My Ramblings - Southern California Trip

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Hello there, reader. So nice of you to pop in and read about my trip to Southern California! I will be trying to describe all parts of this trip day-by-day, with lots of detail, and many pictures. So sit back and enjoy!

**WARNING!**
There are some minor spoilers on this page about Myst III: Exile, so if you have not played Exile yet and you are completely anti-spoiler, just skip this day and read on about Days 3-7.
This is the secret I've been keeping from everyone. I have told some people that I was going to southern California and some other people that I was going to San Diego. Well, this is the main reason I went there.

Susan Weyer, the PR manager at Presto Studios, was extremely kind and allowed my father and I to take a trip to Presto and give us a tour of the place. To my surprise and pleasure, Greg Uhler was also there and he went along on the tour with us. Not only did we get to go on a tour of the place, but I got to sit down with Susan and Greg in the Myst III: Exile concept room and we had a wonderful 3-hour long discussion about ALL SORTS of Myst stuff. I'm telling you, it was like heaven on earth. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think I was going to have that opportunity. I asked questions, got answers, raised more questions, saw amazing things, met amazing people, touched cool things, and got amazing things. Wow. So much to tell. I'll start at the beginning.

My dad and I had no trouble finding the building that Presto was in, but finding the Presto offices was another thing. The building they are in is like a big donut. You walk in, and there is a courtyard with several floors of offices all around you. Of course, being so excited, I didn't see the big glass double doors with Presto's logo engraved on it up on the second floor. (Just about as obvious as you can get.) I completely missed it. I roamed around on the first floor looking in every door for something "Presto-related" to let me know that that was their office. Finally, I saw the big doors and then my excitement level shot through the roof. (Little did I know, that it would go even higher later on.) As I walked in the door, Greg Uhler was walking down the hall to greet me. I thought what he said was quite amusing: "Hi there! I thought you'd be the only one wearing--I mean--I thought you'd be wearing your Myst III t-shirt." LOL! That's funny. And indeed, I was the only one wearing my Myst III: Exile t-shirt, but I wore it with immense pride.

Here are the suits. They are pretty amazing when seen from up close. The one on the left is the chameleon suit from Journeyman Project 3. The one on the right is also from JP3, but I believe was the main one in JP1 and JP2. When I touched the one on the right, it kept moving and I thought it was going to fall over! Yikes! After the picture was taken, I quickly got away from it. ^_^

He showed us into the conference room and he went away to do something small. A minute later, he and Susan came in and we started talking about the general stuff like who I was, how old I was, what I'm planning on doing next year and all that stuff.

In that room were the suits from the Journeyman Project games. They are the

actual suits that the actors and actresses wore in the game. (About $10,000 each!) Of course, I had to get some pictures of me standing by them, but I got those at the end of the day.

After Greg, Susan, my father, and I talked for a bit in the conference room, they took us on a tour of the building. It's not an enormously huge place, but it's bigger than you think when you get in it. I was quite surprised. I didn't take many shots of the actual workspace and the building and I now regret it. *sigh* Oh well. I did get many other pictures of other things.


This is what you see when you first enter Presto Studios and turn to the left. It's where I'm assuming a receptionist sits when one is there. It also shows all the boxes of games they've made and magazine covers about games. Very cool.		Here's a shot my dad took of me, Susan Weyer, and Greg Uhler, respectively. Great shot

This picture is an Exile poster in Greg's office I think, but it's a rare one. In the credits at the bottom, it lists Rand Miller's name. Rand didn't like to advertise that because he did not want people to buy the game just for that, so he had it taken off. Only about 20 of these were made.	Here is a collage of all the Journeyman Project games. It's really nice. I'd love to have one. ^_^	While these pictures are slightly blurred, it is still possible to make out that they are all the awards Presto Studios has won for all the games they have made. And think...Myst III: Exile hasn't been entered in any yet. It costs $200 to enter each contest, so they will enter Exile in it soon.

These are plaques for each of the Journeyman games whether they are DVDs or the CD sets. They are very cool up close. The picture's a bit blurred, but not too bad. Now imagine this: Myst III: Exile plaques! Yes, they are indeed being made, but only the people who work at Presto Studios get them. Let's all run out and get jobs at Presto now! ^_^ That would certainly be an amazing collector's item!		This is a newspaper article about Presto just as they were starting out with a picture of the original team on the left. I didn't have time to read it, though. Ah well.

Greg and Susan were also kind enough to buy lunch so we had very tasty deli sandwiches delivered from the local deli. I got to eat with them in possibly the best place to eat in the whole building...*drumroll*...the Myst III: Exile concept room! I got to eat with them in there while being surrounded with concept art for the entire game. The J'nanin concept art pictures were taken down already for another event, but all the other art was up! Oh my. I was drooling in there! So much eye candy! I tried to get pictures of all of it. I think I got it all too. It was amazing. Below are thumbnails of the concept art. Click on them to see larger images. I made these pictures larger than the other pictures when you click on them so you can see all the detail in the images. ^_^

That was where the main part of the visit took place. Greg, Susan, my dad, and I sat there for three hours just talking about all sorts of Myst stuff. I asked them many, many questions. I'll try to recall them.

Me: "Okay, Greg. I'm going to be blunt. Is Presto Studios working on Myst IV?"
Greg: "Sorry, can't tell you that."
Me: "Ah. I understand."

Heh. I had to get that question in. I also asked why the box art for Exile was different than what is in the game. He said that there wasn't any deep meaning behind it. It was basically because it looked better that way. The Voltaic horn is missing in the back ground because it would have distracted from the main picture and get in the way of the title. The place on the main horn is turned towards the viewer because the backside of it wasn't that exciting. So they turned it. It also made people wonder about if and how it was possible to turn it in the game. No, it's not. But it would make a cool easter egg, wouldn't it?

Speaking of easter eggs, I asked about them. I told them what we have found and we have found all but one. There is one that Greg said we will most likely never find on our own because it's like the Riven ones. We have to click three areas and then we will see it. They are thinking about releasing that egg soon...maybe. They didn't tell me any more about it.

One thing that they said really surprised the team at Presto was what happened when they released that first Exile trailer. If you all remember, in the first trailer, there was an overhead shot of the island as the camera was spiraling down. Well, some of you might remember that a couple people saw the light posts and mapped out what they thought the light posts did which was reflect light through all the others in a certain order. Well, as we all know now, that is indeed how the puzzle is to be solved. Everyone at Presto didn't realize how much we (the fans) would analyze things and figure out the answer to one of the puzzles already. Only one little thing was wrong with the solution the fans thought up. But they were shocked to see that online one day and realize that a puzzle was solved before the game was even finished! LOL. Congrats to who figured that out!

Greg also told me some things that they had thought about for parts of the game, but the ideas never made it in. If you look at the first concept art image in the second row and then the middle picture in the top row of that image of that small pool of water, you might recall that image from when it was released a while ago before the game came out. Greg told me that one of their ideas for that image was for the water to come shooting up from the pool of water and that would somehow send power through the pipes to power the airship in Voltaic.

Another idea had to do with the dark space underneath the elevator in J'nanin. Their idea was to have the space under the elevator lead to Saavedro's lair underneath the giant horn instead of inside the horn. I don't recall what he said would be inside of the horn instead of Saavedro's lair though. Sorry. Too much excitement and information flying around in my head. I'm bound to forget some things. I would have loved to seen that idea come into the game. But you want to know why it didn't make it into the game? There wasn't enough time. It was another room to design and they just didn't have time. Dang. Who knows what we'll see in the future?

Wow. Who would have thought I would have so much to say about my visit to Presto!
Click here to see the rest of what happened at Presto.

For any questions or comments, please email me here:
Gandalf1210@attbi.com
Feedback is always welcome!