Guild of Writers

With Darka there’s the same old problem: as far as I know, Cyan has never granted a FCAL for projects not made with Plasma. Even if they did make an exception for Darka, you’d have more freedom with Mirrors, which you could still place in the D’niverse, just outside any already-known places. See e.g. Roonsehv: it’s in the D’niverse, but since it’s a different location and it’s free, Cyan was fine with it. I’d say go with Mirrors .

Thanks guys... Its a tough choice. Honestly, the thought of making a new Myst experience in a modern engine makes my fanboy self squee since there hasn't been a proper Myst game in 10 years. I'm quite excited about expanding the D'niverse because I love the lore and the use of books to travel, allowing any environment you can think of to be explored.

With Mirrors I would have to rework a lot of the story and lore to accomodate a smaller/non-sandbox game. Personally the characters in Mirrors are some of my favorites and the ones I'm drawn to the most. The concept for Darka is intended to be a spinoff game of the D'niverse. The characters I'm also really warming up to. I think that's what makes for good story/immersion is the personalities of characters you're dealing with in the game.

Here... I'll give a brief synopsis of both and see which you guys like better:

SPOILERS BELOW

Mirrors

Show Spoiler

Mirrors is similar to Myst in that it uses portals, but rather than books there are a variety of different portal types. One is tunnels accessed through doors and small ornate cavities in walls. These tunnels transport the player across large distances by simply walking a through them (think Being John Malkovich). The main character is a young man named Lykke from a Realm known as The Rain. The Rain is a cloud planet hosting a suspended city called Caradan, which is suspended by a massive chain from the planet's moon. The Caradanese are a rigid culture of Realm travelers who access varying worlds by using a power known as The Light. The Light is a spiritual energy, like the force, which can be channeled at select temples known as The Source. Lykke is an outcast from his society because he believes him and his people have a duty to the Realms and must tend them while his rulers, the Queen of Caradan and the council of Elder Matriarchs believe that the Realms are a gift from the Light and must be used to harvest resources and for scientific study.

Some while ago, Lykke had a vision of his reflection staring back at him and beckoning him towards himself. After this vision he began work on accessing a realm he called Mirrors.

Mirrors or Miras in the Realm's native tongue is an ancient world which had once been heavily industrialized. It was colonized by an inter-dimensional empire known as the Ruun. The Ruun unlike the D'ni used massive space vessels to travel between realms. Miras had been colonized by many different races from across the multiverse. 20 000 years before the current date, the Realm underwent a cataclysm and all travel from the Realm halted. The Ruuni became trapped on this realm and overtime their ancient technological knowledge slowly became lost. Several empires rose and fell across Miras but it wasn't until Lykke arrived in the Kingdom of Capolan that things began to change.

Lykke became imprisoned by the Capolani lords and was offered refuge in the neighboring kingdom of Caspar by the King of Damaske. Here, taking residence in the Blue Wizard's Tower, he was assigned with becoming the chief "wizard" of Damaske. Here he researched into the arcane arts for the king, bringing him closer to the ancient Art of the Ruunic Empire and uncovering their dark secrets. Through his research he uncovered two anomalies in the realm, one.. a mysterious set of doors across the continent that link to alternate Realms... and two, the most mysterious of all, the Mirrors... a passageway to an inverted parallel version of the realm. It is believed that every realm possesses a Mirrored counterpart. Through his research he began creating the tunnels to access secluded locations of the continent at ease. Eventually he uncovered, lurking in the background, a secret order of Ruunic descendants pulling the strings behind every kingdom known as the Order of Secrets and Shadows. This order is behind every failed attempt at reclaiming the ancient Art and rebuilding the once great Empire. More pressingly, a mysterious Red Wizard has emerged as nemesis to Lykke's plans hidden somewhere in the city of Dansk directly north of Damaske at the heart of Capolan.

The player wakes up in an old attic on a cold winter's day. Outside he/she sees a medieval-looking city under falling snow. The door to the attic is locked and all that is in the room is an old closet and an old mirror. Opening the closet reveals a dark endless tunnel. Entering the tunnel brings the player to awaken on a bed in a bombed out hull of an ancient spaceship. The spaceship has been decorated with mirror shards and gems. Exiting the hull leads the player down a path to the gates of Damaske and ultimately to the Blue Tower which is built on top of a decadent night club. This is where the story begins.

Darka

Show Spoiler

Darka is a little smaller in scope. During the D'ni Renaissance there was much increased trade with ahrotahntee cultures. One import from an age was a red fruit knows as the Jammah. The Jammah had hallucinogenic qualities that became quite addictive to the D'ni. A group of wealthy guildsmen lead by a surveyor named Arial opened a night club in the basement of a civic building somewhere deep in the heart of the city. There they would smoke the nectar from the fruit and engage in philosophical discussions on the nature of the Art. The leaders of this following began concluding that the Art was too rigid and had to be loosened to allow more creativity and ultimately more power. Many of these men had been excluded from the Writers Guild due to issues of wealth and status and thus they saw a way to up-heave the Writers order and become great themselves when they had been denied such a privilege to begin with. Thus they formed an order known as the Red Seers and began crafting an age under the influence of the Jammah nectar. They wrote Darka, a vast mountainous world of deep blue skies and cool, crisp air under a massive planet in the sky (Darka is believed to be one of a pair of sister planets much like Pluto and Charon). Here they would build a library not to keep ages... but information. To house all known information on Terokh Jeruth that they could find in existence . On this age, they would experiment with the Art and secretly seek to rebuild D'ni from within.

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Several centuries later after the prophet Gish made his name, the Jammah was outlawed. The members of the Red Seers left to Darka while some kept their knowledge hidden for many millenia. The Age became abandoned, forgotten, that is until the Fall.

On the night of the plague by Veovis and A'Gaeris, remaining members of the Red Seers gathered in secret and escaped to the Age, hoping to rebuild D'ni, more free and loose, away from the restrictions of the Five. They believed that D'ni had to die for it to be reborn. They made Veovis their God, son of Yahvo and the True Grower. They initiated a plan to retake the city and began plundering many books which they hid in a tower in the mountains of the Age.

Their lord, Guild Master Varash undertook efforts to remold the survivors who had now escaped to Darka during the Fall. He built many structures: a palace on the site of the old Red Seers temple, a new library near where the old one had fallen into ruin and a system of trams to cross the mountains. Amid the peaks, the guildsmen built shrines to Veovis, A'Gaeris and Anna - the Trinity of Destruction who they believed were commanded by Yahvo to destroy D'ni as he had been dissatisfied with the D'ni's pride and rigidity. However, it is ironic in the end that it is Varash and his followers who epitomized pride themselves in their arrogant dismissal of the old D'ni and the existent system of guilds.

Varash rebuilt D'ni's history for those who fled to Darka. He rewrote Words himself to alter the Watcher's lines to speak of himself and his order and made the Watcher's defiled texts mandatory reading for the youth.

The Art, as they had remastered it, now could move books, move pages, allow for Ages that were more dangerous, as well as books that could entrap people on their own or entice people to use them.

The Darka Age remained hidden in the cavern, buried in a stone vault under the lake, thus ignored by Atrus' initial search. In the 200 years since the Fall, the Age has come to be ruled by a noble family who await the return of Veovis to rebuild D'ni under his rule as the Darkan nobility see fit.

The young prince of the noble family called Viss, son of Varash, has emerged and is believed to be the reincarnation of Veovis by his people and the age's prophets. He hides in the mountain palace believing this himself and is ready to return to D'ni and retake the City. Young and impulsive, he lacks the wisdom and skill to organize his people.

In light of this, the Age is ultimately ruled with an iron fist by the Baron Maremon, leader of the Iron Book, a militia that scours through the Ages, spying on the D'ni survivors and stealing books. Varash was said to have died 15 years ago yet no one saw his body. It is rumoured that he will return and dismiss his son Viss as some of the Darkans believe Varash to be the Grower.

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Varash' symbol for the Order of the Iron Book.

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When Viss heard that another Grower was causing feats of the Art across the Ages and bringing the surface dwellers down to D'ni to rebuild the City, he became outraged and emotional. "But I AM the Grower!" he hollered to his courtsmen, and vowed to dismiss Yeesha as a fool and an outsider who knew nothing of D'ni's ways.

However, as the player realizes, the advanced Art that the Iron Book has perfected is but a farce. Powered by a massive engine at the heart of the Age known as the Crypt (rumoured to be the burial place of Veovis, A'Gaeris, and Suahrnir), their books are enabled with unnatural properties by a form of lattice not unlike what is used for the KI.

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The Crypt pyramid design.

The player begins the story by arriving at a secluded library at dusk in a violent rainstorm. A note in his/her pocket is from [strike]Dr. Watson[/strike] Professor Arthur Marius writing to meet him at the library at 6:00. A nearby clock on a post reads 6:00 but Marius is nowhere to be seen. The player enters the library which is similar to that seen in the Pagemaster (I've provided pictures on my blog) and at the center of a large hall rests an open book under a desk lamp that has [strike]Dr. Watson's[/strike] Dr. Marius' writing in it.

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On the table is a journal which the player takes and just then is when things begin to get weird. A noise is heard. A large thump. A book has fallen off the shelf. As the player approaches the book moves away from him/her. Grabbing the book reveals a crimson red cover engraved with the symbol of a dragon-like creature. Opening it reveals a full linking panel that takes up the whole page like a large window into the Age... flame like energy jetting out of the page. The player cannot close the book and is pulled into its fabric, emerging in a dark soupy pool under dim red lights.

The player is in a cage. The cage is partially submerged in water under a red blinking light. The water is filthy and behind the player is a skeleton. The skeleton is holding some sort of projectile weapon. Grabbing the weapon and aiming it at a series of electronic buttons by the far wall destroys the red light and releases the cage. The player then journeys through the sewers to emerge at the base of a large gladiatorial amphitheatre. The amphitheatre appears in ruin like it hasn't seen action in many years. Bricks lie strewn about, towers appear to be slowly crumbling and ripped crimson flags fly violently in the wind.

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The player then finds a passage across the mountains to an old temple. This is the temple to Veovis. Made out of solid stone and on its far interior wall there is emblazoned a large red stained glass/firemarble rendering of Veovis under which trinkets and musical instruments, rugs, lanterns and old firemarbles are strewn about. The temple appears to not have been used in years as the objects are covered in cobwebs. The far side of the temple leads to a village built out of the rock where an old D'ni woman sits. She says something in D'ni that the player doesn't understand and then laughs sarcastically and walks back into her run down home. At the base of the village is a tram that must be activated. When activated it leads to the first major area of the age: The Library of Cavan Hehv (The Immortal Word).

Above the mountains in the sky fly large reptilian creatures... dragon like? Perhaps some form of pterodactyl. In fact, in the near past these creatures were captured and trained to fight in the amphitheatre while D'ni fighters rode them, dueling in the pit with long spears in their armored hands. This battle was used by the Baron Maremon to entertain the populace for many years until the Age's economy soured and many buildings became abandoned.

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Darkan structure left in ruin after centuries of neglect and depopulation.

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Darkan jammah smoking hut.

These trams that the player uses interlink small sections of the age where shrines can be accessed. In the shrines are D'ni books that link to small ages. These would be smaller than Riven islands no doubt. These books are locked with padlocks and the proper keys must be used to open them. These keys are found across the age in secure locations and must be uncovered solving puzzles of some kind.

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These ages are:

Mandar: A small alpine mining age which contains early tram technology and an abandoned ruin from a long dead civilization.

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Kerrey: A small circular beach island home to Prince Carem's summer house, brother of Viss and a kinder, humbler man who often escapes Darka to this island to conduct scientific research.

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Arial: A patch of mangroves amidst a shallow sea holding ancient stone ruins that have fallen into disrepair. Intended as a getaway age to contemplate the Art and the teachings of Varash and Arial.

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Ecko: A small island with a beach and an old secluded library. This is accessed in the locked shrine to Anna, believed to have been abandoned long ago when Varash replaced Anna in the Trinity with Suahrnir. The shrine has been taken over by a mysterious writer who has left his mark all over Darka. The age was a gift to Varash' wife before she died, after which it was abandoned by the family due to grief. The old smallish library has fallen into disrepair. A path away from the beach leads to this mysterious writer's house, having taken residence in Varash's old cottage. Here we find our protagonist's journal.

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Varash' old cottage.

Adiana (named after Viss' first love): Viss' personal age. A marble palace on the top of a frozen mountain surrounded by snow-covered forest. The small castle is reached by a path of firemarbles hanging in the trees. The castle itself is mostly empty. A large icy, black marble hall is at the center of the castle, leading one's eye to a small room at the castle's back where a fireplace resides, embers simmering softly. Here we can see Viss' character through his possessions. Of note, while his journals are in D'ni, translations can be found in both Treetop (below) and in Dr. Marius' hidden Varia room (below) (The current room I've built).

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Other ages: The Hermit's age. A small fireplace-lit room high up in a massive tree amid a massive dark forest at the height of midnight. A mysterious hermit lived here who left the order of the Iron Book to a private age he wrote himself to undermine the Baron. Here he has left his experiments - mostly broken machinery and some form of primitive robotics - along with journals and information on how to stop the Baron and reach D'ni. The hermit appears to have vanished. His journal ending abruptly. Burnt onto the floor is the mark of the Iron Book, inferring that perhaps this hermit had been found and "taken care of". Since his journals were written in English, the Iron Book ignored it as gibberish.

[strike]K'veer: Home of Rakeri, Veovis and Gehn.[/strike] Island of Varia: Varash' old private island manse in the Cavern. Reached by foiling the Baron and accessing his private book to the Cavern. Here lies the secret room of Professor Marius behind a locked door. On the walls hang maps and paintings from across the Multiverse along with a photograph of Dr. Watson given to a woman named Adann and an old photo of Veovis. From here, unlocking the book room and finding the book to Treetop.

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Treetop: Written by an explorer who found out about the Iron Book. A small cabin perched over a cliff at the top of a trunk of a tree. Here there are journals written in English that explain more about Viss, Varash and how to access the main palace as well as more information on our mysterious writer. Hidden in the cabin is a key which unlocks the black tower (the tower back on Darka holding all the stolen books and weapons looted from the City and the Ages).

In the black tower is a passageway to the main palace where one confronts Viss. There are multiple ways to use puzzle/choice mechanic to stop Viss, maybe not trap books if they're not canon. One thing that will need to happen is to decode the machine enabling the Darkan books and thus sever the links to the age. Perhaps, getting Viss to use a book to a "fake" D'ni where he believes he can defeat Yeesha and then placing the book on the powering device and then severing the power to all books, damaging the link and essentially trapping him there.

The final age is known as Narim and is named after Varash' wife. It is hidden in the palace and can be found by putting together pieces of information found throughout the ages. The age is written by Varash himself using standard writing techniques and does not require the use of Art-extending power, for precautionary reasons. It is an underwater office, built inside a giant calcified shell. Here is where Varash still lives and resides. This whole time he has been using Viss as a puppet and intends to control D'ni through his son. The player must stop him somehow and return to Darka.

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I intend to have a ripped note scattered across the ages that when put together reveals the hidden book to our mysterious protagonist's age. The book is hidden in the old temple and can be accessed with a code. When revealed, the book leads to the small age of Gitsah where our protagonist resides. The age is a tall marble island rising out a stormy sea like a tooth against a sunset sky. A winding marble path spirals up to his marble office built with a colonade of large pillars that hold up an elegant marble roof.

His name is Areon and he is an exiled writer from Darka who left the age some time ago and returned to the D'ni city, where he met [strike]Dr. Watson[/strike] (edit: D'ni Professor Arthur Marius) and learned of the restoration. He became good acquaintances with Marius and revealed to him the hidden truths about the lost age of Darka and the Iron Book. After seeing Yeesha's powers in action, he returned to Darka and set about undermining the ruling family's motives, leaving clues for explorers to come and uncover its secrets. He set up shop in the abandoned age of Ecko and wrote his own private office who's book he hid in the old temple.

As is revealed throughout the game, while the Red Seers experimented with the Art, they failed to truly expand upon it. Darka would remain forgotten for millenia until Varash would rebuild it and create the illusion of a higher form of Art. In the end, the power of these books were controlled via a form of lattice in the Crypt, a massive stone pyramid housing a technologically sophisticated generator, which could bend the Art but not alter it or rework it. This bending ultimately causes instability in the ages over time and thus the ages must be maintained by select secret writers of the highest order. The locks on the covers were to prevent the common man from accessing them, and only those in cahoots with the temple or the Iron Book could use them.

[u]Characters:[/u]

Viss: Son of Varash and current ruler by blood of Darka. Believed by the temple to be the Grower and re-incarnation of Veovis, who will renew D'ni with power and freedom. He is tall and slender with long pale hair, a youth of about 35. He is impulsive, emotionally volatile and quick tempered. His personal age of Adiana reflects his cold, sociopathic tendencies.

Varash: Founder of modern-day Darka post-Fall and a massive deceiver, writer and architect of fear. He has hidden himself from public view in order to control his age and eventually retake the D'ni Empire as he sees fit. An older man of around 300, Varash hides in his aquatic sanctuary planning his every move that he will enact through his son in order to repopulate the Cavern. Tall, fully bald, wearing a red cloak and a black KI, along with a personal dagger, he is the mastermind behind Darka and its poisonous cultural atmosphere.

Baron Maremon: This homely lecherous man is the head of the Iron Book, the order of social servants, guildsmen, and militia who keep the Age in order and serve Viss and his brethren. The Baron lives in his own debaucherous palace where he keeps an eye on the Age and the Cavern, holding on his person the book to [strike]K'veer[/strike] the D'ni Cavern island of Varia where he sends his agents. His palace serves as an entertainment complex as well as a military fort, with Iron Book guards and ahrotahntee servants and mercenaries lining the halls to be utilized at his disposal or killed if need be. Here he hoards books stolen from the main city by his scouts which he uses to harvest ancient technology and other resources to prepare for Viss' attack on the Cavern. Large, grotesque with a brown bowl haircut and a balding spot, he is reviled by the common people and feared by his subjects and loyal militia and servants.

[img]https://41.media.tumblr.com/2dea9d95a10b15b925558f5125ec0410/tumblr_n7c6eykZ3f1qgwmggo1_540.jpg[/img]
The Baron's style...

Prince Carem: Brother of Viss. He is the more mature, humble and well read of the two brothers. Although he hides it from his family and the rest of the Darkan nobility, he is quite repulsed by the actions of his brother. Rather than engage with his brothers' plans or the temple, he burries himself in texts in the Library of the Immortal Word. He often spends time on Kerrey, his oasis of an age, studying the flora and fauna and engaging in scientific study to free his mind from the troubles of Darka.

Areon: A banned writer from Darka's Guild of Writers due to his eschewing of the Red Seers "Art bending" practice which he saw as impossible without truly being of an open mind. He escaped Darka to the D'ni City by distracting the Baron with an elaborate illusion performance. From Varia he made his way to Ae'Gura where he met Dr. Watson and Dr. Marius and the slew of explorers who had descended down to rebuild the City. Here after meeting Marius and Watson did he discover the True Grower, Yeesha. He befriended some explorers and made a pact with them to free Darka from Viss' family's hold. He returned to Darka and began planting seeds of information to enable potential wanderers to foil the Baron and Viss and the members of the Iron Book. He used Ecko as a base of operation before writing his own age of Gitsah to house his office and sanctuary. Once Darka is free, Areon will journey to Releeshahn to meet the true new D'ni and take part in the true restoration.

Explorer/Yali/Me: Basically this is an explorer who has helped Marius and Areon uncover information about Darka. Since Treetop was my first age I designed, I saw it fit to insert myself in the story kinda like Tweek has done with his Beneath blog.

[strike]Dr. Watson[/strike] Dr. Arthur Marius: Professor of D'ni studies at Oxford and a friend of the DRC. He has researched D'ni history and has a special interest in lost books and mysteries of the Art. He leads the department of D'ni studies at Oxford and is a frequent visitor to the Cavern. He has a knack for sending his favorite students on wild journeys throughout the Multiverse with the task of solving great mysteries and stopping great foes.



...and that's what I have so far. I'll probably cut the fat out soon.

Edit: I just read RAWA's post. Okay I could definitely substitute Dr. Watson with another professor which would give a lot of room. Dr. Arthur Marius is the name. Also I'm going to scrap K'veer and use an independent island, Varash' old family manse in the Cavern. As for the Art bending, it will be explained that the Crypt doesn't actually expand the Art, rather it breaks it. This power is used to enable "effects" - which are powered by a lattice technology - and thus the books need to be constantly repaired. In fact Varash has been working within the constraints of the Art the whole time hence why his private age is not on the lattice's grid. By creating the illusion of a more powerful Art, he has kept his people subservient and loyal to his cause. In this way he restricts Age access to his people, locking the common Library with an alliby of a "plague" beyond its doors and using the padlock system for the shrine books etc. This way he hides the truth and keeps his people anticipating the reconquest of D'ni.

Edit: Version 1.3 is up!

Hi, Yali, I just see you here on these forums ... /wave ...

I have just posted this on the MOUL forums, and I'm going to cross-post and quote what I've said over there right here below ...

YW, Yali ... This now is less than half the size, awesome ... I suppose it has to do with considerably decreasing the luminosity, because other than that you have rearranged some things, there's new stuff to admire and a message from a very familiar and well-known personality ...

It is much darker, but not too dark, except from a few perspectives and in a few places, like the area around the door, which you almost cannot see anymore, only when you find special angles etc. ... When reading the message I couldn't get back anymore, I've clicked everywhere, tried everything like right mouse, jumping, Esc. and almost all keys on my keybord lol, so I had to force quit with Alt+F4 and then go back in for a further exploration ... However, great job again, thanks Yali ...

Yup just replied. The camera view isn't exitable yet. I'm still trying to figure that out. Good to hear you like the changes! I'm really proud of that red firemarble artwork on the wall thus far. As for Dr. Watson, due to RAWA's post on the MOUL forums that was linked above, unless Cyan soon allows for "D'ni fiction" which would make things much easier, I'm going to have to substitute Watson out in favor of another character. I wrote a hell of a lot in my previous post but its serious spoilers so be warned. I will also give a more detailed description of Mirrors, however that will have to be reworked since I had always planned it as an open world game so I'll probably write more on it later today when I'm not working.

Thanks again guys!

Dr. Marius could be a member of the D’ni Research Association .

This is an awesome documentation of an amazing age development and creation by an exceptionally great age creator team, and thus a wonderful example to go by resp. to serve as inspiration ... Great pointer, Korovev ...

@Yali, I gather this is a Windows only release, right?

I know UE4 supports Mac but I'm not sure how to export it to Mac. It may be more complicated than you'd think.

I've gone back and really fleshed out my Darka concept in my earlier post this afternoon. I think I'm starting to really love it thus far. Its about as defined as Mirrors was last year. I'm guessing if I stay within RAWA's bounds I think it could be doable as a story. Sorry if this all seems like a mad man's long ramblings but I'm really fascinated by the D'ni mythology and the prospect of its conceptual/literary expansion. I'm starting to really get an idea of the characters and this is informing my design decisions in the room I've built along with plans for the next few areas. From a purely conceptual standpoint, do you guys have any thoughts?

I'll probably flesh out Mirrors a bit later but right now I'm really enjoying playing in this universe I've created. I may need to step back from it for a day to think it through.

So yeah, opinions, thoughts? I feel like I should start another thread. Moreover, I'd like to recruit any Myst fans who like the synopsis I've rambled written and would be keen to be part of a team to make it into the ultimate Myst fan game. Any takers?

Edit: Version 1.4 now out!

Yali, you've changed the message and the names, but maybe you were in a hurry or just so excited about the new message that you forgot to add the 'right click', 'Esc' or whatever 'release' from that message ...