Very very cool. Idea: Next time follow the recursive theme of Nat's World and put little figures on the cake having their own Myst Island cake.

That's pretty darn impressive. My brother and I were big fans of Myst when it first came out... we spent hours upon hours trying to solve the mysteries. I might have to dig it out and play again, if only for old times' sake!

Wow, rock. I thought my mom was badass for making me Boba Fett and Darth Vader cakes over the years. lol, nah, moms still the best.

Wow, I love the Ring Ding gears. ^_^ Very cool idea!

You've done yourself proud! That cake is a awesome achievement! Well done :) Happy Birthday to the lucky 13 year old with good taste in Video games!

I came here from BoingBoing... OMG... wow, Ned -- this is really incredible! AND Tasty. Mmmm. So cool to see something like this, and in celebration of your son's b-day too. I was a big fan of the 1st Myst game way back in like... wow, 1994. It's been over a decade now but the fond memories haven't faded.

I have Asperger's Syndrome and noted the autism entries on your blog... I'll be reading them with great interest.

Keep it up... I know you will. :)

This is awesome! I fondly remember playing the original game back during my childhood days! One of the best games during it's time. It still is.

Did Susan make that herself or was it a joint effort? Wow! Makes my Titanic birthday cake (10/03/04) look a bit kindergarten-ish!

Nancy, how sexist of you to assume that I may have had no hand at all in this cake! Susan does the baking part, but the planning and construction are definitely a joint effort.

WOW ! You're cake is so nice. It just made my day, so thank you very much.

That's an outstanding and creative cake! I absolutely love that I recognize all the landmarks you designed!

My mom made some very creative cakes for me as well. She made a 3-part hamburger cake for me with red and yellow icing for condiments, and a pizza cake for my sister with sugared gummi fruits for toppings that looked like pepperoni and peppers.

So, props to Ned, Susan, and my mom!

P.s., this is a really sophisticated commenting page you've got here. It anti-spammed my email address and applies nofollow for search engines. Very impressive!

MYST holds a special place of nostalgia for those of us who craved accessible content in the '90s, but that does not mean the franchise gets a “free pass” from criticism or exemption from censorship. The games still employed sexist tropes and game mechanics that enforced/internalized misogynistic ideology (granted, to a lesser degree than other games at the time) in the individual minds that were participating in this male-created adventure. The supplemental books and comics that were released were a little better in their depiction/treatment of female characters, but not by much, and managed to gain a cult-like following amongst the less developed minds of that generation. It would have been better for all if MYST was sequestered to the nostalgic past, but in the last two decades, there have been attempts to resurrect the franchise onto the "big screen" in the form of a movie or series. These attempts have mostly self-destructed under poor management, but the project keeps getting passed to larger studios, and I would be lying if I said I was not worried about the continued proliferation of '90s era game misogyny to modern media. We are/were too late to stop another Mortal Kombat, but we can stop this. If you consider yourself to be a feminist, please consider signing this petition to "cease any-and-all progress on creating a movie or TV series based on the misogynistic video game franchise of Myst"
[ https://www.change.org/p/stop-movie-based-on-sexist-myst-video-game-series ]
Even if they modernize the content for the movie or series, people will possibly want to explore the source material and ingest the inherent sexism therein. It must end. As my favorite line in the new Star Wars movies suggests, we must "let the past die. Kill it, if you have to."
Please note, I am not the author of the petition, but I do believe in it.