I realize you all have been visiting this site with great frustration lately. Again, our absence has not been due to a lack of desire to update you on what is going on. Contrary to Ryan Davis’ assumption that we’ve broken up with you, we still care very much about all of you and are continually grateful for your support and enthusiasm.

There are things we would like to share with you. Much has happened over the past few months and we will let you know what’s going on, but now is not the appropriate or best time.

Please hang in there. We’ll update you when we can.

Thanks,

Adrian

As Presidents of Mysteria Film Group, and the primary responsible parties for this website, we simply cannot encourage the solicitation for fan-generated material. Patrick and Adrian presently do not have access to the previously published e-mail address meant to receive submissions, nor will we be accepting submissions at any of the mystmovie.com e-mail addresses.

While we definitely appreciate the enthusiasm from the community in regard to the opportunity that was offered, sadly, we must rescind it until it can be further discussed and resolved.

We ask that those of you who were informed of this opportunity and either planned to, or executed a submission to consider such submission to not have been received by any parties responsible for the administration of mystmovie.com.

And at least now you don’t have to scroll through almost 500 comments to say anything anymore.

Have we thrown The Book of Ti’ana out? No, all of the Myst books, games, and lore are on the same playing field right now. There isn’t one taking preference over another at this time.

The Book of Atrus would be a great place to start. This has been talked about a lot here. We are certainly not opposed to it, and we are looking into every aspect of BoA as a starting point.

What about an entirely new story within the Myst universe? We are very open to this. It would need to be a story that does not fly in the face of Myst canon or lore. But this route would certainly help eliminate the “game play” trap. Adding to canon and lore could be very exciting from a story perspective as well.

What about the story exploring Gehn, Atrus, and Catherine and their sons/grandsons, leading up events of the first Myst game? We are giving this a lot of though as well, it could be a great place to start and would provide something fresh and new for big Myst fans as well.

How bout the story of the Ronay people. This goes too far back for a first film. Maybe in the future or a mini series .

Are we working within existing canon to tell the story? Yes, we will stay within canon and lore to tell the story. However, we can also add both of those. Cyan has been very clear that we (MFG) are part of the family, and they trust us as canon creators. Of course, now that Cyan is helping with the film adaptation, whatever direction we go will be doubly canon. But to be clear, we are NOT going to go around breaking canon and lore to make a movie.

Will we be using specific characters form the Myst series, or will it be new ones? Both. I think if we end up telling a new story with in the Myst universe, there will be a lot of new characters and a lot of known ones. If we use already existing material, then already established characters will play the biggest roles, that not to say we wouldn’t add a new character if it’s needed for the adaptation.

Is a TV series coming? All our focus and energy is going into a feature film, but we are not opposed to the Myst expanding out into other visual mediums as well.

Funny that you guys would mention a Myst theme park. That almost happened when Disney’s publishing company (Hyperion) published the Myst novels. The island in the big lake at Disney World was going to be converted into a replica of Myst Island. When I say it almost happened, you’d be shocked at how close it actually came to becoming a reality. Perhaps if the Myst films revitalize the franchise we’ll see it happen!

This started out as a cool independent movie dream, now you’re selling out to Hollywood. We’ve said this before but I’m happy to say it again. Our vision and dream was NEVER to create an independent film about Myst. Our goal has ALWAYS FROM DAY ONE been to take this to Hollywood and make a blockbuster film. We are going to make an amazing blockbuster, but it’s no independent production.

You have to do thing in order! BoT is first. When has the Myst series ever done anything in order . Even the books weren’t released with BoT first.

What do you mean by open up the Myst canon? I mean we have to stop focusing on BoT as the only starting place. We have to open up the Myst canon, look inside and see what other treasures are waiting to be explored.

How will we finally settle on the story we’re going to tell? The million-dollar question right? It will come down to collaboration between us (the producers), Cyan, our writer, our director, and the studio. Right now we are in talks will all those people (no we haven’t picked a director, but we are in talks with people that would be perfect for this) and when we find the right fit we’ll know it be off to the races.

It seems Myst Island needs to be in the movie in some form. It will be.

Why not alter BoT to incorporate these aspects you require. We’ve spent the last 5 years doing that, and will continue to look at that as a viable option.

$!#& this, I’m tired of being disappointed, I’m out of here! We understand where you are coming from, but making a movie has its ups and downs! (Read the development section of this to get an idea.) Up to this point, what we’ve been able to accomplish has been unbelievable. Of course there are going to be disappointments along the way, but it’s how we deal with those and work through them that will make this film great.

Will there be a Rand cameo? Yes.

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In conclusion, we are not interested in trying to duplicate game play. Nor will we create a movie that throws all the exciting parts of the Myst universe together in one big explosion. We are going to avoid the traps and pitfalls that other video games movies have fallen into, and develop a story that works for the big screen instead of game play.

One last thing, thank you all for sticking with us, supporting the move, and just being awesome. I was really worried that the previous post would scare half of you away, but we’re excited that you understand where we are coming from and have our backs. This blog and the support for the Myst movie shown here, has spoken volumes towards the relevance of Myst today, and has helped us get where we are. You all rock!

I really don’t know where to start – no really I’ve started this post five or six times and each time I haven’t gotten very far. So much has gone on and there have been a lot of changes around here, but half of them are still under wraps, and the other half are somehow tied into the first half and are hard to explain with out stepping over lines. So I’ll just jump right in.

After countless meetings, discussions, and countless story alterations, we’ve decided to open up the Myst cannon and broaden our horizon story wise. The Book of Ti’ana has been our starting point, our passion, and our focus for the past 7 years, but after talks with writers, directors, studio personal and Cyan, we are stepping back and looking at the complete universe that is Myst to revaluate our starting point.

This amazing journey began as a dream and a prayer, and over the years it has changed, the team has grown, and we are now looking square in the face of a $100+ million dollar major motion picture, that is headed in the direction of a very successful franchise.

With this success also comes the responsibility to make a movie that will live up to the fans expectations, and also appeal to the general audience. To make this successful we have to reach a far wider audience than hardcore Myst fans. Here’s the dilemma, there are four groups of people we need to reach with this movie.

1.) People who’ve played all the games, read the books, explored the wonderful and vast lore of the Myst universe – i.e. hardcore fans.
2.) People who played some of Myst and/or some of the other games but didn’t know there was so much more to the universe – i.e. casual fans.
3.) People who have heard of Myst, or knew people who played it, but have never experienced it first hand – i.e. the majority of people.
4.) People who have never heard of Myst – i.e. people who are not as cool as us.

Anyway, because of the budget and scope of this franchise we need to be able to successfully reach out to all four of those groups, and we kept running into walls with our version of BoT trying to make it applicable to more just group 1.

I’ll give you a couple examples:

1.) The majority of movie goers fall into groups 2 and 3. When they hear “Myst” they automatically think of a crazy awesome island, lots of cool puzzles (and some that made them throw their computers out the window), traveling to other worlds through books, etc. BoT on the other hand deals a lot with politics, most of it which takes place in a cave (albeit the coolest cave in the world). On top of that there isn’t even a hint of Myst in BoT. A lot of people will feel they came to see one thing, and were given something else.

2.) As I just mentioned, most of BoT takes place in the cavern. This is an issue that caused a lot of questions to be raised by almost everyone we’ve discussed this with. If the D’ni have the ability (and by extension the filmmakers) to create and travel to any world they could imagine, why would you spend most of the story in a cave? Lets say James Cameron (or Jim as I call him ) decided to spend most of the movie Avatar in a spaceship instead of exploring the AMAZING world of Pandora. The movie would not have been nearly as successful or fun to watch. We as the filmmakers, want to be able to utilize the greatest gift Myst has given us – the ability to travel to wonderful and exotic worlds, explore them, and tell a damn good story while we do it. The studios want the same thing; open the world up – don’t restrict yourself when telling this story. And we’re listening, we’ve taken a step back from BoT and we are re-evaluating the best way to introduce the world to Myst in movie form.

Of course those of us who know and understand the Myst universe know that D’ni is not just a cave. It’s a thriving metropolis, a beautiful city that’s been perfected over thousands of years, with towering architecture, a beautiful glowing lake, castles islands, and is the center of one of the most beautiful civilizations to ever grace earth. Is it awesome? Yes. Is it cinematic? Yes. (As long as you don’t spend most of your time there.) Is it what most people think of when they hear Myst? No.

And trust me we’re not throwing out BoT, we are just taking a step back and looking at all our options. BoT will play a very key roll to whatever story we tell, whether it’s this movie, or another one in the franchise.

So how are we doing this? Good question. Like I hinted to last week in a comment, Tony and Rand were with us in LA. Cyan has taken a MUCH more active roll in the movie process during the last couple months, and will continue to movie forward. If we are considering other story options, having Cyan intimately involved in that is vital, both to the fans and to the property. And I have to say, working with Cyan like this has been refreshing, rewarding, and delivering some awesome results! Sitting down in a room with Rand for hours talking about story, plot, characters and even puzzles is a dream come true for us, and we couldn’t be happier with the way we’re headed.

So I know that some of you will probably be concerned about what’s going on. Are we going to butcher the property? Is this going to become another video game movie? Will we lose sight of what we’ve worked so hard on for the last several years? No, no, and no! We will not lose sight of what the fans want, and what is needed to make this an AMAZING movie franchise! And listen, if you guys have any other questions or concerns about where we are heading, please ask and we will do our best to answer the ones we can and make sure you are all satisfied with what lies ahead.

Edit: Small edits for spelling.

Talk soon

While our presence and activity on the site has been pretty much non-existent lately, the exact opposite has been true for our efforts with the project and its business in the business. We have been working very hard this past month with all things Myst. We’ve been faced with a lot of very difficult challenges recently and all of our energy has been focused on answering those challenges bravely.

That, sadly, is all I can say at the moment. I know these non-update updates suck, but it’s the nature of the biz, kids. Thanks for hanging in there with us.

I started out on my journey in 2002 when I just kept eating through game title after game title. To be honest, I was stuck in a foreign country with no friends, so the only thing I could do, outside of cleaning my house, was play games. And did I play. The game boxes started stacking up as I’d go through a title or more per week. Seeing that he couldn’t sustain that kind of consumption, my ex-husband asked me one night at dinner if I had ever heard of the game “Myst.” Not knowing what it was, I wondered what he could have been eluding to, referring to the spatial problem solving he had mentioned. Later that week, he brought me a very old version of Myst. I loaded it up and began to play, but this time instead of decimating the game in a week, Myst took me over a month to finally finish. At that point I was hooked. At around that same time, a commercial was playing on television, one that had the music of Peter Gabriel singing “Burn you up, burn you down” while these amazing graphics and images of mushrooms went across the screen. A few months later, after begging profusely, underneath the Christmas tree was a brand new box containing Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. After I installed the game, I went to work on it, savoring every last beautiful detail, listening to the music and being enthralled at the sight of an avatar that looked just like me wandering the great city of D’ni.

Back in 2002 when Myst Online first opened, I was lucky enough to be invited (in the great clerical error of 2002) to the open beta test. It was there, amongst lag and countless restarts, that I bumped into a wonderful woman named Pepsi. She was a real treasure. Amongst the worn stone floors of a neighborhood, Pepsi taught me some of the base tenets of the Myst Universe; that I should always greet everyone I meet with a smile on my face and love in my heart; that there is no room for bigotry or bias; that the world is meant to explore one stone, and one dream, at a time.

I spent hour upon hour, reading every last journal, exploring every last nook and cranny, memorizing the city so that way I could navigate its streets like a native. It was after so many hours spent immersing myself in the Myst Universe that I realized I had finally found a place that felt like a true home. I was lucky enough that, during the brief time that UruLive existed, I made so many friends and became a part of a unique family. The adventure had only begun when it came crashing down on us like a great cave-in.

After UruLive closed down, I went back and played Riven and Exile. Lucky for me, right about that same time Myst IV was coming out and I was lucky enough to go to the “Quad-M” or The Montreal Mini-Mysterium Meet where I got to go to Revelation Lair and meet the game designers, sound designers and the wonderful folks who brought a piece of the Myst Universe to life. I still have my M4 coffee mugs from that day and they’re used quite regularly. I have photographs from those days of us hugging Pepsi bottles and sending photos to Pepsi to let her know she was with us in spirit the whole way.

But then came a glimmer, then there was hope, finally, an announcement that the place that I had finally found a home in was going to be available again. I could go home, take a breath of metaphoric cavern air, sit on the grass of my relto and be at peace.

When we stepped into UntilUru, I got together with some friends and created the D’Olympics (they later changed the name to the D’ni Games). You see, the woman who taught me how to live as a part of the Myst Universe was a bit of a mystery herself. I found out a few months after UruLive closed that she had juvenile arthritis and was bound to a motorized wheelchair. All that running we did in cavern, she couldn’t do in real life. She loved to run, and I remember a comment she had made that running in Uru was the first time she ever felt like she could run again. All those things I took for granted, that I could run, jump and climb, all those things that I could do, Pepsi couldn’t. The pride that I was so warned about all those months came crashing down on me. How could I be so prideful? How could I be so unthinking? So after realizing that and watching a woman put together the Athens Olympic games, I sat down with a few friends and we designed the first D’ni games in Pepsi’s honor. If she loved to run, then I was going to build her a marathon course, and I did. We had everything you can imagine, from the opening ceremonies to the marathon, all sorts of running events, people playing ayoheek, diving competitions, you name it.  If it was possible to be done with the physics engine of that game and the imagination of the players, we did it.  After three months of planning and countless man hours, over a weekend in October the games ran for 72 hours solid, the first large scale event of its’ kind ever undertaken. There were hundreds of volunteers and hundreds of virtual athletes.  The Myst Universe became a place where people not only solved puzzles together, but where players from around the world came to compete in friendly competition. There was even a man who made up medals and mailed them to the winners.

The day of the opening ceremonies, we waited for Pepsi but she never came. Her health by that time was in decline. She had gone in for a procedure and the pain made it so that she couldn’t play. She never saw the marathon run and she died three months later. But to this day, I don’t take a step in a virtual world or the real world without remembering her.

After I moved back to Las Vegas, I found the Myst Reader in a local bookstore. I soaked up every page. I went through the three novels in a matter of days, chuckling at the screenshots inside the cover of Er’cana and Ahnonay. The Book of D’ni is my favorite by far, Windgroveisms aside, I found that the relyimah of Tehranee were kindred spirits of mine. In my life I’ve seen the cruelty of other human beings all too often and to see it personified in the shorn heads and black clad bodies of the Relyimah, it made me weep. It also gave me the strength to stand up for myself. After all I had gone through in my personal life, the abuse, trauma and so forth along with the prejudice we were shown when part of the Uru community moved over to There.com only to be treated as relyimah and taking years to become a recognized, positive force in the community, I relented and moved my virtual life to World of Warcraft where my night elf druid named “Relyimah” (after the slaves of Tehrahnee) could literally turn into a great tree, heal those in need and and spread the word of the Myst Universe.

My guild in World of Warcraft is called “The Unseen” after the great relyimah of the Book of D’ni and after the journals in Uru that told of the royal guard that also shared The Unseen name. What really drove it home for me was the base tenet of the royal guard version of the relyimah, they were the ethics police and they helped do what so many cannot in the real world, prevent people from coercing others into doing bad things. The officers in my guild are known as Maintainers and they have been briefed fully on the meaning of their title and its’ importance. They are charged with maintaining the high moral ground that I stand for which is all based in the teachings of the Myst Reader and my experiences in Uru. I’ve spent evenings reading passages to them so that they understand what it means to be selfless, to give more than they take and to remember to always greet everyone they meet with a smile on their face and love in their hearts. I constantly remind them, “Pride kills” and that “malicious pride can take everything you hold dear from you, down to your very life.”

I go to sleep every night after reading passages from three books, “The Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, “The Republic” by Plato and The Myst Reader. All three books have helped me become a better person by just touching them. They’re my link to wisdom because I realize what Socrates said was true, “The wisest person in the world realizes they know nothing.” But I also remember that just like the great city of D’ni, things we hold dear can vanish just as quickly as it came to us. The perfection of the city, the time spent in the young days of UruLive, the fleeting time I got to spend with Pepsi, they’re all gone now, but as the great writer I am, those days will live on in my memory, always tied to the beauty of Myst.

I might sound like a lunatic who takes the Myst Universe far too seriously, but to be honest, Myst taught me a lot, it saw me through recovering from addiction, it gave me purpose and it gave me what no one or nothing could. Hope. So to me, I’ll thump my Myst Reader at anyone who will stop and listen. I’m an Uruite, a citizen of the Deep City of D’ni.

Long live the Myst Universe. Cavern Blood Runs Deep.

She passed away in 1998. Her last saved game was on the prison island in Riven.

It is hard to imagine something like this happening to you; loosing someone so close. Those silly 5 stages of grief don’t even seem to count. Like the event horizon of a black hole, all the rules of the universe just melt and fall away. I remember almost nothing of 1998 and only small patches of 1999. Apparently we visited my mother’s parents in Vancover. You would think someone would remember something like that, traveling all the way to the other side of the country, but I didn’t. It took me a long time before I played the games again, but when I did, the first thing I did was finish Riven. When I first started it up, all the happy memories came back, and I admit I cried for a long time. Playing them on my own was probably the most important step to coming to grips with what had happened. It was almost like seeing her again, although in a different sort of way. Every rock, every wall, every switch had memories of her glued to it. That little beetle you look at and then it flies away; my mother is in that beetle. During the process of healing, the games sort of filled in the hole where she used to be. When I was feeling low or trodden upon I would load Riven and just wander and I would feel better.

The second step for me came with Exile. This part is hard for me to put into words. I don’t quite understand myself, but because my mother and I never played this game, it was like taking a step without her there by my side. Almost like accepting her absence and moving on; yet, in a much more comfortable setting. In Riven I would think, “Oh there is that bug mum loves.” In Exile I would think, ” I bet mum would have loved Edanna.” It made me able to think of her in the past tense in a very comfortable and natural way.

Now, at this point I had only played Riven and Exile after my mum passed away, but we only had a Mac copy of MYST. Things had happened in such a way that by the time I started playing the games, we didn’t have any Macs. [I ended up getting a PC version of the game, and] just like the first time I started Riven, memories rushed back in. Memories I had forgotten; perhaps to keep myself from pain when the wound was still fresh, or perhaps I had just forgotten. But these memories were easier to deal with, more like pleasant reminders of a better time. I found it funny how every sound evoked memories in me from forever ago. I didn’t mention it but along with loosing a year of my life, every memory of her up till her death became extremely foggy. Every memory of her I can glean from my subconscious is extremely precious, and something I cherish. So the sights and sounds of MYST are the keys to some of my most important memories of her.

Every time I play any of the games I remember those years and it feels like I am with her again. It has been so long now that I can think back and smile – a sad sort of smile maybe, but a smile.

This is what I remember. I am not sure how accurate it is. I asked my dad to mail me what he remembers but he hasn’t messaged back, and I want to send this off before I chicken out. It is kinda hard to open oneself up like this on the internet; although, perhaps being able to talk so openly about it is the third step. Who knows? I certainly don’t.

My present (for completeness sake, hardly as interesting as my past)

In the past I would play and I would dream. Stories became real. Whole worlds would wander across my mind. It is no wonder I was drawn to the games. After all, how can someone not love a world where you can write your dreams into a book and then visit them?

In University I chose to study game design because I wanted to make the worlds I see when I close my eyes real. Not only real for me, but real for other people. In high school, I was in a specialist program for the visual arts, and while I still love painting and drawing, they are two dimensional. A simple painting is nothing compared to being able to walk into the painting and experience it completely. Again, I was not surprised by this at all, I played the MYST games. They are basically like walking around in a amazingly beautiful painting, yet with more to discover under the surface. I love things that are deeper than they should be; even things that make no sense, like unusually deep lakes. I wonder what is at the bottom and how it got there. My final painting in high school was suppose to be a mural. All my class mates did a single giant panel, but I did a puzzle that was spread throughout the school. A puzzle where you had to find all the individual clues and then bring them together into one whole. I wonder where I got that idea from .

Also, I don’t know if this is the norm, but I have played the games all the way through; MYST 3 times, Riven twice, Exile 4 times, Revelation twice (Serenia was really annoying), Uru twice (but I would visit my Relto all the time and just wander through the ages) and End of Ages once (it was really boring).

Shorah lontantee

smile always; you never know whose day you have brightened.

Thanks to everyone who submitted their stories. With all of the fantastic entries we got, it was quite a struggle to narrow down the field to select a winner (as is evidenced by the fact that we have a tie). You guys are great.

Throughout the years, I’ve tried to follow numerous blogs for independent productions, but have been, without exception, disappointed when they’ve never made it past the welcome post (or in some cases a “coming soon” tag). We made a commitment to ourselves when we launched this site that we would not allow it (or its readers) to suffer the same fate. I think that we’ve managed to succeed rather well in this endeavor thus far. Since we’ve gone live, this site has grown to include 385 posts (386 with this one). I’d say that’s not half bad.

We’ve tried to make our posts as honest as possible. We’ve tried to remain vulnerable and emotionally expressive (even when it made us look a bit foolish or crazy). We’ve tried to make sure you guys were aware of the logistics of the process and boring it can all be most of the time

That said, there have been complaints (perhaps too strong of a word) about the frequency and content of our posts in this past six months. Please know that we understand where people are coming from. There has been a bit of a pull-back from the ultra-candid, minute by minute updates we used to post. Patrick and I have talked many times recently about how terribly frustrating, but necessary that reality is. As such, I wanted to write this post to offer you guys the “why” of it all. (note: this is not intended as a combative or defensive response to those who have mentioned the lack of updates, etc. As I said, we totally understand where those comments are coming from)

At the end of the day, MFG’s business is in trying to get this film made. To do that, we must operate as business people. This means we must limit our actions to those that best serve the business of this company. The further into this process we’ve gotten, the more we’ve had to curb our desires to be fully transparent with you guys. The further into this we get, the more we have to consider the political ramifications of the words we post here. There have been loads of frustrations, fears, blow-ups, grudges, arguments, heartbreaks, victories, successes, moments of pure joy, hope, excitement and jubilation that we’ve not been able to fully share with you guys simply because it would be detrimental to the business of the company to do so.

Please know that we desperately wish we could continue giving you the blow-by-blow all of the time, but that simply isn’t possible anymore. We continue to be committed to giving you guys every last scrap of information that we can safely share without putting the project in some kind of jeopardy. Things like not announcing who our writer is, when we’re pitching, who we’re pitching to, etc. are all due to us consciously controlling the information for the good of the project. It is not because we simply like to keep you guys guessing all the time. You guys have been with us through every step of this process. You all have been there to support us and inspire us to keep going, to persevere and to remain true to our goals. You are our Myst family, and we want to tell you everything we possibly can.

I hope that makes sense to everyone. I know it’s a bit of a bummer to not have the full, unfettered insider’s view, but you know a lot more about this project than you do about any other film being produced right now (unless you’re in the industry and working on another film, that is).

In closing, I’ll tell you guys this: The things we can’t tell you about for the good of the project? Yeah, there are a lot of them happening right now. At this very moment! A lot.

There are absolutely no apologies necessary.  THIS is EXACTLY why I pushed for the Smithsonian to undertake the exhibition.  It is the artistic output, collective passion, and elevation of the medium as more than what it seems to be that needs to be examined and collectively celebrated.  It is my pleasure and honor to curate this exhibition and it is communities like yours that make the effort worthwhile.

Again, thank you for for being so passionate about a medium we all love!  And please feel free to share this with your community.

We’ve received countless wonderful stories this past week, and we are very excited to pick our our favorite and share it with you!

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As you may or may not have heard, the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art museum will soon be launching a new exhibition called “The Art of Video Games”.  We at MFG were very excited to hear this.  Video games are an extremely important part of our world’s entertainment and art culture that have sadly been widely unrecognized for their artistic innovations until now.  It seems impossible to consider a medium that, like film, manages to encompass so many other established and widely accepted art forms (narrative literature, visual arts, music, etc.) within it’s creation as being anything other than legitimate art.  This exhibit is a very exciting step toward acknowledging video games as something far more significant than simple child’s play.

In another awesome move, The Smithsonian has opened voting to the general public to allow them to decide which games should be included in the exhibition.

“Playing video games involves many personal choices, so, in keeping with the spirit of the exhibition’s content, we want to involve the public in helping us select games for the exhibition,” said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

So, all of this is great.  Kudos to the Smithsonian, right?  Well, kinda.  We were very shocked and disappointed to see that “Myst” was not among the list of nominated games.  This, to us, seems like a very significant shortcoming in any exhibit intended to chronicle and showcase the artistic evolution of game creation.  This simply will not stand.  Something must be done to remedy this oversight.

Here’s what we propose:  We want all of you to fuel a grassroots campaign to implore the Smithsonian to reconsider their omission of “Myst” from the list of artistically significant games.  Below, we have provided a form letter (which you can feel free to modify as you see fit) that we’d like you to copy and paste into an email to the curator and directors of the exhibit.  Spread the word.  Use facebook, reddit, etc. to recruit others to the cause and let’s bombard the Smithsonian with requests.  Let’s not let such an important game go unrecognized for its amazing achievements and cultural impact.

BEGIN LETTER:

Dear Chris Melissinos, Elizabeth Broun and other administrators for “The Art of Video Games” exhibit:

I’d like to begin by commending you for organizing an exhibit that showcases the culturally significant art form of video game creation.  For too long video games have been widely ignored for their artistic value.  This exhibit and your efforts will go a long way in legitimizing the creative achievements of so many talented artists.

While I was very pleased to hear of this exhibit’s creation, I was saddened and surprised to see that the groundbreaking game “Myst” was absent from the list of nominated titles.  It seems impossible not to include such a title among those that have played an enduring role in the evolution of game creation (both artistically and technically).

“Myst” almost singlehandedly created the market for CD-ROM gaming.   As the first fully-immersive, 3D- rendered world, “Myst’s” appeal spanned generations.  From bedrooms to classrooms as an educational tool to the activity rooms of nursing homes, “Myst” captured a culture’s imagination, transporting them to a mysterious and magical island.    For the player of “Myst”, it was far more than a simple game – it was literally, in every way, an experience.  Its revolutionary video elements and state-of-the-art graphics redefined the adventure game genre, shattering previously held beliefs of what was possible in the industry.   Many critics touted “Myst” and its sequels as being responsible for elevating game creation from mere entertainment to a legitimate art form.

These groundbreaking qualities were reflected in its popularity as it became the #1 best selling game, where it remained for an impressive nine years.  To date, no other game in history has held the number one position for that long.  Even today, 17 years later, “Myst” remains the #1 best selling PC adventure game of all time.

“Myst” has inspired an entire generation of artists, from other game developers to visual effects artists in the film industry.  It is impossible to deny the artistic impact this title has had and it deserves to be recognized for those achievements.

It is for the reasons above that I respectfully ask you to reconsider the omission of such a cultural phenomenon from your list of nominated games.  Please do not allow one of the greatest evolutions in gaming to be absent from what I’m sure will be an incredible exhibition.

Sincerely,

(Your name here)

END LETTER

Okay so, copy, paste and send this letter.  Get others to do the same.  The address to send it to is:

AmericanArtGames@si.edu

Let’s fight for something we all love.  Act fast.  If this is going to be effective, we must get them to change their list as soon as possible.

So here’s what I want to do. I’d love to hear your stories. Find out what drew you to Myst, and how it impacted your life. What is your favorite memory from the games or books, what is your favorite Myst related story etc.?

Send your replies to myststories@gmail.com and we’ll pick our favorite and give you a personal post (“so and so writes” and all!)  on the website with your story.

Sound like fun? Please keep all the replies to this post on topic, and let the writing begin!

As Isaac mentioned in the last post, we’ve aligned ourselves with a writer that we will be walking into pitches with.  For those who have missed previous explanations of why we’re attaching a writer when we already have a script, I’ll repeat:

Because my draft was so painfully long, there will need to be significant alterations to the script as we move forward and an established writer is far easier to sell than little old me.  Hollywood studios are really big on A-list talent.  It’s a lot easier to sell a movie when you’ve got  a writer attached that they can feel confident about.  This paired with our desire to be sure we’re constantly exploring all of the possibilities with the story has lead us to bring in some fresh talent to spice things up.

I can’t tell you at this juncture who this writer is, but I can tell you that I have a great deal of faith in him.  He has written two scripts that I consider nothing short of brilliant.  I’m very much looking forward to working with him to bring Myst to life.

We have a meeting set for next Tuesday in which we’ll go over our pitch story with Mark and Hunt.  Once everyone is happy with what we’ll be presenting, we can begin to schedule our pitches.  Unlike our first time out, we’ll be pitching to all of the major and mini-major studios.  The plan is to be pitching throughout the month of February, so we’re getting close.  Things are about to get exciting.

Aside from Myst, MFG has been hard at work developing other projects and broadening the profile of the company within the industry.  That “zombie script” I mentioned a while ago, “The Change”, has been in the hands of quite a few people lately and it’s getting a very positive response.  We’re currently exploring multiple avenues to get it up and running in the near future.

We’re also developing a WWII film that we’re very excited about.  It is an intimate and powerful story that offers a great deal of artistic exploration.  Our aim is to produce it as an art house film, freeing it from the obligations of “massive commercial appeal” and allowing it to operate as a solid drama.  Think “The Pianist” or “Life is Beautiful”.

So, that’s pretty much what’s happening at the moment.  More when there’s more.

Apparently, the recent website relaunch has inspired major search engines to reclassify the site with a bit more “star power”.  As a result, it looks like our historical posts have been hit hard by a number of international spam contractors.

The site has accumulated nearly 10,000 new anonymous comments in a matter of days, overwhelming the “seekwet wepon” that we had integrated a couple of years ago.  Site slowdowns, search issues and other strange things might pop up as the site is still being slammed with new comments coming in by the minute.

We’re working on a solution.

I’m sure you guys all remember me raving about Nathan Edwin’s music.  Now comes the exciting news that you can hear it all.  That’s right, all of it.  Nathan has just launched a new website that showcases (and sells) his music.  Venture on over and check out the guy I’m sure is soon to become your new favorite artist.

While you’re there, I strongly encourage you to click on the link to kickstarter.com.  Nathan is currently attempting to self-release his first full length album on vinyl (also includes a digital download).  He needs to raise a certain amount of pledges to get the funding.  If you can spare 5 bucks or even 100, I implore you to contribute.  There’s no denying his talent, and he can use all the help he can get.

If that wasn’t enough to motivate you, check out this write-up I did for his site:

EMOTIONAL INVESTIGATIONS

Nathan Edwin’s music is personal. It’s reflective. But, most of all, it’s identifiable. That recognition; that sense of intimacy and familiarity a listener gets from exploring Nathan’s work, is a quality so often forced and failed in music, but the always earnest Edwin achieves it with a kind of casual effortlessness.

He exists as a rare entity, possessing not only the musical skills to construct dynamic, layered accompaniments, but also a poetic skill that consistently produces unexpected, honest and vivid lyrics. It is easy to draw comparisons to lyrical greats like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen when considering Nathan’s style, but he never allows his work to become derivative of his predecessors in the Folk/Rock genre. He instead draws from the same impulses inside himself, finding his own unique and genuine voice. In a retro-obsessed indie music industry, where nostalgia is used gratuitously in an attempt to manufacture a sense of authenticity, Nathan Edwin never relies on kitsch to endear his listener. There is no putting on of airs here.

To explore Nathan’s work is to feel as though you have engaged in an intimate dialogue with the artist, gaining true insights into the person. His songs never deal in generalities or abstract concepts, but instead zero in on the specificity of his life experiences and choices. He approaches these issues with a critical eye, often casting himself as the flawed party, never idealizing or relying on sentiment to support the subject. What results is a complex, sometimes raw representation of life in which nothing is all good or all bad, but truly bittersweet. In short, he is doing the work of any great artist – rolling life over in his mind, twisting it and inspecting it, slowly discovering its every facet and sharing that process through the course of his music. There is a journey being shared and we aren’t simply along for the ride. We are a part of the discussion, and that is something very special.

Armed with his unvarnished poetry, Edwin crafts sophisticated musical expressions, possessing rich, full sounds that skillfully avoid the dangers of being over-produced. He accents his melodies with subtle inclusions of harmonica, organ, drums and trumpet, creating an atmosphere of active reflection in which each instrument seems to carry with it another component discovered during his emotional investigations.

Together, the elements of Edwin’s music form a portrait of an emerging artist that has already tapped into his potential and utilizes his uncanny sensibilities to offer the world remarkably well-developed music. With this as his starting point, we undoubtedly have a great deal to look forward to as he continues to grow, but to say we should expect great things from Nathan Edwin would be silly. The fact is he’s already succeeded in offering exactly that.

It has become something of a personal quest of mine to get Nathan a record deal (if he doesn’t manage to do that all by himself – which is entirely possible).  That said, if anyone reading this happens to know any reporters or editors for music-related publications, any record label executives, etc.  please pass along the link to Nathan’s site.  Consider it a personal favor for your favorite Myst movie producer.