What Bands Have Played Myst?

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This Sunday morning I am thinking about multimedia cd-roms by musicians in the 90s and thinking: “did they play Myst?” I do not care about if any musician was actually a gamer, but because I am a huge dork I keep thinking about the band Queenscryche, in their stage gear, crowded around a desktop computer and trying to figure out the marker switches on Myst island. Because I have nothing better to do, here are my thoughts on various musicians with computer games and if they’ve played Myst. Many of these games are abandonware and playable on modern Windows thanks to The Collection Chamber.

Peter Gabriel, star of Xplora and Eve: Yes, absolutely. He seemed to be very interested in the cd-rom format since he started a games company that produced his two games as well as Ceremony of Innocence. He also contributed music to URU: Ages Beyond Myst and acted in Myst 4

Laurie Anderson, Puppet Motel: I think it’s likely she tried it for a few minutes to see what it was like since she’s stated she has an interest in new technologies and using them when no one really knows what to do with them. She has also done VR installations when VR was becoming a thing again in the mid 2010’s. But according to this interview last year about Puppet Motel, she doesn’t really enjoy games and winning/losing states so I assume she moved on once she “got it.” People should play Puppet Motel.

Aerosmith, 9: The Last Resort, Revolution X, Quest for Fame: Why did people keep going to Aerosmith to ask them to be in their computer game? Only one of these is an adventure game (produced by Robert Deniro) and they just act in it so they barely qualify for this list, but I think they’re aware of what a cd-rom is and that’s it. They’ve probably played some pinball. This is the most I want to think about Aerosmith.

Dan Ackroyd, The Blues Brothers: We know he actually played The Blues Brothers video games but I do not think he played Myst or else we would have seen some sort of cd-rom. Since John Goodman was in the Blues Brothers in the sequel, this is also where I can say that I do not think John played Pyst.

The Beach Boys, Surf City: Absolutely not. Mike Love cashed the paycheck and that was the end of that. If I had to pick the Beach Boy most likely to have played a computer game, I think it’s Al Jardine.

Earth, Wind, & Fire, Isis: Today I learned they had a computer game! I don’t think it’s likely they played them but now I want to play this.

Herbie Hancock, Virtual Nightclub, Living Jazz: He must have at least tried Myst, right? He seems too curious about technology to not have. Anyway, Herbie Hancock rules.

Devo, Adventures of the Smart Patrol: I think Mark and Gerry at least tried it and saw games as the future of the band. This did not happen since the game wasn’t very good and flopped, but the promotional video has that energy. They poked at smartphone apps a few times so new technology is something they have an interest in but I don’t think they ever dug too deep.

Queensrÿche, Promised Land: As much as I want to imagine the band playing Myst, I do not think they have. However, I am fascinated by the MobyGames credits for this game. The brother of one of them is all over the place on this and all the band members are listed as co-designers of their worlds. I don’t buy it.

The Residents, Freak Show, Bad Day on the Midway: Yes, but the band were all in costume when they did. From reading the Laurie Anderson video, it sounds like Voyager and Inscape were the ones reaching out to the bands to make something and not the other way, but I do think the fingerprints of The Residents are all over these and their involvement was more than just cashing a paycheck.

Motörhead, Motörhead: This predates Myst and Lemmy absolutely did not play computer games, but lets all imagine him playing Myst anyway.

Prince, Prince Interactive: I have no idea how much he was actually involved with his game but I think it’s very likely he tried Myst. He was too interested in computers and the internet not to have. He was also probably one of the first people ever to have played The Oregon Trail.

David Bowie, Jump: The David Bowie Interactive CD-Rom, Omikron: He was too interested in technology not to have, since he also had his own multimedia cd-rom (that he wasn’t a fan of since it wasn’t ambitious enough) and Omikron. I think Duncan Jones is over answering questions about his dad since he has his own career and art to talk about, but maybe he would still be up for answering “What computer games did you play with your dad?” since I think most folks like to talk about that.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Frankie Goes to Hollywood: They broke up before Myst and I don’t think they were involved with their game either but this Making Of article about the game is good.

Rolling Stones, Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge: Absolutely not, but I think their producer Don Was has.

Rednex, Inbred with Rednex: Well they know what a computer is because they keep taking down videos on YouTube of people playing their game but I think that’s as far as that goes.

Well that’s all I have to say about all of that. Feel free to comment with your thoughts about other musicians and if they’ve played Myst.

Books I Enjoyed Winter/Spring 2026

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I haven’t done one of these in a while! Here are some books I’ve read so far this year that I enjoyed. I don’t think I have especially wild or interesting taste in books and mostly read science fiction and fantasy, but maybe you’ll discover something new to read at your local library or indie bookstore. Links usually go to Bookshop.org, which directs a little bit of revenue to your local bookstore of choice and not Amazon. Sorry this is so long, I’ll do these on a more quarterly basis in the future. You can always see what else I’ve read on Storygraph.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett – I had started this one in December of course but didn’t finish it until the beginning of the year. I have to imagine that everyone reading this knows about Discworld and folks know if they like it or not but I’ll be another person recommending it. I keep meaning to read the entire series.

The Skull by Jon Klassen – I’m going to include some kids books in this post as well. I have been a fan of Jon Klassen’s for a while and this is a good one. It’s a bit longer than your typical picture book and has lots of lovely art. It’s also fun reading something to the kids that feels a little darker and creepier but really isn’t actually dark. This one is about a little girl and a talking skull getting in and out of trouble and my kids liked it too.

To Clutch a Razor by Veronica Roth – The second novella in the Curse Bearer series. Veronica Roth is most known for the Divergent series, which I’ve never read, but I liked the two novellas in this series. They’re pretty dark fantasy stories based on Slavic folklore but set in the modern day and queer. I suspect the Divergent books are maybe not really in my age range but if she writes more in this series I’ll read them.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller – Reread this one after I originally read it 20 years ago and I still like it. I think I’ve heard the sequel isn’t great so I probably won’t bother with that one.

A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo – The 6th novella in the Singing Hills cycle about a wandering cleric. I’ve been a fan of all of these and this latest one was great too. The novellas are written so they can be read in any order so you can just grab whatever one you see first at the library.

Doctor Who: Scratchman by Tom Baker and James Goss – Yeah that’s right, a Doctor Who novel. This one is an adaptation of a Doctor Who movie script that Tom Baker wrote in the 70s and never got produced. It’s just a fun Doctor Who story with the 4th Doctor, nothing mind blowing or any weird lore stuff getting made up here. I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Tom Baker and from reading the Storygraph reviews and Doctor Who wiki, he ad-libbed a line or two, continuing the theory that he really just is The Doctor in real life.

Disability Visibility, edited by Alice Wong – This is a collection of essays from folks writing about their experiences being disabled and living in the United States. Can’t recommend this one enough to people (like me) who need to see the world from the perspective of folks living with disabilities.

Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: The Guide to Beat-Em-Ups Volume 1, edited by Kurt Kalata – Do you like games such as Double Dragon and River City Rampage? Good news, this is a book about a ton of those types of games. I got a DRM-free copy of this through an eBook bundle that isn’t available.

She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor – Africanfuturist novella coming of age story about a teenage girl. I guess this one is set in a previously established universe but I didn’t know that before reading this and I enjoyed it.

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older – Basically if Holmes and Watson were lesbians in space solving mysteries. It’s the third novella in the series and my favorite so far. In fact, I want to reread the first two now because while I did like those, I enjoyed this one much more and I don’t know if I was just in a bad mood reading those or what.

John Candy: A Life in Comedy by Paul Myers – Recommended if you’re interested in actor John Candy or SCTV. It dives deeply into that comedy scene and even with it being about an actor that everyone seemed to love working with it still had a lot of interesting things to explore. This was written by the brother of actor Mike Myers, who also wrote a good book about The Kids in the Hall.

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler – Turns out that beloved author Octavia E. Butler was also very good at writing short stories.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon – Novella about mermaid descendants of African slave women. I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Daveed Diggs and music by Clipping and felt that it elevated an already great story.

Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith – Just a really nice slice of life graphic novel about four women that was on the recommendation shelf at my local library.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers – a novella about a crew in space looking for habitable worlds. I think this is only the second or third thing I’ve read by Becky but I loved it.

Fresh Start by Gale Galligan – Lovely graphic novel for kids about a kid who has moved to a new area and is starting over at a new school. I think a lot of kids (or I did anyway) will relate to being kind of a dork trying to fit in somewhere new. There’s so many great graphic novels for kids being made these days.

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi – Poetry collection by an author I’ve been a longtime fan of, with most of the poems being focused on the ends of worlds and apocalypses. I actually did the audiobook for this one and I would recommend it if you’re someone who wants to read more poetry but maybe struggles with how to read them.

Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw – Well written and lots of good info. I thought some sections like the history were more interesting than others. It being on the shorter side prevents it from delving deeper into other topics and a lot won’t be new info to bi/pan folks but I think it’s still nice to read and validating

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie – The second Poirot book. I actually read the first book in the series this year as well and liked it but I think this is when the series starts to figure out the form more and really takes off. We all love a man with a funny mustache who solves mysteries. This one is actually public domain now.

Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems by June Jordan – She’s so good. I don’t think you should really just sit down and read a collection of a poet’s works in the order of release like I did but occasionally reading a poem here in there by someone this good is lovely.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – You’d think I would have read this by now given how much I love the film Stalker and wrote a ttrpg inspired by it but no. Of course I loved it! I listened to an audiobook narrated by Robert Forster and he had the perfect voice for this story too.

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk – Just a very good supernatural noir novella with lesbians.

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa – Saw it in a list of reads a book club in a discord I’m in is doing and holy shit. I feel like I should be over Orwellian novels at this point but this had such a dreamlike logic to it that I found it to be very compelling. Will be thinking about it for a while.

Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite – Second book in the Dorothy Gentlemen series, a sci-fi mystery series of novellas. It’s just a nice, breezy mystery about a baby that is suddenly found on a ship and the series does some interesting stuff in its sci-fi setting.

Well, that’s all for this post. I realize that’s a ton of books but when you account for it being half a year of reads and so many of these being novellas, I don’t think it’s as bonkers as it looks. I hope you find something good to read!

Stop Using Experimental Art As A Cudgel

~ mpklamerus ~ 3 Comments

I don’t know why but in the last week I’ve seen multiple people treat experimental art like vegetables you must eat before you can engage in discourse or interact with “the fun stuff” and I’m so tired of it. It’s boring and frequently comes from folks who don’t engage with the material anyway and just want to use it as a cudgel to beat on other things. This is mostly a video game blog but this happens with all mediums. It feels like it’s the only purpose this art serves as and it’s depressing not only as a designer who wants people to look at my work and by other folks as well, but they’re depriving themselves of so much joy if they only see it through this lens.

When I see something that I haven’t seen done before in film, music, games, and other mediums I become so filled with a love of art that it drives me to seek out more. The first time I heard Wolf Eyes I thought “What is THAT? That’s not very good.” but I kept listening because there was something there that I found compelling. And then I kept coming back to it and every time I understood it a little better and why they were creating art this way. Every time a new batch of games from DOMINO CLUB is released, I see interactive fiction designed in a way I’ve never seen before. I used to be so condescending about LARPs, especially the experimental ones, before I realized that even if something wasn’t for me personally, it was really cool that people were inventing new ways to do storytelling. It’s like when Pere Ubu says they’re like a cup. I love seeing new approaches to things I thought I knew and want to see the cup from every angle.

It reminds me of when I first started crate digging for music, where every discovery made me feel like a kid with a bowl full of candy. I never want that feeling to end and will always be searching for the next thing that gives me that jolt of energy. I cringe sometimes when people use the word “fun” to describe art, since art is not always fun, but I guess I will be a bit cringe and say that it is fun to always be searching for folks taking big swings with their art. It doesn’t always land for me but when it does I feel the need to tell everyone about the brilliant thing I just saw.

If that doesn’t interest someone, that’s fine too. I’m not always in that mood for that either and maybe I just want to watch some old Doctor Who, but I don’t get why someone would pretend to be interested in it only when they can beat on something else and can’t be appreciated as it’s own standalone thing. Just don’t engage with it at all if that’s the case. I mean, I’m not above wanting the numbers and if you want to play through all of my stuff, then go ahead. But there’s no need to bring it up only in the context of some video game discourse.

Anyway, a bunch of critics on Bluesky have said to blog stuff like this out instead of just posting, which is convenient since it’s something I’ve been doing for experimental games for the last few years anyway.

Made Another Flickgame

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I guess this is currently my passion? Flickgame has been such an easy to use tool for making tiny games that it’s been satisfying making little interactive comics. My newest one, World in Motion, is a little silly. It’s about the summer of 2010 in Ann Arbor, Michigan when I went to Encore Records and a younger, irony-poisoned me bought the 12″ for the New Order song World in Motion, which you can listen to on YouTube while playing. I also recommend eventually listening to the weirder B-Side as well, since the game is about that. For whatever reason a friend and I referenced this song a lot. We were big New Order fans but did not like this song, but were fascinated by how popular of a song it was in their catalog. As an American, a lot of this stuff did not have any context for me either. All I knew was that Lily Allen’s dad is in the music video for some reason and does the voice of a soccer player, who does the rap in the single, in the b-side.

The game is set in Encore Records, as I mentioned above, at their old location. My understanding is that the landlord increased the rent too much and they had to move a few blocks over. It’s still a fine record store but I liked the older and bigger location more, where I could spend even more time digging through records. Does this mean my game is an anti-landlord statement and my most political game yet? Not really, but I do think this made me dislike landlords even more. This all happened right before the pandemic too, so the move happened and then nothing filled that space for a year. So well played to that landlord. Another records store in downtown Ann Arbor, Underground Sounds, has also moved since then because of landlords. There’s probably a larger game or something in my about my evolving relationship with a city but realistically I’m more likely to make 20 or so tiny games about it instead.

I think I also like making incredibly specific games that are only for a handful of people. Not because I think it’s particularly clever or meant to be gatekeeping. I just like making things that I know a couple of friends will hopefully think are fun to play for a minute. Don’t have any clever insights there, I just like making stuff and hyper fixating on very specific things.

Loved the Incredibly Ambitious Interactive Fiction Game PARA//LLAX

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two columns with separate stories being told about men feeling pain

Developer: Stanwixbuster
Year: 2026
Genre: Interactive Fiction
System: Browser

PARA//LLAX is an interactive fiction game created by Stanwixbuster for the Videotome 3 Jam about two men who wake up with a hole in their chest. The story is told by two separate columns with the men describing what they see, and advanced asynchronously by advancing one column at a time using the left and right arrow keys or both at the same time by pressing down. My limited experience with games made using Videotome is that they’re linear and the story is advanced with a mouse click or keypress until you finish the story. That’s certainly not a criticism. I think even a limited interaction like that changes the reader’s relationship to the story compared to if it was a book or post, but it really surprised me to see that you could do asynchronous storytelling using the engine. It’s not something I’ve seen before and the implementation was far more ambitious than I had expected.

When I saw that you could advance the story on either column, I figured that it was still going to be a linear narrative and they eventually end at the same point but the game has 27 end states. I wasn’t able to find them all but the branching storylines all felt very unique. I can’t even imagine how much work must have gone into writing all of them and building out all the branches, but it was a perfect fit for the surreal body horror story this game is about. I also felt the ambient music and different colored graphics for each side of the screen for each man are used well to immerse the reader.

Body horror probably isn’t going to be for everyone and I do recommend reading the content warnings before playing but I can’t recommend PARA//LLAX enough to anyone who is a fan of interactive fiction.

PARA//LLAX is available in the browser on Itch.io.

Meanderware thoughts

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a skull saying "All it takes to create for the old school web is to know that you can. It never went away. It's still here!"

Developer: alienmelon
Year: 2026
Genre: Interactive Essay
System: Browser

Meanderware: Things I loved about cyberspace is an interactive essay collecting various thoughts on the indie web and how ephemeral the internet and digital art can be. It’s probably obvious from the description that it’s something I would love but it’s so expertly crafted that I want to recommend it to everyone.

a skull saying "It's about the journey This is why the indie web will always matter. We exist on our own terms, and create on our own terms. The internet is for everyone."

The game (I’m still calling it a game) mostly takes place as a first person exploration of a virtual space with you coming across doors that link you to external websites about the internet and dialog windows modeled after tooltips as seen in the screenshots above. The game has an aesthetic inspired by 90s software and internet graphics but is more than just nostalgia bait, with the essay exploring what the internet could be and how we can build that. It references the Internet from the 90’s because it needs to discuss how it has evolved over the decades, but never falls into the trap that things of this nature often seem to. It doesn’t lecture you on how the internet was better and ignores all the issues that the internet had during this period and I felt that all of the themes of the essay were communicated very well through the 3D space you explore.

The essay also addresses one of my biggest gripes with Internet nostalgia. People will frequently lament that the internet just isn’t what it used to be and it’s too bad it’s all gone, but it isn’t! People still use forums (see previous posts on here), and people still make their own personal sites on places like NeoCities. It’s all still there, just being covered up by a heavily commercialized layer of apps that make it harder to discover. What I really love about how this game addresses it is that it provides you with some of the tools to build your own site and weird internet tools. I really appreciate that this essay wants to say that the internet can still be weird if you want it to be.

a green grid with a giant tower coming out of it. Error windows cover the landscape

Part of the game is about discovering little corners of the web that become very meaningful and how short lived they can be. This brought back so many memories of being on forums in the 00’s and how important they were to me at the time, even if they were generally pretty silly places. AdventureGamers.com just died last year after being around for decades, and was a place that I spent quite amount of time at. I still think about these communities quite a bit even decades after I have left them.

On an unrelated note, is this the first game to reference HappyPuppy? It has to be?

To be honest, we all know this review could have been summarized by that overused gif of Meryl Streep pointing and saying yes, but I hope that me endlessly praising it will encourage you to check it out and perhaps even create your own website.

Meanderware: Things I loved about cyberspace is available in the browser on Itch.io

Blog Roundup (May 10, 2026)

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Well I thought I was done with these but there was a lot of stuff I enjoyed reading this week and I want to talk about how I loved it all!

Laura Michet has been posting about making Flickgames, which ended up being very important to me because it inspired me to make my own. And then our posts about Flickgames motivated someone else to make one. Join us! Flickgame is good

I loooooved this post titled Narrative Games Are Real Games. I get so cranky about people dismissing games if they’re not interactive enough or when they say “This could have been a movie.” and this post does a better job explaining why those are poor criticisms better than I could.

Did you know Myst Online is still going? You probably did because I keep talking about it. But here’s the latest Myst Online news.

The Bathysphere is one of my favorite newsletters and Expedition 55 discusses great stuff like the ttrpg New In Town and why you should make a zine about your favorite game.

Midnight Reading mentions TOWNSQUEER, a bundle of LGBT zines and games that sounds really interesting to me. Also a cat picture.

I think a post titled Things I Wish I’d Thought Of Before Putting “Fuck” In The Name Of My Game says it all. One of my favorite ttrpg designers discusses, well, what to title your game.

Michael Coorlim has a nice post about making a classic maze game in a week.

The History of How We Play has a big post abut the late David Nutting’s contributions to games.

Lotus has a massive post reviewing the games she’s played in 2026 in Dialed Indie.

Renga in Blue continues playing every adventure game ever made, in order of release. This time it’s Horror House from 1983, a text adventure that was made for a contest.

Andrew Plotkin remembers a firefighting game from 1980ish that is almost certainly lost but one that other people also remember. I think collecting memories of lost games is really important, I did it on here with HeroMUD, so I’m always happy when I see other folks are doing that too since we’ll probably never save the actual games.

schledorn defends one dimensional characters in games.

Ephemeral Enigmas is always covering games I never heard of and this time it’s Hihou Densetsu: Chris no Bouken, a game that’s maybe not the greatest but I like how it looks.

I still haven’t played any Atari ST games yet, my nostalgia is tied to the Amiga, but I love this new Atari ST blog. Yesterday’s post is about a game called Into the Eagle’s Nest, a game that doesn’t sound great but now I learned about a game I never heard of before.

That’s it for this post. If you discover a website you like from this, add it to your RSS feed reader.

Marges Destimbats (Crumbled Stone Walls) thoughts

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a grandfather talking about olive trees and saying they are in need of pruning

Developer: ferran
Year: 2026
Genre: Visual Novel
System: Browser

Marges Destimbats is a short interactive documentary about the developer’s grandfather maintaining crumbling stone-wall terraces in an olive orchard near Deltebre, Spain. I rarely see games and interactive media these days using FMV, so I was really excited to come across this for the Sant Jordi Jam 2026. It’s about something so specific too. How often do you learn about olive orchards from a video game? I also love that it was the designer’s grandfather who stars in this game. Getting family members to act in a video game can sometimes be tough, as seen from the outtakes for Myst, and you know what? He did great. I’m glad this was made and would love to see more interactive documentaries like this.

Marges Destimbats is available to play in-browser on Itch.io.

Made a Flickgame

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a crude drawing of a toilet and text saying The Toilet

I just used the Flickgame tool to make a tiny game about one of my earlier memories and I loved using it. It’s such an easy to use tool for making little comics and interactive stories. I had originally intended to make a game for smilejam but then when I finished making this game I looked at the rules and submissions and realized I didn’t really pay attention to the rules at all, oops. But it inspired me to play with flickgame and lists plenty of other neat little tools I can play with so I’m really glad I saw the jam.

Anyway, here’s The Toilet. I’ll upload it to this site eventually as well. Does it count as a Leisure Suit Larry fangame?

Perfect Tides: Station to Station thoughts

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Developer: Three Bees
Publisher: Three Bees
Year: 2026
Genre: Adventure
System: Windows

Perfect Tides: Station to Station is a point-and-click adventure where you play as Mara, an eighteen year old woman who has just started college. You experience all that college has to offer you while obtaining new ideas and applying them to papers and other forms of writing. This will be a slimmer and more rambling post because I feel like everything I have to say about the game has already been said by other outlets such as Unwinnable but I thought the game was brilliant and is now one of my favorite adventure games.

a woman saying "Hey, no need to be embarrassed. There was a whole summer I read nothing but computer game novelizations I found in a box behind a grocery store."

One of the many things I was pleasantly surprised by was how much of an improvement it was over the first Perfect Tides, a game that I also thought was very good and well crafted. I was just so surprised by how much more confident this game was in its design, willing to drop more conventional things people expect in adventure games like the multiple verbs and puzzles the first game had, in order to focus more on the choices Mara can make and ability to learn new things. I think having difficult puzzles in this game would have just killed the pacing and wouldn’t fit in with the grounded story this is telling.

Learning new topics was also a really interesting thing to see in an adventure game. It’s been done before of course, this game cites The Dagger of Amon Ra as an influence, but in a way that feels so natural and continuing to explore and talk to other people will improve your knowledge on a topic. It’s masterfully implemented.

Everyone that is of a certain age who plays this will probably relate so much to the references this game makes as well as just what it was like to be a college student and they’re right! For better or worse, I could relate to Mara and just the experience of being a bit of a walking disaster in my late teens. If you don’t relate to that, well, it must be nice to not have that experience.

Anyway, I loved the game and hope it is very successful since it has some of my favorite writing in an adventure game and hope it inspires others to tell personal stories as well.

Perfect Tides: Station to Station is available on Steam and Itch.io, and is coming soon to Nintendo Switch.