myst

What Bands Have Played Myst?

~ mpklamerus ~ 5 Comments

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. EDIT: I’m wrong about this one. Lemmy did play arcade games. See the comments below.

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.

Free Comic Book Day 2025 and Gehn’s Son is Making Generative Music

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

As promised, I will be doing more checking in posts and this site will be more of a personal blog as a result of me deleting social media off my phone. Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day so I take my kids to one of our local comic store to pick up some free comics and some books. I no longer buy single issues of comics like I used to, so maybe I’m part of the problem, but I do like reading collected works. I had actually read a thread last week on Bluesky that free comic book day doesn’t actually do much to bring in new reader, where indie book store day was a massive success for his store, and had suggestions. But I’m not on social media for the moment so I guess just take my word for it? I still think it’s a fun excuse to go to the local comic store though.

The one I got for myself was the first Adventuregame Comic- Leviathan by Jason Shiga. I had actually know about this series for a while because I saw that Andrew Plotkin had made games based on them.

On Bandcamp Friday I also took my Myst love to the next logical level and bought an album by the son of the actor that played Gehn in Riven. Well actually it’s more because I have friends in the Minneapolis electronic music scene and a friend just played a live streaming show with him, but I’m going to pretend it’s because of the Myst connection.

Speaking of Myst, it looks like the game Zed, by a former Cyan person and previously published by Cyan, is getting delisted soon. So maybe consider getting that for $1.

Ahyoheek Night in Myst Online

~ mpklamerus ~ 4 Comments

At this point I think everyone knows about the Myst series. It was a gigantic success at release, becoming one of the best selling computer games of all time, and the sequels have done very well too, including the recent (and very good) remakes of Myst and Riven. What a lot of people don’t seem to know about is the MMO spinoff Myst Online. Back in 2003 there was a game called Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, set in the modern day where players create an avatar and explore various ages in 3D. While I was a big fan of the game, it sold below expectations. It was going to have an online component where people got to explore ages together, but it got shut down by the publisher Ubisoft very quickly after release. In 2007 it came back online as part of the games subscription service GameTap, even receiving new content, before shutting down again.

However, it went back online around 12 years ago and has run on a Cyan hosted server, remaining free to download (Myst Online website) and play, and relying on donations for server fees. In recent years it has even received new content that was created by the community. I wrote about one of these updates a year ago and the game has had some big bug fixes lately and a new content addition planned for the beginning of next month.

What I want to talk about in this post is how the community is still very active despite it being a MMO that has died multiple times. Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of playing the Myst universe’s version of Rock, Paper, Scissors called Ahyoheek. It uses a Beetle, Pen, and a Book instead. The Beetle beats Pen, Pen beats Book, and Book beats Beetle. The additional twist is that up to five people can play the game at once. For the last year, people have been meeting up at 11PM EST every Saturday night and meeting in the Competitive Myst Neighborhood to play Ahyoheek. The meetups were started by streamer BogusMeatFactory, although he doesn’t stream the meetups since they’re just folks casually hanging out, playing the game, and talking about their week.

Folks at a Ayoheek table playing the game, with holograms projecting above the table, while others watch the game.
People playing a round of Ahyoheek

I’ve known about the meetups for a while but never made the time to attend one until now. I can easily say it was a delight and I will be going to many more. It was so much fun to play a part of the game I’ve never really experienced, despite occasionally hopping on a few times most years since its revival because it’s a frequently empty game. A few of the folks who played in Ahyoheekwere actually pretty new to the MMO and only decided to check it out in the last year because they were Myst fans but never actually played this spinoff. I played a few rounds and then decided to just sit and hang out to talk to folks while playing, since the table only supports five players and the total turnout was 12 people. Conversations included Myst Online of course, but people also talked about other things like cooking or whatever else they were up to. It was just a pleasant time and it was nice seeing people hanging out in the world like you would expect from a MMO that was doing well and hasn’t been shut down multiple times.

It turns out that the Myst Online community actually does quite a few meetups and events. Every other week someone hosts a radio show inside of Myst Online called Radio Free D’Ni, a big meetup on the first Saturday of every month, tour groups of the game’s ages, and story times. These are all listed on The Guild of Messengers calendar page. I could probably be clever and make a reference to Myst about how the ending has not yet been written but it really is the case for a lot of MMOs. Asheron’s Call 2 was my first MMO and there are people making good progress bringing it back, with the first Asheron’s Call already having community servers. Even Sierra Online’s online community from the 90s is still going thanks to fans. Just because a game has shut down doesn’t mean it’s gone forever.

a group of folks from the recent Myst Onlne meetup standing behind an Ahyoheek table
Photo from the end of the end at the most recent Ahyoheek meetup

Retro Gaming Roundup

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Every week I’m going to start doing a dump of links and other retro gaming related things that I thought were interesting this last week.

screenshot from Heroes of Might and Magic 2, showing a boat traveling across water.
Screenshot from the fheroes2 project

The folks at Time Extension did an interview with the people behind the fheroes2 project. Fheroes2 is an open source multiplatform project that reproduces the original game but makes improvements like support for high-resolutions, improved AI, numerous fixes and UI improvements. It just got a big update two days ago too. Fgeroes2 requires the original files, which are available on GOG.

Half-Life received a massive update for its 25th anniversary.

Mattias Gustavsson made a massive post on their Itch.io blog about Drakborgen, a board game from 1985. The post is filled with lots of pictures of the game and now I really want to try it.

The DOS game Father World now has an English translation.

I posted about it earlier but Myst Online got big update for its 20th anniversary and it seems like the biggest part, an addition to the main area, was added this last Saturday and the game had an in-game celebration for it. I’m happy the game is still around and think it’s worth checking out. If you’d like to try it out, it’s available for free.

Finally, this update is more for people that live in the state of Michigan but it looks like Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum got a little bit of an extension before it may possibly get knocked down. I’m hoping that the amount of pressure that everyone is putting on the city will result in some sort of protection for the arcade or at least buy them enough time to move somewhere else, since the planned demolition would be to just make additional parking lot space for a grocery store. Unfortunately it looks like Pinball Pete’s in Ann Arbor is facing demolition and people are trying to figure out ways to keep that place alive too. It’s a rough time for arcades in my area.

Big Myst Online Update Available Now

~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

EDIT: Turns out the update is actually live now

It looks like a massive update is coming to Myst Online tomorrow.

screenshot from Cyan's facebook saying Tomorrow is URU's 20th anniversary! Can you believe it?! Neither can we. Just in time for the celebration is the latest fan update to MOULa (Myst Online re-imagined as an MMO set in the vast, explorable universe of Myst)! It includes a new D'ni area, new audio for the intro with a new voice-over by Rand Miller, updates to six fan ages, and more surprises! Visit https://mystonline.com/ to learn more.

If you thought this MMO was dead, or never even knew about it, I don’t blame you. Uru came out in 2003 and while it did alright critically, it was a big commercial flop and nearly killed Cyan. The online portion of the game was quickly shut down and was unplayable until Gametap paid to revive the game and have Cyan create new content for it. Eventually this ended too and Myst Online was shutdown again until Cyan brought it back again for free on their own servers, which are kept up by donations. It was essentially the same game as the one at the end of Gametap’s run, static and no new content, until a few years ago when Cyan started adding fan content. While it will never be a massively popular game, it does receive regular updates now and seems to be getting a big one tomorrow. I’m not sure if this will include the Descent Expansion update that has been in development for a long time, which uses content from Myst 5.

If you’re a Myst fan but have never played Myst Online, give it a shot! It’s a bit clunky and dated, but I think it still looks nice for a game from 2003 and there hasn’t really been anything like it since then. Plus you can play it entirely for free here.