Myst 4 Exhibit
I arrived a bit past 1 at the County Hall Gallery in London, even though the press lunch thing was supposed to be at one which was what I was invited to I think. Chap took me in and I met a UK Ubisoft representative who greeted me told me where the food was and to take a look around, which of course I did.
The Exhibit was in 2 rooms. The first room had 3 macs and 2 windows laptops running Myst 4. There were a few artifacts on the walls like Yeesha’s clothes and shell amulet and Sirrus’ clothes as well as a primate Journey Cloth looking thing from Serenia. The room also had a vast amount of concept art box designs for the Myst games and Uru as well as the food of course.
I had a go on the laptop version starting from the beginning watching the nifty intro and smiling at the little references to the past games, all the while standing next to Myst fan Gelf56 (of course I didn’t realize it was him until I was reading the UO forums when I got home and saw a girl in one of his photos that was there when I was! silly me). Iain was also there at the same time as me and I didn’t realize it either.. 3 Myst fans in the same room and neither one realizing who the others were).
Anywhom, I won’t go into spoilers. One puzzle I managed to do fairly quickly after I was told some chap had spent about 2 hours doing it earlier. The game itself is really good the graphics are nice and the story arch seems to be a lot more intelligent than I first thought with references to the past myst game ages etc.
Characters seem to fit in with the surroundings a lot better than they did with Exile. Only gripe was Atrus’ voice got a tad annoying after a while during one puzzle (sorry Rand) I don’t think it would have been so bad had I been using a mouse not a touch pad, the puzzle could have been completed faster.
After a long while of playing it and sores on my knuckles from the touch pad I decided to go take some photos and headed to the second room.
The second room housed clothing of Atrus and Achenar and clothing which appeared to be from Serenia as well as some jewel eggs that were in a dish-like object. Clay sculptures were on podiums in the center of the room from various ages and areas along with Yeesha’s pipe and Achenar’s weapons and a letter from Atrus.
Some of the soundtrack music from the game was playing, a lot of it was stuff we have heard already except one track I had not heard before. On the far wall in front of the leather sofas was a huge projection of a screenshot of Serenia. Along the walls yet more fantastic concept work including the story board for the game intro. There were also two copies of From Myst to Riven for reading (I can see why it was dubbed the coffee table book).
It was a pity there was nothing for sale that would have been cool. But overall it was a cool exhibit if not a little smaller than I was expecting. It was cool to see the costumes from the game and to play the actual game itself.
Now if only I can get my hands on Atrus’ books.
