst intro.

You see the sky crack open in front of you and someone fall in.

Yeah.

Oh, it was so entrancing.

The firing letter.

The noise of the Myst.

Yeah, that synth noise just kept blowing out your speakers.

It's like, whoa.

It was perfect.

It was so absolutely entrancing, especially for three-year-old me.

Mm-hmm.

See, I mean, for me, it's just,

I was just waiting for something to jump around a corner.

So it's, but, you know, okay, so I did on Steam,

I went and got Complete Chronicles,

so I'm actually going through it and everything.

And now that I know what's there and so forth,

I'm just, I get to relax now and I get to go, cool, man.

But I'm looking for some of the stuff that's been implemented in Mool.

And I'm just like, no, I missed that borrow stone

that was behind the pyramid in Kadesh.

I'm like, no, put it back.

Can you still stand on top of the pyramid in Mool right now?

Yes.

I think there's a couple borrow stones in Agora

that appear and disappear at random, and that's one of them.

The other one being the Teledon dock.

Yeah.

The one behind the library.

Like, you go up around the lip, all the way around to the far side.

That's where it shows up when it shows up.

Are you spoiling?

That's the one.

Spoiling.

Yeah.

Spoil a 15-year-old game.

I don't know.

Get more new people into it.

If they're not getting spoiled, maybe they'll stick with it more.

I don't know.

Also, there are some people that are coming back, like, after 20 years.

Seriously.

That's been amazing, right?

That have been doing that.

And so I'm just watching them as they're rediscovering the game, going,

But wait, there's more.

More than that.

It's amazing.

We're seeing new life coming into the community, too, right?

I mean, the Riven remake, it's not just affecting those who have already been there,

who are being brought back, but they're bringing new people with them, too.

And they're showing up.

I mean, I don't know how many times this year I've seen people pop into the Cyan chat

and say, like, hey, I'm new here.

How do I do this?

Where do I get started?

And then.

You know, suddenly, 8 billion people in chat typing all at once.

They're saying, oh, my God, welcome.

This is where you need to start.

This is how you do it.

And welcome.

Is it a cult?

It's not a cult.

I can neither confirm nor deny.

No, but we can all agree that this is a cult classic.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

This is a cult classic.

That is what we mean.

Yes.

On that lady that I was sitting next to on the plane ride in the look on her face.

But I did get to get her to go to cyan.com and take a look at all of the offerings and

just but me swooning over it the way I was.

I'm like, damn, I'm an avid.

You can't get much more avid than somebody spreading the word everywhere they go.

You know, it's a bird.

It's a plane.

No, it's just missed.

Yeah.

It's a starfisher.

We're the people who travel by.

I have been in and out of that thing so many damn times.

You have no idea.

I use it more than a car at this point.

It's a bird.

It's a plane.

It's ripping new discoveries from the Dunny Empire.

Look, you can just jump in and it either takes you where you need to go or you warp out one way or the other.

You get there eventually.

What's Dunny Empire?

Help me out.

Hey.

Is Dunny Empire?

Yes.

For sure.

It's more reliable.

It's more reliable than the path train.

I'll tell you that.

Hey.

Stand clear of the closing doors.

New Yorkers will get that reference.

Oh.

The technical answer to that question is very complicated.

The simple answer is.

Wahoo.

A guild council structure for a little while.

Yes.

The five.

Yeah.

And so I'm sure somebody better versed in the technical aspects of political structures

would be able to give the technical terms for that.

But I'm not that person.

Well, it's just one of those things where I didn't really think of it as an empire.

Because I know my canon.

Conquered worlds and held slaves.

Oh, but wasn't that an offshoot, though?

No.

That was tyranny, you know?

Well, I mean, like, it's a little bit like, it's one of those quirks, right?

Where, like, you know, we call America a democracy, but it's not a true democracy.

It's a democratic republic.

So it's kind of one of those things where it's casual terminology versus, like, the

really technical stuff.

Truth.

But, you know, it's one of those things, I never really think of it as an empire, because

I'm used to walking around everywhere, and it doesn't feel very empire-ish.

Because when I think of empires, I think of Rome.

And Rome had all the stalls and the booths and the people, and, you know, it was a lot

busier, you know?

And then the fall.

Yeah.

So, well, hello.

There's no greater fall than the fall of Rome.

Weren't the slaves in Rome?

Weren't the slaves in Teledon being sent to Laki?

Does anybody remember that?

Oh, was that how they were connected?

I'm pretty sure the slaves in Teledon were being sent to Laki.

Or was it Rebek?

I need to go journal diving again.

I think Sharper talks about it.

I just, personally, to the question of were the Denean Empire, absolutely.

They absolutely played the subjugation game.

Yeah.

And they were definitely stomping down the least.

That was the whole point of the exercise.

Yeah.

Yeah, they definitely accomplished wonders, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses.

Oh, nope.

I was actually thinking about this earlier today, particularly because Laki-An, as we

see it in Myst V, you know, you get Escher's whole description of how this was a place

of glorious combat, and the implication that I feel is meant to be taken from that is that

they were making the natives.

Fight each other.

But if you look a little deeper into it, they were just having, I believe that the, the

tradition of the, the Laki who lived there, uh, hunting the Laki-An, the, the, uh, aquatic

creatures that live in the, that live out there, that they would, they would fight them

and harvest this, this jewel from them, uh, that my understanding is that that was actually

a tradition.

That they, that they already had before the Duny came.

The Duny just came and, uh.

Turned it into a gladiator sport?

Yeah.

Like made a, made it a spectator sport.

Uh.

What really was fun?

So I don't.

Yeah.

I'm going to go back and read my mistreader again.

I got, I got to go, go through that because for me it's, ah, geez, I've forgotten all

of that bad.

You know how we have a tendency that the place we call home, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's.

We, we're used to having it be all of these good things and you forget that there is bad

involved.

So, hey, that's my therapy working, but you know, it's, it's, it's a thing.

So yeah.

So we should, we should, we should pair up and, and go through the mistreader again.

I'm aware that I'm, that I've set up shop in a corpse.

Well, everybody's invited to do that.

Well, we got a little sidetracked towards the end there, but I think we're, we're, we're

just about ready to wrap things up.

So Sherry, you want to take us home?

Yeah.

Yep.

And that's another edition of TCT talk.

We'd like to thank you for listening.

And this was Onk Angel.

Take care.

Dalton Starbine.

Farewell, citizens.

Dalton Stuntbine to you guys.

Okay.

Esther Centura.

Chora.

Morris.

Take care, folks.

And me, Sherry.

And we're signing off.

See you next time.

Journeys.

Symbols.

These dominate our experience in Uru.

From the moment we find ourselves in Eddy County, New Mexico, we are called.

From the journey hand in the cleft to the path of the shell and beyond, we seek the journey.

But for some, this is the journey.

This pattern of worship began years before most of us took our first steps into D'ni.

Today, we're going to continue our exploration of the past and learn a fading history.

History known to some, and history unknown to others.

I am Esto, and this is Deep Dive.

There's a great deal of history that you should know.

In March 2002, the DRC opened their website to the public.

For the first time, we were able to follow the restoration efforts.

It was not long before Jeff Zandi made his presence known.

His first message was simple.

Topic, billboard.

The gathered are known by their faces of stone.

The user information was filled with unusual references.

Numbers.

Dates.

The message was posted again a few days later, under the topic of page, though under a different

profile and now with different user information, though equally as cryptic.

Both threads were quickly deleted by the DRC.

Efforts to secure the site proved ineffective as Zandi proceeded to hijack the DRC message

board and take over the account of DRC member Victor Laxman, the restoration engineer who

was responsible for restoring and restoring the site.

He changed Laxman's user information to display the e-mail address 080301 at inside.mysterium.2001.

Actually, at that time the key to this puzzle was right in front of the attendees of Mysterium

2001, Mark Sardau's plumber.

The various sets of user information corresponded to the database of the model and he then sent

it to the staff of Mystery gears.

So, we had no access to the data.

We thought it was over.

Were we wrong?

of the Second Mysterium Convention, which had been held in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Another string of characters bore a striking resemblance to GPS coordinates.

The words, Current Argus, seemed to refer to a local newspaper in Carlsbad, New Mexico,

and the email address from the third post read, quote, Inside Mysterium, end quote.

The message was soon cracked.

Look on 080301, Inside Mysterium.

Look for the billboard on 080401, at North 32 degrees, 17.997 minutes.

West 104 degrees, 16.448 minutes.

Look for the page on 080501.

In the Current Argus.

By the time this had been decrypted, the Third Mysterium Convention was well underway in Philadelphia.

Zandy had become a popular topic among the community.

The fact that almost a year had passed with the mystery being unnoticed did not deter him,

as he sent a fax to Mysterium.

Sorry I couldn't make Mysterium this year.

Wish you were here.

J. Zandy.

The fax ended with the photo of a cell phone, with the same coordinates given, and his cryptic message once again.

The gathered are known by their faces of stone.

The fax quickly spread through the community.

It had become clear that Zandy wanted people to come to these coordinates.

More than that, it seemed Zandy had been at the previous Mysterium, but went completely unnoticed.

Ultimately, the billboard was found,

but it seemed that the image had been replaced, as Zandy's lease for the billboard had expired.

Fortunately, Zandy took notice, and emailed the one who had discovered the billboard's location.

Your efforts will pay off.

The gathered are known by their faces of stone.

A link was included to an image hosting site with three images titled Page, Billboard, and Inside.

The three images revealed an odd spiral symbol, one placed in the ad space from the Carlsbad Current Argus,

another showing the same symbol on the billboard that had been found,

and finally, an image of Zandy from Mysterium 2001, wearing a shirt with the same mysterious symbol.

Unfortunately, the billboard image only captured a quarter of the billboard.

More information would be needed.

These developments have been made possible by the help of Zandy.

These developments caught the attention of the DRC, who, with Victor Laxman leading the campaign,

purchased the billboard from the sign company, and had it taken into Denis.

Meanwhile, on the surface, explorers were able to contact the sign company,

and learned that the unseen portion of the billboard featured another set of coordinates.

Once again, geocachers stepped up to the plate and followed the coordinates to a petroglyph national monument just north of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Arriving at the location,

it was still unclear exactly what they were looking for.

Their only potential clue was the faces of stone mentioned by Zandy in many of his messages.

To this end, the geocachers did find a petroglyph of a face etched in the stone.

Zandy stepped in once again with a new message.

The journey is below the surface.

Shortly after, a spiral was found buried four inches beneath the face they had discovered.

The spiral was bronze, and had the word PRE-AFTER etched on it in three places.

It was only a matter of time before PRE-AFTER.COM was discovered, featuring the enigmatic spiral along with an email address.

To complete Zandy 1, show a photo of the gathered with the journey at the face.

Zandy, a new journey awaits.

A photo was taken, and sent to the PRE-AFTER email.

A short time later, the website symbol, which had featured nine spikes radiating from along the top circumference, changed.

The rightmost spike dimmed, and its place was a link leading to the picture they had just sent.

The first of the journeys was complete, and it would not be long until the second journey would begin.

We will continue our investigation of that journey, and the discoveries of those explorers in our next deep dive.

Until then, this has been Esto for the Cavern Today, signing off.

Thanks, Esto.

Next, we'll turn things over to Sherry, who will be sharing her thoughts on her Dunny 20.

A few weeks ago, it was the 20th anniversary of the lights going out.

The end of Prologue in Uru Live.

I think that there are just a few of us left who remember Prologue.

Even fewer remembered the day the lights went out in 2004.

I just remember that I was in Ederkimo in a circle holding hands with my Cavern family,

when suddenly a message appeared on the screen that read,

There seems to be a problem with the online community.

Please quit and try again.

I logged out, and logged back in, and there was nothing.

And then I cried.

A lot.

That day has been memorialized, it's been written into academia,

and it's still a watershed moment for us old-timers in the community.

Most of the people I have met in Cavern recently never got to experience Prologue in Uru Live.

Most of them are still in the community.

Most of them only know the Cavern as it stands today.

And while I love today's Cavern, nothing compares to the Uru Live Prologue back in 2004.

Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine hundreds and hundreds of people in Cavern.

It was amazing.

The first time I linked into Cavern proper in Prologue,

my spawn point was at the curtain at the back of the Dakota Alley next to the stairs that lead to the Palace Alcove.

No kidding.

My avatar spawned into a sea of avatars that weren't even really moving.

The chat at the top of the screen was blazing by, people trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

For my part, when I tried to take a step forward, well, let's just say that from the moment I hit my up arrow to move forward

to the moment her first step was completed, I could go to my kitchen, make a sandwich, eat it,

have a leisurely soda pop and a bag of chips, and by the time I got back to my computer,

her foot hit the ground again.

I posited in the chat,

Why is it taking me so long to take a step?

The answer I got wasn't the usual kindness we're used to in Cavern.

No, the answer I got was,

It's called lag, stupid.

Well, after a little while of trying to walk around, I gave up, locked out, and headed for the forums.

Back in the day, we didn't have some fancy Discord or voice over IP.

Nope.

We had forums, so if you got thrown back to the dark ages, as in disconnected, or got to the point

where your hard drive started smoking because the lag was so bad, you could go catch up on the latest

posts from the coolest people. It was standard practice to find out the news on the forums before

going into Cavern anyway. That way you knew if there was an update or an event, or so you could

plan your next foray into Cavern. And where, if you were one of the hundreds of greeters, a part of

the Guild of Greeters, you could find out what time and on which of the three shards you were

doing your next greeter shift. And it wasn't just one set of forums, outside of the DRC and Ubisoft

forums. And by the way, the DRC forums were the role-playing ones, so it was I, C, or in Cavern,

and the Ubisoft forums were O, O, C, or out of Cavern, so it was just

the DRC forums. And so, if you were one of the hundreds of greeters, you could plan your next

you are you, just you being yourself. But if there was a neighborhood of note,

they had forums as well. Places like The List, UO, which is Uru Obsession, The Great Tree,

the DLA, which is the Dini League of Activities. There were the Linguists, the Guild of Caterers,

the Guild of Greeters, even the Guild of Healers, and let's not forget Safety First.

Like I often quip, Safety First, it's not just a neighborhood in Uru.

There were

tons more, but I can barely remember them. But if you were a member of one set of forums,

you were a member of a lot of them. Your browser bookmark section was probably a sea of forum

addresses, and we all made the rounds. How about sharing your adventures with your offline friends

in the form of screenshots? Wait, sharing pictures from the forums? Really? Yeah, we had to upload

them to Photobucket to even share them on the forums. And even then, you could barely embed

them. It was just, you could barely embed them. You could barely embed them. You could barely embed

them. It was just easier to share a link to your Photobucket. But when you could finally get

into Cavern and buzz around without paralyzing lag, it was always amazing to avoid the lag in

the city. I can remember sitting and watching my buddy list in my key along with the fish in chemo,

waiting for Pepsi to come in or waiting for Nerf, Turf, and other friends to show up online so we

could play together or just chat. Linking to any age was an adventure because you never knew if

sharing your Relto book was going to work. So, if you were a member of a community, you could

work. Or if someone was going to disconnect or because whether you liked it or not,

Greeson took forever to load. And I do mean forever. You could tell that that age was huge

and they had plans to expand that thing because if you wanted to go over and play on the wall,

brother, you had to want it bad to wait that long for it to load. But it was worth it when the wall

decided to work because putting on a maintainer suit and climbing the wall together was a huge,

huge treat. And don't forget,

we only had Cavern Proper, the Neighborhoods, and the Five Ages plus the Great Zero.

You had to wait for the door to open to get into the gallery. And there were none of those fancy

schmancy pod ages inside. Nope, just paintings. There was no Mincata or Ercana. And there was

most certainly nothing like the Anone Hamster Wheel. That meant if you wanted to have an adventure

in Cavern, you had to make it happen. You had to get with your pals and get a cone kicking match

together or any soccer.

Fountain dancing was also a popular pastime as well as cone balancing. If you weren't helping

someone in one of their ages or ambushing one of your pals with the pellet gun in Teledon.

Yes, we did that. And we had to do it by telephone because you couldn't see through the pellet gun

when someone came out of the tunnel, so you had to have a spotter. Yeah, Nerf and I did that to

Don back in the day. Sorry, Don. But let's just say we did a whole lot with not much,

and we still had a ball.

In the past 20 years, I've watched as we went from Atris, Catrin, and Achenar shards in live

to even more shards during YuYu with a myriad of shards from the DLA, Tapestry, Guild of Greeters,

and Slackers to the advent of Damala, which led to GameTap and then finally to Open Source and

the Mincata shard that supports our beloved MystOnline Uru Live Cavern today. I've been here

for all of it.

every celebratory moment to days that hurt so bad you had to take a knee. I've watched as the fallen

members of our cavern family have been memorialized on the imager at the Callow Pub, to the advent of

an entire age with more books than I can count filled with the people we have lost along the way.

No other online world does that, and that's what makes Cavern truly the only home I have

ever known, because it's filled with the people I love. And instead of having to remember 20

different forum logins, one login to Discord brings a multitude of different servers hosted

by our community all under one roof, from Mysterium News to the latest explorer-based

initiatives and the additions of the latest fan-made ages. We even get to hear from the guys

at Cyan. Back in 2004, it was just Myst, Riven,

Exile, and Cavern.

Exile and Uru. Today, from the number of different releases of Myst and the upcoming

re-release of Riven, to Abduction and Firmament, with all the other Cyan games in between,

our community is bigger, brighter, and better than ever.

And, hey, we can even stream our adventures to the world on Twitch, and that's not bad.

And, heck, I might just try creating an age of my own. Oh, dupes!

Hey,

you know, at the end of it, I'm just proud that I can say I've done my Dunny 20.

But then again, that's just me, of course. For the Cavern today, this is Sherry, signing off.

Thank you guys for watching!

Have a great day!

Bye!

Thank you.

What seems to be an updated take on Myst's original sound effect.

In fact, the link out sound even seems to be slightly different as well.

Now, this is a great little bit of storytelling

because right away it tells us something very interesting.

The link sound effect we've heard up until now

is not just a stylistic or aesthetic update.

The suggestion seems to be that Gen's jury-rigged linking books

don't just behave differently from normal linking books, they also sound different too.

And now we're finally hearing what a normal Duny linking book actually sounds like.

It's a great example of how a little bit of sound design can enrich the lore already established in the world.

But what's curious is this.

Outside of this ending cutscene, this particular take on an updated linking sound was never heard again.

Development of Myst games would split after Riven, but neither team reincorporated this redesigned link sound.

For Myst 3, Presto designed their own update of the original sound.

And meanwhile, for Uru, Cyan developed a new reverb-heavy take on the original sound.

The version from the end of Riven never appeared in any subsequent Myst Universe project either,

seemingly completely dropped after Riven.

So, whatever happened to Riven's short-lived take on this sound?

Curious for information, I reached out to Eric A. Anderson at Cyan.

But unfortunately, this seems to be a mystery to them as well.

As our listeners may already know, many assets from the original Riven have been lost over time,

part of the reason why this new upcoming rebuild of Riven is especially impressive.

And it appears this particular bit of audio, and the story behind its creation, are unfortunately among them.

But, I'm determined not to give up here, and am making it my goal to uncover as much as I can about this forgotten little piece of Myst-designed history.

And that's where you come in.

Listeners, if you happen to know anything about this sound or the story behind it,

reach out to The Cavern Today with any tips over social media,

or by email at info at thecaverntoday.com.

Hopefully one day we'll uncover enough info that we'll be able to share our findings in a follow-up segment.

See you then.

Stay tuned.

Until then, for The Cavern Today, this is Morris, signing off.

That brings us to the end of our Spring 2024 edition, In Review.

We'd once again like to thank the viewers for their support, and thank you for watching.

We'd also like to thank both Sasha Strange and LCC for allowing us to use their music in our podcast.

We'd also like to extend a big thank you to our listeners for your continued support of The Cavern Today.

It means the world to us.

This episode of The Cavern Today contains trademarks and or copyrighted works of Cyan Inc.,

all rights reserved by Cyan.

The Cavern Today is not an official Cyan product and is not endorsed by Cyan.

The Cavern Today is a Guild of Messengers affiliate.

For more information and Cavern news, visit guildofmessengers.org.

For The Cavern Today, this is Ankh Angel, signing off.

Hey, Morris. We need to talk.

Uh, sure. What's up, Asta?

Uh, didn't you say that you were visiting New Mexico earlier this year to help with, uh, pre-after research for Deep Dive?

Yeah, I... I mean, I researched. I just didn't find anything.

Well, I've been reviewing your, quote-unquote, work expenses from the trip,

and as far as I can tell, as soon as you landed, you went to, uh...

every restaurant in Santa Fe.

Listen, have you had New Mexican chile? There's no replacement for the real thing.

And then, hot springs?

Don't heat on 10,000 waves.

Then, apparently drove straight to Taos and just went skiing for the rest of the trip.

Uh, well... well, yes.

But, I hurt my foot, so there, it wasn't all good.

I don't suppose it was on a pre-after spiral, was it?

Um, uh...

None of these places are anywhere even near the cleft.

Yes, yes, but neither were a lot of the other spirals that were found, right?

I mean, we don't know that the final one isn't... on a ski lift somewhere.

Look, Morris, I get you've been busy, and if you want to take a vacation, that's... that's fine.

Just don't billet to us as research next time, alright?

Look, you'll thank me when we uncover evidence showing that Duny actually went on many surface expeditions throughout history,

and it turns out, they loved skiing.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure of Duny. Skiing and...

Just you wait.

Anyhow, sorry about that, Morris.

You're gonna have fun editing, man.

No, I...

Yeah...

So, um...

Just don't billet to us as research next time, alright?

Well, I'm sorry I screwed that up by dropping something over here.

In the past 20 years, I've watched as we went from Atris...

Atris, really? Atris, Sherry, really?

20 years you can't say Atris correctly.

You'll thank me when we uncover evidence showing that Duny actually went on many surface expeditions

throughout...

Let me take that one more time.

Oh.

Hey, going with a pal...

A pal, a friend, however, whatever that word is.

I'm going to abandon this phrase and just hope that you get the sentiment.

I gotcha.

Okay.

So...

Oh my god.

Uh...

Let me actually, uh...

I'll...

I'll get the picture of it for you guys.

Sorry to the audience, you'll just have to imagine.

Uh, or, you know, Google Cobalt Core...

Cobalt Core, like, look it up on Steam.

It's on Steam.

It's a non-visual format.

Yeah.

Oh my god.

We live...

You're listening to it on the internet.

Go look it up on the internet.

Those are some cute looking critters.

Well, you got this from the internet anyway.

I'm sorry.

I can only do so much.

Man, these are so useless.

You don't even know their names.

Oh, I'm sorry.

The internet is...

Ah!

I'm sorry.

It's okay.

I'm not going to make it any more.

I'll get it for you guys later.

I'm sorry, guys.

I won't get anything for you guys.

I see.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay.

So, I, uh...

Huh?

Your computer's dead.

The internet's dead?

Yeah.

There's no internet.

Yeah.

Uh...

Thank you.