numinous00

[numinous00]

87.6.20  It’s late and I cannot sleep. I’ve lost so much in my life. My people, my father, my son, and you my wife–Keta, you were the only true kindness I have ever known. Watching you flicker there in the Imager… I sometimes wonder if you were real. If I could restore your life with my pen, I would do so in an instant, and leave the rest of the world to their own wretched fate.

[numinous00]

Nyktowe’s Guide to Rivenese Wildlife (1/5)

…I got distracted from redesigning Serenia.

One chamber on Riven - the room where the Moiety stage escapes for Gehn’s prisoners - is decorated and locked by a circle of 25 stones marked with stylised wildlife, only four of which (the scarab, ytram, sunner, and wahrk) are ever actually seen in the game. (While obviously this is due to the technical limitations of a game that was released on 5 CDs in 1997, I think the fact that most if not all of these animals are implicitly extinct before we arrive also reinforces how Gehn’s reign as god-tyrant has brought Riven to the verge of collapse.) I thought it would be interesting to try to figure out what the remaining 21 might have looked like, using the four we see as a basis. (Reference screenshots are from Lost Library of D’ni, and in case you’re not familiar with the Myst games you may want to refer to it for background.)

A simple start. This exercise leaves a lot of room for interpretation - I also did a version that was more of a horned toad, but the elf-eared punk bunny seemed more accurate. Him angy.

The stylised symbols don’t give any sense of scale, and this is another one that could’ve easily been a sort of froggy anteater. (In hindsight, given that Riven evolved at least one amphibian in the form of the ytram, there should almost certainly be more even among this limited set.) Still, neither of these have the unique legs that the ytram symbol does, and the general stance here reminded me strongly of an alert hare. It’s possible that neither of these were really extinct (before the end of the game, I mean), if they’re as flighty as actual lagomorphs.

The shape here reminds me of several different fish, but especially piranhas for some reason. The fins and general orientation, though, makes it seem like it is built for swimming down, so I want to imagine it as a bottom feeder of some kind, hovering above the dirt waiting for movement and darting down when an unsuspecting eel pokes its head out.

So this could be some sort of insect-eating woodpecker bat or haha, no, I jest, this is obviously a cross between a hummingbird and a seahorse (or one of the other syngnathids). Lungfish and flying fish are one thing, but it’s a little too much for me to imagine an aerial nectarivore that still breathes through gills, so I have to assume the resemblance to a fish is only superficial. It makes a pretty adorable little hummingdrake, though!

Okay, starting to get a bit more in-depth now. Sunners are one of the most interesting creature designs in-game to me, sort of a baleen plesiosaur-platypus-seal, and their symbol has a very distinctive mouth-shape which is also present in several other creatures’ symbols, so on that basis I decided they all at least have beaks. So now I’m imagining an entire clade of partly-aquatic Rivenese monotremoids, and I can even imagine a simple phylogenetic tree linking them together that resembles the real-world evolutionary history of cetaceans. Sunners would have descended from an equivalent to Ambulocetus, while this platypotamus… hippoplatypus… whatever, is representative of the family that diverged as far back as the anthracotheres that eventually produced actual hippos. (Beak based on a puffin, because it’s the closest sillhouette I could find, which may suggest its dietary habits are more carnivorous?)

Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

[numinous00]

Have you followed Yeesha’s Journey yet? Have you made it to the end? Both endings and begginings are within the fissue! Rewards still remain.

yeeshajourney.com

side note: Apologies to anyone that may have tried to email me as my gmail was acting up and sending a lot of things to spam. If I haven’t replied to your message then please message me again.

[numinous00]

[numinous00]

Please get Obduction for free on GoG (until June 1st) and then PLEASE come talk to me about Obduction…

[numinous00]

Cyan studios and Rand Miller, creators of the Myst, Riven and Obduction, are developing a brand new game!

HOWEVER, they can only do so if they gain enough funding, and with 4 days to go, and an ‘all or nothing’ campaign, they still only have 75% of their funding!

This is their third Kickstarter, and they have been a reliable company for over three decades, so you’re definitely going to get your money’s worth.

“Firmament is a deeply immersive narrative adventure game for both VR and PC that stays true to the storytelling, artistic integrity, and inventive puzzles that Cyan holds dear.”

Please please please, I want this game so bad, help it exist!

They have more shiny info at the page, the lead composer is from WoW and other Blizzard games, more info on the game and the story, how VR is gonna play into it (but you DON’T NEED VR to play it) and more stuff. 

link: FIRMAMENT ON KICKSTARTER!

Again: as I post this there are 4 days left!

Even if you don’t back it, please share this so people can get the opportunity to!

[numinous00]

Last two weeks of Kickstarter for the new game from the makers of Myst!

[numinous00]

I just learnt that Sheila Goold (the actress who played Catherine/Katran in Riven) passed away mid 2017. She was only 54. That's way too young. From all accounts she was a wonderful person. May she rest in peace.

[numinous00]

I'll admit it was the Gehn's Ink Well that made me jump the highest. That's a MUST HAVE GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!!!

All the Myst games.  Playable on modern computers.

[numinous00]

Because it’s the 20th anniversary of the release of Riven, use discount code RISH in the next two weeks (through midnight on 14 November) to get 20% off on any combination of posters! This includes for the entire set of five!

[numinous00]

In general I support anything that keeps cyan in business but... well, yeah, disappointing all around in this one.

NOT HAPPY JAN!!!!!!

“Obduction Launches on PlayStation® with Thrilling Reveal of Exclusive Content”

Oh really? This is probably old news that I missed until now but seriously, wtf Cyan?

I get it, it’s all about exclusive content incentives and value adding these days. Back door deals and extra funding, PlayStation in particular, but why do I (read “we”), a long long time loyal fan, community participant, Kickstarter backer and content creator (yeah toot toot and all but I’m making a point here) miss out on this “never before seen… new area – a mysterious Russian submarine inside a large cavern. The new content also includes greater insight into the backstory of the characters and places, and two new music tracks composed by Cyan software and audio engineer, Hannah Gamiel.”?

Huh? Why? Why would Cyan “do” its fans like this?

….So ok, after further digging, it appears that “probably” the pc/mac versions “should” get this added content. I for one would appreciate a direct confirmation of this. And when? Maybe I missed that too. Seems like maybe this has been hashed out on Facebook (I don’t go there). Would be nice to know, perhaps a Kickstarter Update would have been helpful.

Now I’m just ranting. Thanks for listening. The end.

[numinous00]

NOT HAPPY JAN!!!!!! "Obduction Launches on PlayStation® with Thrilling Reveal of Exclusive Content" Oh really? This is probably old news that I missed until now but seriously, wtf Cyan? I get it, it's all about exclusive content incentives and value adding these days. Back door deals and extra funding, PlayStation in particular, but why do I (read "we"), a long long time loyal fan, community participant, Kickstarter backer and content creator (yeah toot toot and all but I'm making a point here) miss out on this "never before seen... new area – a mysterious Russian submarine inside a large cavern. The new content also includes greater insight into the backstory of the characters and places, and two new music tracks composed by Cyan software and audio engineer, Hannah Gamiel."? Huh? Why? Why would Cyan "do" its fans like this? ....So ok, after further digging, it appears that "probably" the pc/mac versions "should" get this added content. I for one would appreciate a direct confirmation of this. And when? Maybe I missed that too. Seems like maybe this has been hashed out on Facebook (I don't go there). Would be nice to know, perhaps a Kickstarter Update would have been helpful. Now I'm just ranting. Thanks for listening. The end.

[numinous00]

A classic moment from my childhood!

[numinous00]

I was hoping these would be available as prints. Money down! This is why I slog my ass off working way too many hours a week!!!

Prints!

I’ve managed to get a small run of my Riven posters produced. If you’re interested in hanging them on your wall, now’s your chance to snag the whole set (or just your favorite island).

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[numinous00]

RAWA answers questions!!

This is an “in-cavern” (but not in-character) interview with RAWA 2.0 from a couple of years ago (oct 2015) that I just stumbled across. I’d never seen it before so thought I’d post it here in case anyone else missed it too. It’s mostly D’ni language stuff. Quite interesting.

Click the link - http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=28054&start=15 or the “read more”

(Max): So in short, what was the inspiration or the basis for the D'ni language? Can you tell a bit about the origins of it? I suppose it's very Non-English, but does it for instance have any Arabic, Hindi, Japanese or some Asian influences? Or any correlation to other common languages and speech patterns? RAWA: Hmm... I realize that most will not understand this, but it is very difficult for me to be OOC as 'RAWA v2.0' here rather than IC 'Dr. Watson' when I'm literally 'In the Cavern'. It just feels so wrong. Having said that, it is an interesting story that I don't think has been told before, so we might as well go for it. Just don't tell Dr. Watson or the other DRC members. RAWA: I have always loved languages of all kinds. Just the idea that (somewhat) arbitrary combinations of sounds, and/or symbols could be imbued with 'meaning' is cool. A secret 'code' that groups of people more or less try to adhere to, to imperfectly share information with each other. What I say is not necessarily what you hear, even if we supposedly speak the same language. This is why I joke about taking things literally. Everything I hear, I try to 'hear' as many different interpretations as possible, and pick the most literal to respond to, even if I know they meant one of the other possible interpretations. It drives people nuts. A very simple example: My son: 'Can I have a soda?' Me: 'I believe you are 'able' to, but you are not 'allowed' to.' This comes from years of typing up email responses and having to go through every single word over and over, knowing y'all were going to dissect every syllable. BTW - Don't dissect this, please. It won't stand up to it. I got used to trying to guess what would be misinterpreted and trying to be very specific to address those reactions before they happened. I was not always successful, but I did always do my best to try to be clear, even if the answer was basically, 'I can't tell you that, yet.' Back to the language story. In sixth grade, I had the chance to take just a little bit of German during our lunch breaks. The idea that not just words changed from language to language, but entire modes of thinking fascinated me. Then in high school, I took two years of Spanish. A whole 'nother mindset. New grammar concepts. I don't remember many of the specifics, but the basic concept stuck with me. The rules are pretty arbitrary and could theoretically be just about anything. The important thing is that everyone agrees to abide by them and use them the same way, or no meaning can be conveyed from person to person. What I say is not what you hear if we do not agree on how the 'code' should be encoded/decoded. Some of this is unavoidable, because we bring our own experiences to the conversation. When I say the word "watermelon", my concept of "watermelon" is slightly different than your concept of "watermelon". When I say "watermelon", I remember eating waaaay too much watermelon when I was very young and getting sick from it. I could not eat watermelon again for years, and I still do not really eat it. If you never had a negative experience with watermelon, you probably do not have any of those connotations connected to it. Back to languages, sorry for the bunny trail. My next "languages" were from Tolkien. Wow. Clearly he had waaaay too much time on his hands. Amazing. Inspriring. Then came Hebrew. All just basic stuff, no formal classes, just bits and pieces I was picking up. After that was Tenctonese from a movie called Alien Nation (Mandy Patinkin, 1988). Their language in the movie was very complicated with clicks and pops and they had a script that looked like an EKG heartbeat with dots and wavy lines. I tried to figure out if they did all the work to make it real, or if they just faked it with randomness. Turns out it was pretty detailed. Cool. Then the TV series Alien Nation came out. Still good, but the language in the TV show was a simpler version. Knowing how long it takes to translate, and how hard it is to get actors to say "gibberish" in the first place, I certainly understood. The TV show's version of the language was easy to figure out. Standard English word order for the grammar. Many words were simply anagrams of their English counterparts. I recorded every episode on VHS tape, and watched it back. Keeping track of the subtitles. Learning new words. "Tagdot tay monga su. To tay mish uray." = "Tagdot (a character name) is among us. It is his time." (This is 25 year-old memory. I believe I am remembering it correctly, but I may have messed it up a little.) The point was - they got an "A" for effort from me - that it wasn't just random. When I started at Cyan, Myst's other languages were gibberish. See Achenar's recordings to the Channelwood natives. That was all recorded before I was hired. When it came time for Riven, I asked if I could take a stab at it. It might not be perfect. It might not be pretty. But it wouldn't just be random. I could at least do something like the TV version of Alien Nation did. I had no idea what I was getting into. I was always a good student. I was a pro at English grammar. "linking verbs: have, has, had, do, does, did, am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been", "Types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory", "Pronouns: nominative, possessive, objective", "who/whom?" "11 rules for the comma" No problem. I had a great English teacher, Miss Gaupp. She's 84 now, and still teaches English! Her father lived to be 105. so she might teach a whole 'nother generation! D'ni was mostly based on Hebrew as far as the alphabet structure works. Hebrew uses a dot on some of the letters to change some consonants from a fricative like "v" to a stop like "b". Tongue and lips are in the same basic position, the dot just tells you if you completely stop the air or not. For vowels, Hebrew usually uses an extra letter a yud (y) to make a dipthong. I simplified it a little and used the same dot that is used for consonants, only when it's on a vowel, it becomes a dipthong, usually sliding from the original sound to an "ee" sound. The language using suffixes and prefixes to show number, subject, etc. are concepts I remembered from Hebrew and Spanish. Small words attach together (agglutenative) "And, the, etc." attach to the words they modify. Hebrew and German do this. The number system and alphabet evolved together - this is from Hebrew. The combination of base 5 and base 25 came from the idea: what if I use my right hand to count like tick marks and my left hand to keep track of how many sets of tick marks I have. Their coordinate system (polar coordinates) came from Rand first. I am starting a website where I plan to start releasing more and more information about D'ni. Stuff that has not been released before. It's an ambitious project. It sounds good on paper, but in my current state I am coming up with ideas much, much more quickly than I can ever hope to execute them. My To-Do list gets exponentially longer. We're going to need a lot more "back burners" on our proverbial stove. And once i'm back to work full-time on Obduction, these new projects are definitely going to take a hit. (Zeke): Could you give us a little more background on the bahro (something we dont know about them) and where the bahro concept came from? RAWA: Sorry, Zeke. I still hold too much hope that we will be able to reveal that in a game or novel to just spill it now. RAWA v2.0 may be chattier than RAWA v1.0 was, but I still would rather you experience these things for yourself than simply be told them. (Zeke): Why is Myst island closed off to the public did you plan to have Myst island released to the public at some point? RAWA: In Uru, I expect? Yes, like everything else when Uru was initially designed - we were leaving ourselves a great deal of freedom for future expansion. (Zeke): Where are the D'ni bathrooms? Did they have ages that they went to for the bathroom? RAWA: My long-running, standard answer for that is: "That's why we don't allow you to swim in Myst..." (Zeke): Why was the jump feature so important in this game? RAWA: When you plan a game that is meant to evolve and change and grow over time, you want as many options on the table as possible. As many arrows in your quiver, tools in your belt, spices in your cupboard, [insert your analogy here] as you can get. Especially when it comes to puzzle creation. You wan the flexibility to make completely new kinds of puzzles than were made anywhere in the game before. Don't get me started on the original plans for the pods (Negilahn). Picking things up with your hands, for example. Kicking the traps into place in Eder Kemo. That was never meant to be the final interface. But it worked as a stop-gap until grabbing/ holding/pushing could be implemented at a later time. Then Uru was canceled before it began, and all those grand plans sit unfulfilled. (Acorn1): We know from a recent interview with David Wingrove that a draft of the Book of Marrim exists. But we also know it's been on the back burner for years. You've told us not to give up on it. Is there anything you can tell us about what would need to happen to that draft in order to ready it for publication? RAWA: It's on my bucket list. It won't be great if I write it, but there are several critical bits in it that have to be told, and told right. The rest of the "filler" story, I don't care quite so much about. The outline we worked on with David was good and all, but <shrug>. (Mister Magic): Are there any updates in the pipeline that you can let us know a bit about? RAWA: Which pipeline? MOULa? I'm out of that loop, sorry. Obduction? We are hard at work. I have been in the office several times, briefly. Much to my wife's frustration. On Thursday, Ryan Warzecha literally asked me one question that I had to think about. It completely drained me, and I had to stop to recharge. My RAWA v2.0 joke about the upgrade is more accurate than you probably think. As soon as I try to engage my brain in any meaningful way, I immediately, literally feel myself slow down. The clock starts ticking, and my energy is quickly dissipated. The more of my brain I try to use at once, the faster the energy is gone. So the joke now is that they get to ask me one question per day, and that's it. (Tai'lahr): I greatly enjoyed the YouTube video of you singing, RAWA, so my question is: Is there any chance you could be convinced to submit a song or two to be played during the weekly Uru Karaoke event? RAWA: You're too kind. It's awful. I was too tired to play well or sing well. The lyrics drive me crazy when they "pop" a word down to the next line as they expand. But it did its job - proves I have all the pieces to make -something- work. Now it just needs some love and time. RAWA: More stuff will be placed on my YouTube channel. I've already recorded the next one, I'm just working on the graphics and lyrics. Once that next one's up, I'll go back to redo As a Deer. That was mainly for my aunt. it's her favorite song that i play (cskid13): Can we call the content that is currently being created by the Intangibles "canon?" So, in other words, will their version of Kahlo be the "real" Kahlo, etc.? (cskid13) RAWA: Our philosophy has not changed. What happens in the Cavern happens in the Cavern. We just roll with the punches and try to weave everything into the story as best we can. We certainly didn't plan for any of the Cavern closings, but they are part of the story now. If y'all make Kahlo, it will be some version of Kahlo. If the DRC ever gets funding to come back, they might find an "older" Book that links to another version of Kahlo, just like your Yeesha book does. (maggie696): this brings our prepared questions to an end. We have only one last request - that you would visit us more often RAWA: Hope springs eternal that we eventually have to officially "burn that bridge while we're crossing it" (tm).

[numinous00]

Take time to know the faces of stone. Minds are forsaken, And bodies are lost. Mountains stand tall. New water feeds the stagnant. Through the minds of impostors Comes new life. - Words of the Watcher

[numinous00]

Or "canonically" it's probably justified as "whoever drew the sketch (Farley or C.W.) was basing it on the verbal description given by Chavar(?)." No-one had actually seen the device prior to the attack.

It's funny cause the sketch I drew in my notes based of the sketch in the warning letter looks NOTHING like the actual device. My brain didn't parse the pentagonal structure until after I'd seen the actual thing in Maray.

WARNING!

DO NOT APPROACH

ANYTHING THAT EVEN

REMOTELY RESEMBLES

THIS DIAGRAM UNLESS

IT HAS BEEN DISABLED!