#uru ages beyond myst

[shiroikabocha]

You ever think about how each successive Myst game is more explicitly anti-colonialist than the last? That the enduring moral question of Atrus’s life is what to do with a legacy of colonialism?

In Myst, we read about vibrant Ages full of people in Atrus’s journals. Then we explore those Ages—now empty, abandoned, stripped of their resources and inhabitants. The tragedy of Myst isn’t just the library full of burned books, it’s the destruction of all those people and their homes. The evidence of colonialism is what turns the player against Sirrus and Achenar.

Then in Riven, we’re thrown into a world currently under the thumb of a colonialist ruler, and the signs of Gehn’s destructive touch are everywhere. His temples and workshops take up most of the real estate on the islands, leaving only one where Riven’s native people can roam freely. The schoolhouse on the lake might seem innocuous, until you realize everything there is written in D’ni—the children are not being taught their native language. And there’s an organized underground anti-colonialist resistance! The oppressed are not helpless victims of circumstance, they fight back! Damn, Riven really is the jewel of the series…

Exile is more individually focused than Riven. Instead of showing the systemic, societal effects of colonialism, we get a deep dive into one man’s experience of it. Narayan’s ghosts haunt the narrative through Savvedro’s messages and paintings—and hats off to Brad Dourif, damn, he threw his whole pussy into that role. I still think about his delivery on “my WIFE, ATRUS! MY TWO BABY GIRLS!” decades after I first heard it. The framing device of Exile, that Savvedro is asking Atrus, why do you get to have a fresh start? Why do you get to walk away from the sins of your fathers (or sons, in this case) when I and the rest of my civilization never can?—it’s a good one. Really ties the narrative together.

And then, Uru—I mean. Where do I start? The game that could very easily have been nothing but fanservice, could have coasted on everybody’s hype for OMG D’NI! THE CAVERN!! THE CLEFT!!! But instead they go hey, you like D’ni right? Hey, heyyyyy you know how D’ni was a sprawling ancient empire? Hey. Hey, hey, do you know. How empires are built? And maintained? And then they use the framing device of the archeological dig to uncover the ugly aspects of D’ni that the D’ni themselves kept hidden. And your job as a player is to explore the beautiful gardens and broad avenues, but also the prisons and the slave quarters, and to repatriate stolen cultural artifacts from the D’ni to the Bahro.

And End of Ages is more or less “all that stuff we said in Uru but again, more” as well as “hey don’t forget that even old, dead, slave-trading empires have modern fanboys, this shit isn’t just ancient history, you can’t escape the past when we live in the world the past built!”

Lotta video games have plots that hinge on some ancient evil being awakened, not as many where the ancient evil is a guy who says “remember when our empire was big and beautiful and powerful? We should romanticize that uncritically.” Good job, Myst.

[gotogames]

[artofzuhani]

Old video game painting dump

You know, what the hell, look at my old art. LOOK AT IT. latest one is from 2019, I don't have the patience for these anymore

[leam1983]

Firmament - Quickie

This both is and isn't a spoiler, but I'll confess that my first sighting of the Curievale Bluff made me think of Uru's own Age of Ahnonay. The unsubtle "Arches of the Firmanents", the complete lack of any level of detail beyond each Arch in every Realm, every single Realm being surrounded by impassable cliffs and a few variations on an aesthetically-pleasing unreachable void surrounding a general playspace...

Couple to that the Keeper's ghost admitting that she lies to the player and repeated mentions of a curiously Cryo-resembling "deep sleep" - plus the overarching themes being discussed and certain figures featuring so prominently as to raise questions and, well...

You'll figure out the plot far, far faster than you will the game's puzzles, in what's a bit of a letdown coming from titans in the Adventure Game genre.

[tgmchrist]

Teledahn (Uru: Ages Beyond Myst/Myst Online: Uru Live)

[calebwittebane]

disco elysium is a pretty great game if you're a mentally ill gay communist from a post-ussr country, so long as you do not participate much in fan spaces. holy shit the amount of bad takes and ppl assuming their analysis is the most Correct and just generally being... . personally it did also sow some seeds for catharsis, but if i hadnt played the game before it blew up i probably wouldnt play it now. anyway do you have any "slower" game recommendations? ideally something that could be run on older computers?

the myst series!!! 100%! its one of my favorites! in case you're not familiar beyond "oh, theyre that steampunk-ish series of 90s-00s games where you solve puzzles and get things to work", let me ramble about them a bit. II (Riven) and III (Exile) are the best ones, but i am Known as the weirdo with an obsession with Uru (the complete chronicles version includes both expansions so it is the one youll want), which takes place long after the main series' events and was supposed to be a multi-player but that didnt work out (and the studio was driven to bankruptcy) and the resulting single-player game feels so lonely and serene--in a good way, in my opinion. the games are ridiculously pretty, like, visually they aged extremely well. im extremely fond of this particulr way of combining of live actors with pre-rendered environments and other animations. Myst V and Uru are a bit of a different story, as in you move around freely and (most of) the environments are rendered in real time, but man, this particular (relatively) low-poly beauty of them, theyre so aesthetically sophisticated to me. gameplay-wise, theyre based on exploration, and require you to pay close attention to your surroundings and solve puzzles, such as getting various mechanisms to work, and often times they create something akin to an escape room experience, and sometimes following clues and trails left by other characters. and while obviously The way to play them is to try and figure things out yourself, and it does get challenging, even if it gives you enough trouble that you end up consulting a guide, or already know the solutions (i know many of them by heart at this point), its still a lovely experience. looking at the environments and objects and architecture, taking in the ambiance, learning the lore behind things. most of the characters you interact with (especially the one you interact with the most, atrus) are also Extremely Flawed People and it is reflected both in their actions and in the ages they write (if you don't know what that means, youll see), in their ideas of "prison" and "idyllic paradise" and the implications thereof and so on. it is engaging stuff.

also peter gabriel was involved in the series at some point (songs and voice acting) and for 7 year old me who already loved myst And was a fan of and had a sort of parasocial relationship with peter gabriel it was a mind-blowing crossover

[gwarden123]

I do wish that Lara would levitate into the air and dissolve when using fast travel, preferably with the linking sound effect from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, because it would be funny.

[dapperandy]

Guild of Messengers Pub, Pride Month

[dawnbatkmt]

Uru Live, Ages Beyond Myst is getting new Ages and I am currently VIBING.

[xemylixa]

Cool Ahnonay stuff from the design docs

A link to five Uru/EoA documents was posted on one of the 25th anniv Kickstarter updates, so you can go check them out, nothing exclusive here :) Ahnonay is so cool tho that I started reading with that one. There’s some awesoneness in it that I wish they made work, and some bg info.

The terms "quabs", "ning trees" and "vogondola" are all developer-made. I didn't know that. Nice to see we agree on something ;)

The owner of Ahnonay wasn’t identified with Kadish until later; he was a random mad genius engineer who wanted to make people think he could write Ages (despite not being a Writer) and control time.

Space Ahnonay represents the current state of the place - not future. Water Ahnonay is distant past (when the Ronay prospered), and Misty Ahnonay is not-so-distant past (as soon as they left).

The strong currents in Water are created by the water rushing into the lagoon through the waterfall. Originally the player would have to stop the currents by raising the water level; the waterfall would disappear, and the player could leave the island using a boat.

Quabs are not part of not-Kadish’s plan - they leaked in from the outside.

There are fish in Water Ahnonay! :) They’re flying fish called Firds and come from outside the island, where they flutter along the, um, environment. (You figure it out; I’m trying not to spoil in this part.) There are also birds, and they have nests somewhere in the clocktower of Space Oops, misread that one; they’re still Firds. Somehow.

The crystal trees in Misty are supposed to be fulgurites - natural glass created by lightnings passing through sand! Curse you, graphical limitations >:(

The book pedestal in Space was to be broken and lying on the ground. Kinda wish they kept this detail...

There was meant to be a Maintainer pin on the island: active one in Water, and broken ones in Misty and Space. Since the KI coordinates would be based on the position of the pin, seeing the KI go crazy in those two would be a hint to how the Age works.

(From now on, spoilers.)

There were meant to be two behind-the-scenes areas in each sphere - one for water controls, and one for going to the hub.

The giant machine is called the Orborbitor. Not sure if I wanted to know that.

The outer world is a drain hole of a giant whirlpool, and is about three miles across (whoa!). Not-Kadish noticed the hole was shrinking due to rising water levels, threatening to drown his stuff eventually; he left to examine the issue, and never came back.

The sphere in not-Kadish statue’s hand represents time. (Makes sense, given the D'ni spherical clocks.) WIP Ahnonay as a whole would depict the awesome world he'd build, as opposed to watching it turn into Misty and Space.

[agesbeyond]

Finally updated the website and server.

Now featuring two packs and an install guide:

Installation Guide

-‐-----------

HD Pack

The first of these packs is the HD pack with Dark Renaissance resourcepack, HD Myst resourcepack and HD Paintings.

Lite Pack

The second is the Lite pack intended for users with older hardware or less powerful specs. Contains low res textures including paintings and murals.

The music pack is separate and can be downloaded here:

Music Pack

Now featuring additional music for D'ni and Tay.

...and last but not least...

The Ages: Beyond Font

(a modified version of Gondola with D'ni numerals and other tweaks.)

We've also improved Spawn to better introduce and ease players into the server.

Heres a screenshot from the Everdunes White Tower where players are given a server guidebook and a Relto book for ease of access to areas.

Since the server is currently set to build we want to make newcomers get easily started with build projects. This will most likely change the further we get along in the building process at which point the goal is to make the whole server and experience a massive online Myst adventure game.

Hope to see you all there now that we've finally got all the hurdles taken care of.

[gotogames]

[csleko]

I spent an embarrassing amount of time on this and I hope you hate it as much as I do. 

That is all.

[softchaoticpunk]

myst good have a yeesha. i feel like being both catherine's daughter and ti'ana's great granddaughter would give you some Serious bone structure lol

[sirlanceolaf]

Not sure if what I made is a mere shitpost, or something more.