7 ms·

How Myst Taught a Generation of Gamers to Explore New Worlds

150 points by bangonkeyboard 8y ago

sbr464 8y ago
I thought it was really interesting that the first version was written in HyperCard.
- The_suffocated 8y ago
  (And it was ridiculed by some back then as an "interactive slide show".) If I remember correctly, Myst was a pioneer (if not revolutionary) in a number of areas: 1. It was one of the first computer games that were distributed with CD-ROM. 2. It was THE first computer game that was distributed ENTIRELY with CD-ROM. 3. It was probably the first computer game outside the racing/flight simulator/FPS genres that emphasised a first-person perspective. 4. It was probably the first computer game that used pre-rendered 2D backgrounds. 5. It was the first adventure game that isn't dialogue-based or inventory-based (it has a small inventory, but mainly for storing documents rather than tools; if I remember correctly, the first Myst game has only one "tool" that can be "used" at the end of the game). Myst was exploratory. The player wasn't told to achieve any goal. It also remained as the top best-selling computer game for a half-decade. Its sales record (six million copies) was surpassed only by Half-Life and StarCraft in 1998, five years after Myst was released.
  - Lorkki 8y ago
    Myst was predated - and for some time, outsold - slightly by The 7th Guest, which was very similar in all those respects. Neither of them were the first graphical adventure games without an inventory, as Loom had come out three years before. Several had likewise been in a first person view, perhaps most notably the MacVenture series in the 80s. The first CD-ROM game was The Manhole in 1989, which had the same designers as Myst. Generally speaking, none of the individual pieces were particularly innovative, but Myst pulled them off well enough and in a simple enough package to appeal to people who didn't want to _learn_ to play a game. That's a merit unto itself.
    - The_suffocated 8y ago
      Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. What I meant was that Myst was the first adventure game that was neither inventory based nor dialogue based. The Loom and The 7th Guest did have no inventories, and technically they weren't dialogue based either (there weren't any dialogue trees that decided how the stories progressed), but they relied quite heavily on dialogues/monologues to advance the stories. In contrast, inventory and dialogues/monologues were almost non-existent in Myst, and the player wasn't told a background story at the outset. This was very unusual in that era. And I also didn't say that Myst was the first CD-ROM game. What I said was that Myst was the first game that was distributed entirely with CD-ROM. (Actually The 7th Guest was the first, but it and Myst were released in the same year. ) The Manhole, according to Wikipedia, was released on floppies first.
  - kakarot 8y ago
    On point #3, there was lots of previous work that goes back to Catacomb 3-D [0] which used the prototype engine which eventually ran Wolfenstein 3D. Before that, you had a couple "first-person" titles which offered quantized movement with pre-rendered backgrounds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_3-D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_3-D
    - The_suffocated 8y ago
      Thanks. You are right, but I actually talked about pre-rendered, 3D (not 2D) and photo-realistic background. Pre-rendered 3D background wasn't a new thing even among adventure games (again, The 7th Guest had done that), but Myst was probably the first one --- at least among adventure games --- that really had photo-realistic pre-rendered 3D backgrounds.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    > 3. It was probably the first computer game outside the racing/flight simulator/FPS genres that emphasised a first-person perspective. Disagree with this one. First-person dungeon crawlers, maze games, illustrated text adventures, gun games (different than FPSes IMO), and more had been around for well over a decade by the time Myst came out. I broadly agree with the rest, though.
webwanderings 8y ago
I can still feel the sounds of Riven in my mind. It was fun moving around and touching things.
Simulacra 8y ago
I can still hear Myst, the music, the sound of the tree as it rose into the sky. Kerbam! Kerbam! As a kid I wanted few things more than to open a book one day and find a linking page.
- danaris 8y ago
  I remember being, at age 13 or so, in the library of the college my parents taught at, a year or three after Myst came out, and finding a book that was exactly the same (general) style as the linking books. I have no idea what it actually contained at this late date, only that it was infinitely disappointing that it was not a linking panel. (Probably some sort of dry research.)
joshschreuder 8y ago
What's the best way to play Myst these days? realMyst?
- fake-name 8y ago
  RealMyst Masterpiece Edition is a surprisingly good modern-tech recreation. I played through it again recently. I just wish they'd do riven next.
  - hateful 8y ago
    Here is the steam page for it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/244430/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/244430/ The main difference is that you can actually walk around, as opposed to point and click with animated pictures. If I remember correctly, the original game was still images with quicktime movies overlaid over them.
- Endy 8y ago
  My view may be controversial, but I'd say the Nintendo DS version. The touchscreen interface works well, the inclusion of the "RealMyst-only" ice world into the old-fashioned format is great, it's just an excellent adaptation in general.
- jammygit 8y ago
  There is a new game by the creators called 'Obduction' you could try out. I think its equally playable in VR and not-VR https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/how-brothers-behind-myst-reunited-to-create-mysterious-new-vr-world-172611/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/how-brothe... edit - technolust isn't exactly a myst clone, but if you like the genre its a decent first person adventure game with a killer soundtrack
  - joshschreuder 8y ago
    Yeah I've been meaning to give it a go for a while now. I really like those types of first person puzzlers like Antichamber, The Witness, Talos Principle etc. Sadly I don't have a VR setup to try Technolust, but thanks for the recommendation!
WalterBright 8y ago
It was ADVENT with a gui interface.
- Endy 8y ago
  Arguably, Myst has a more unique and deeper setting than Colossal Cave Adventure / ADVENT. Maybe it's Zork with a GUI, then, but I still love text adventure games (and seriously there's some great innovation still happening with the style, so I know I'm not alone). Therefore, I don't see that as a pejorative. Rather, I'd say that Myst accomplished what games like King's/Space/Police Quest couldn't - they split the adventure game genre, showing how to get away from the text parser - if you want to. I like the more personal, serene experience of a classical turn-based adventure game and the puzzle-solving element still excites me. I've only seen a few games that scratch that itch the way Myst did (and still does).
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    I didn't mean it as a pejorative, just that the game play concept was almost identical to that of ADVENT. Instead of typing "go west" you just clicked. The innovation was in the graphics, which really pushed the boundaries of what could be done on a computer of that era.
aidenn0 8y ago
Myst was the only adventure game I abandoned playing. I just never felt immersed; rather it felt like a so-so puzzle game with a bit of window dressing.
JohnBooty 8y ago
Gaming pretty much died for a while in my book when these games got popular. Thanks to games' inferiority complex and desire to look "more like movies", we temporarily ditched most of the things that made games unique in favor of a bunch of laughable full motion video. Calling these games "interactive" was an extra kick in the teeth, as they were so much less "interactive" than even an early video game like Frogger, Pac-Man, or Robotron where you had multiple (or perhaps over a hundred, in Robotron's case) objects moving around the screen, in real time, at 60fps, each behaving according to its own rules. Luckily, the industry eventually corrected itself and swung back to creating the kinds of highly kinetic experiences that are unique to the medium.
- laurieg 8y ago
  It's a shame because games can be so much more than movies. Her Story[1] manages to pair an interesting mechanic with with an engaging story. I really recommend setting aside an evening to try it if you haven't already. It's a shame that the games industry seems to be allergic to using video in games. You can have video with interactivity and story-telling all in one package. [1] http://www.herstorygame.com/ http://www.herstorygame.com/
  - JohnBooty 8y ago
    I'll take your advice! That looks cool!
  - ric2b 8y ago
    Really neat short game! It's much better than L.A. Noire at making you feel like a detective and that moment when you figure out what happened is amazing. The mechanics are limited so it only works a short experience, thankfully it doesn't overstay it's welcome.
- darren_ 8y ago
  > Thanks to games' inferiority complex and desire to look "more like movies", we temporarily ditched most of the things that made games unique in favor of a bunch of laughable full motion video. FMV is barely relevant to Myst at all. And 'highly kinetic' is hardly the only unique experience videogames bring - Myst brings the experience of exploring an unknown environment and uncovering the puzzles/narratives within, in a way you can't do in other media. I don't even think it's that good, to be honest, but decrying it as just 'laughable full motion video' is straight up inaccurate.
sethammons 8y ago
I can recall seeing the back of the CD jewel case as a kid. The scenes were stunning! I can also recall the utter disappointment when it was not something you could walk through and it was point and click. Expectations were not managed well in my case, and I never gave the game a chance after that. It also didn't help that it was installed on a friend's computer, so access alongside boredom did not readily present itself to compel me to try again.
- Endy 8y ago
  Did you ever try RealMyst after that? It sounds like the experience you were looking for.
  - woah 8y ago
    I recently downloaded both. The point and click version plays better.
GarrisonPrime 8y ago
Half of these comments note how Myst captured the imagination. The other half make it clear how the authors had no imagination to spark. Myst arrived at a turning point in computer gaming, where what it provided gamers was so much beyond what had come before the mind filled in the gaps (as gaping as they truly were, with our 20/20 hindsight). Sad that some cannot even comprehend what this means.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- TylerE 8y ago
  People like what they like. Stop trying to gatekeep.
  - nickpeterson 8y ago
    What if what they like is trash?
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      So what? It's not hurting you.
      - nickpeterson 8y ago
        I would content that it does, but the effect is pretty minor.
mogigoma 8y ago
The games themselves are mediocre, but the trilogy of novels (at least the first two), and the Myst and Riven soundtracks are things I will cherish forever.
mortenjorck 8y ago
> “It took me so many years to realize that the power of all games are not with the characters but instead the actual environment.” This is an interesting thing to read from the co-creator of a game franchise with a deep enough lore that multiple novels have been published in its universe. The characters in the Myst series are not insignificant – certainly the specter of Gehn in Riven, even though you actually meet him only briefly at the end of the game, is ever-present as you explore the world he ruled and bent to his will. And yet, that seems to be exactly what Robyn Miller is talking about there: The character of Gehn is important, but the player gets to know him not through direct interaction, rather through exploring the environment. Gehn's screen time is an afterthought to the character development that derives from observing the obsessive details of the places he frequented and shaped. The environment is the character development. Myst marked a turning point in environmental storytelling, and its effects have been felt all the way from the golden age of first-person shooters into the modern age of "walking simulators." Even when today's games take the overused shortcut of audio logs to fill in the details, the stages they set all track back to those curiously broken chairs in Sirrus' study that made you ask "wait, what happened here?"
- Fellshard 8y ago
  Riven really was the pinnacle of this in their games. The mark of a man on an entire culture, subtle yet unmistakable. One of the games that made the most lasting impression on me over the years.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    same here, I think of Riven as the perfect game.
- setr 8y ago
  My preferred model for describing games is: a simulation of some universe, and a way to interact with it. In such a model, learning a story/plot through interaction (with the simplified simulation) is only natural, and storytelling through direct means in the fashion of books/movies, in a game, is clearly a hack, directly conflicting with the nature of a simulation. And ofc myst was no innovator in this — environmental/interactive storytelling was well established by interactive fiction (IFs), MUDs, text adventures, etc — but it is the quintessential example for modern video games (but thats not saying much imo, since few modern game developers seem to even believe games actually existed before 1990, let alone learn from them) And thats not to say that all games fit my described model well (eg asura’s wrath has almost no simulation/interaction at all, but derives decent impact from the qte mechanic) but at the same time, a lot of games that don’t fit the model were doing a job in the wrong medium (the uncharted series has a sufficiently engaging plot [kinda], but it was really just an action/adventure plot told very innefficiently, with a sufficiently engaging but almost totally seperate third-person shooter game interspersed. Both plot/gameplay would have been better served by their own mediums, instead of being composed into an awkward hybrid)
rhcom2 8y ago
I played Myst way too young. I couldn't figure out any of the puzzles and still remember just randomly pressing piano buttons but the atmosphere was so much fun to explore.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  That damn piano... I’m pretty tone deaf and had no idea what to do there.
reidjs 8y ago
Loved myst as a kid. A game I played recently that recreated that sense of wonder and exploration was the Talos Principle. Should definitely try it if you enjoyed the Myst series.
- ido 8y ago
  Have you tried The Witness? http://the-witness.net/ http://the-witness.net/
  - wetpaws 8y ago
    I second Witness. Quern is also good, probably closest game to Myst you can ever find : https://store.steampowered.com/app/512790/Quern__Undying_Thoughts/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/512790/Quern__Undying_Tho...
torgian 8y ago
Must intrigued me, but when I played it as a kid I never got into it. Just felt like a puzzle game that was boring. However, the books that were part of the Myst universe drew me in. I loved the books.
te_chris 8y ago
Not this gamer. My dad got me a copy and I tried for a couple of hours to get past the first bit, couldn’t, and gave up forever. Evidently my brain is not suited to that stuff.
debt 8y ago
Myst was the first game that made me feel I was somewhere else.
sn41 8y ago
I played Myst and Riven at a time when the internet connectivity was very poor, so there were no tips or game guides to help. Got frustrated, me and my friend started playing it as a duo in our spare times, and we would compare notes afterwards. My friend later said that he would see an ordinary gate or a wall, and think of ways around it or over it, for days after playing Myst. Even now, I can remember some of the atmospheric backgrounds - the breezes, the creaks etc. Very spooky and enchanting games. I don't know if I loved them, just that they were an annoying part of my life for 2-3 months.
k__ 8y ago
I never played Myst, but lately I played Quern and The Talos Principle. Pretty intense games.
ngcc_hk 8y ago
Not playing myself but my wife and her cousin who happen to stay. Play for months and they keep notes. I was stunned only the graphics. The pc then was horrible compared to the mac environment. I do not know that it is faked 3D. But it looks very real to me then.
calypso 8y ago
Just today I was looking through old boxes at my parents house. I found my Myst and Riven CDs. I remember playing these games as a kid after my grandfather gave them to me so I would play something other than Doom.
nuguy 8y ago
Myst and even riven were great but very poorly designed and thought out. When you play for the first time there’s a huge hump to get over because you don’t know where the puzzle makers are coming from. I tended to overthink the puzzles and over-estimate their difficulty on first finding them, something I think can lead to people abondoning he game when they don’t need to. The witness did a great job of easing the player into things. You know exactly who is behind these puzzles and so you never lose your sense of direction so to speak. Also, the interface of myst and riven are very clunky. Clicking the side of the screen sometimes makes you do a 180 but other times only 90. Your sense of space and ability to navigate is totally fucked in myst and riven. I think a game that cleaned that up and added animations between stationary scenes would be very good.

sbr464 8y ago

I thought it was really interesting that the first version was written in HyperCard.

The_suffocated 8y ago
(And it was ridiculed by some back then as an "interactive slide show".) If I remember correctly, Myst was a pioneer (if not revolutionary) in a number of areas: 1. It was one of the first computer games that were distributed with CD-ROM. 2. It was THE first computer game that was distributed ENTIRELY with CD-ROM. 3. It was probably the first computer game outside the racing/flight simulator/FPS genres that emphasised a first-person perspective. 4. It was probably the first computer game that used pre-rendered 2D backgrounds. 5. It was the first adventure game that isn't dialogue-based or inventory-based (it has a small inventory, but mainly for storing documents rather than tools; if I remember correctly, the first Myst game has only one "tool" that can be "used" at the end of the game). Myst was exploratory. The player wasn't told to achieve any goal. It also remained as the top best-selling computer game for a half-decade. Its sales record (six million copies) was surpassed only by Half-Life and StarCraft in 1998, five years after Myst was released.
- Lorkki 8y ago
  Myst was predated - and for some time, outsold - slightly by The 7th Guest, which was very similar in all those respects. Neither of them were the first graphical adventure games without an inventory, as Loom had come out three years before. Several had likewise been in a first person view, perhaps most notably the MacVenture series in the 80s. The first CD-ROM game was The Manhole in 1989, which had the same designers as Myst. Generally speaking, none of the individual pieces were particularly innovative, but Myst pulled them off well enough and in a simple enough package to appeal to people who didn't want to _learn_ to play a game. That's a merit unto itself.
  - The_suffocated 8y ago
    Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. What I meant was that Myst was the first adventure game that was neither inventory based nor dialogue based. The Loom and The 7th Guest did have no inventories, and technically they weren't dialogue based either (there weren't any dialogue trees that decided how the stories progressed), but they relied quite heavily on dialogues/monologues to advance the stories. In contrast, inventory and dialogues/monologues were almost non-existent in Myst, and the player wasn't told a background story at the outset. This was very unusual in that era. And I also didn't say that Myst was the first CD-ROM game. What I said was that Myst was the first game that was distributed entirely with CD-ROM. (Actually The 7th Guest was the first, but it and Myst were released in the same year. ) The Manhole, according to Wikipedia, was released on floppies first.
- kakarot 8y ago
  On point #3, there was lots of previous work that goes back to Catacomb 3-D [0] which used the prototype engine which eventually ran Wolfenstein 3D. Before that, you had a couple "first-person" titles which offered quantized movement with pre-rendered backgrounds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_3-D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_3-D
  - The_suffocated 8y ago
    Thanks. You are right, but I actually talked about pre-rendered, 3D (not 2D) and photo-realistic background. Pre-rendered 3D background wasn't a new thing even among adventure games (again, The 7th Guest had done that), but Myst was probably the first one --- at least among adventure games --- that really had photo-realistic pre-rendered 3D backgrounds.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  > 3. It was probably the first computer game outside the racing/flight simulator/FPS genres that emphasised a first-person perspective. Disagree with this one. First-person dungeon crawlers, maze games, illustrated text adventures, gun games (different than FPSes IMO), and more had been around for well over a decade by the time Myst came out. I broadly agree with the rest, though.

webwanderings 8y ago

I can still feel the sounds of Riven in my mind. It was fun moving around and touching things.

Simulacra 8y ago

I can still hear Myst, the music, the sound of the tree as it rose into the sky. Kerbam! Kerbam! As a kid I wanted few things more than to open a book one day and find a linking page.

danaris 8y ago
I remember being, at age 13 or so, in the library of the college my parents taught at, a year or three after Myst came out, and finding a book that was exactly the same (general) style as the linking books. I have no idea what it actually contained at this late date, only that it was infinitely disappointing that it was not a linking panel. (Probably some sort of dry research.)

joshschreuder 8y ago

What's the best way to play Myst these days? realMyst?

fake-name 8y ago
RealMyst Masterpiece Edition is a surprisingly good modern-tech recreation. I played through it again recently. I just wish they'd do riven next.
- hateful 8y ago
  Here is the steam page for it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/244430/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/244430/ The main difference is that you can actually walk around, as opposed to point and click with animated pictures. If I remember correctly, the original game was still images with quicktime movies overlaid over them.
Endy 8y ago
My view may be controversial, but I'd say the Nintendo DS version. The touchscreen interface works well, the inclusion of the "RealMyst-only" ice world into the old-fashioned format is great, it's just an excellent adaptation in general.
jammygit 8y ago
There is a new game by the creators called 'Obduction' you could try out. I think its equally playable in VR and not-VR https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/how-brothers-behind-myst-reunited-to-create-mysterious-new-vr-world-172611/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/how-brothe... edit - technolust isn't exactly a myst clone, but if you like the genre its a decent first person adventure game with a killer soundtrack
- joshschreuder 8y ago
  Yeah I've been meaning to give it a go for a while now. I really like those types of first person puzzlers like Antichamber, The Witness, Talos Principle etc. Sadly I don't have a VR setup to try Technolust, but thanks for the recommendation!

WalterBright 8y ago

It was ADVENT with a gui interface.

Endy 8y ago
Arguably, Myst has a more unique and deeper setting than Colossal Cave Adventure / ADVENT. Maybe it's Zork with a GUI, then, but I still love text adventure games (and seriously there's some great innovation still happening with the style, so I know I'm not alone). Therefore, I don't see that as a pejorative. Rather, I'd say that Myst accomplished what games like King's/Space/Police Quest couldn't - they split the adventure game genre, showing how to get away from the text parser - if you want to. I like the more personal, serene experience of a classical turn-based adventure game and the puzzle-solving element still excites me. I've only seen a few games that scratch that itch the way Myst did (and still does).
- WalterBright 8y ago
  I didn't mean it as a pejorative, just that the game play concept was almost identical to that of ADVENT. Instead of typing "go west" you just clicked. The innovation was in the graphics, which really pushed the boundaries of what could be done on a computer of that era.

aidenn0 8y ago

Myst was the only adventure game I abandoned playing. I just never felt immersed; rather it felt like a so-so puzzle game with a bit of window dressing.

JohnBooty 8y ago

Gaming pretty much died for a while in my book when these games got popular. Thanks to games' inferiority complex and desire to look "more like movies", we temporarily ditched most of the things that made games unique in favor of a bunch of laughable full motion video. Calling these games "interactive" was an extra kick in the teeth, as they were so much less "interactive" than even an early video game like Frogger, Pac-Man, or Robotron where you had multiple (or perhaps over a hundred, in Robotron's case) objects moving around the screen, in real time, at 60fps, each behaving according to its own rules. Luckily, the industry eventually corrected itself and swung back to creating the kinds of highly kinetic experiences that are unique to the medium.

laurieg 8y ago
It's a shame because games can be so much more than movies. Her Story[1] manages to pair an interesting mechanic with with an engaging story. I really recommend setting aside an evening to try it if you haven't already. It's a shame that the games industry seems to be allergic to using video in games. You can have video with interactivity and story-telling all in one package. [1] http://www.herstorygame.com/ http://www.herstorygame.com/
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  I'll take your advice! That looks cool!
- ric2b 8y ago
  Really neat short game! It's much better than L.A. Noire at making you feel like a detective and that moment when you figure out what happened is amazing. The mechanics are limited so it only works a short experience, thankfully it doesn't overstay it's welcome.
darren_ 8y ago
> Thanks to games' inferiority complex and desire to look "more like movies", we temporarily ditched most of the things that made games unique in favor of a bunch of laughable full motion video. FMV is barely relevant to Myst at all. And 'highly kinetic' is hardly the only unique experience videogames bring - Myst brings the experience of exploring an unknown environment and uncovering the puzzles/narratives within, in a way you can't do in other media. I don't even think it's that good, to be honest, but decrying it as just 'laughable full motion video' is straight up inaccurate.

sethammons 8y ago

I can recall seeing the back of the CD jewel case as a kid. The scenes were stunning! I can also recall the utter disappointment when it was not something you could walk through and it was point and click. Expectations were not managed well in my case, and I never gave the game a chance after that. It also didn't help that it was installed on a friend's computer, so access alongside boredom did not readily present itself to compel me to try again.

Endy 8y ago
Did you ever try RealMyst after that? It sounds like the experience you were looking for.
- woah 8y ago
  I recently downloaded both. The point and click version plays better.

GarrisonPrime 8y ago

Half of these comments note how Myst captured the imagination. The other half make it clear how the authors had no imagination to spark. Myst arrived at a turning point in computer gaming, where what it provided gamers was so much beyond what had come before the mind filled in the gaps (as gaping as they truly were, with our 20/20 hindsight). Sad that some cannot even comprehend what this means.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TylerE 8y ago
People like what they like. Stop trying to gatekeep.
- nickpeterson 8y ago
  What if what they like is trash?
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    So what? It's not hurting you.
    - nickpeterson 8y ago
      I would content that it does, but the effect is pretty minor.

mogigoma 8y ago

The games themselves are mediocre, but the trilogy of novels (at least the first two), and the Myst and Riven soundtracks are things I will cherish forever.

mortenjorck 8y ago

> “It took me so many years to realize that the power of all games are not with the characters but instead the actual environment.” This is an interesting thing to read from the co-creator of a game franchise with a deep enough lore that multiple novels have been published in its universe. The characters in the Myst series are not insignificant – certainly the specter of Gehn in Riven, even though you actually meet him only briefly at the end of the game, is ever-present as you explore the world he ruled and bent to his will. And yet, that seems to be exactly what Robyn Miller is talking about there: The character of Gehn is important, but the player gets to know him not through direct interaction, rather through exploring the environment. Gehn's screen time is an afterthought to the character development that derives from observing the obsessive details of the places he frequented and shaped. The environment is the character development. Myst marked a turning point in environmental storytelling, and its effects have been felt all the way from the golden age of first-person shooters into the modern age of "walking simulators." Even when today's games take the overused shortcut of audio logs to fill in the details, the stages they set all track back to those curiously broken chairs in Sirrus' study that made you ask "wait, what happened here?"

Fellshard 8y ago
Riven really was the pinnacle of this in their games. The mark of a man on an entire culture, subtle yet unmistakable. One of the games that made the most lasting impression on me over the years.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  same here, I think of Riven as the perfect game.
setr 8y ago
My preferred model for describing games is: a simulation of some universe, and a way to interact with it. In such a model, learning a story/plot through interaction (with the simplified simulation) is only natural, and storytelling through direct means in the fashion of books/movies, in a game, is clearly a hack, directly conflicting with the nature of a simulation. And ofc myst was no innovator in this — environmental/interactive storytelling was well established by interactive fiction (IFs), MUDs, text adventures, etc — but it is the quintessential example for modern video games (but thats not saying much imo, since few modern game developers seem to even believe games actually existed before 1990, let alone learn from them) And thats not to say that all games fit my described model well (eg asura’s wrath has almost no simulation/interaction at all, but derives decent impact from the qte mechanic) but at the same time, a lot of games that don’t fit the model were doing a job in the wrong medium (the uncharted series has a sufficiently engaging plot [kinda], but it was really just an action/adventure plot told very innefficiently, with a sufficiently engaging but almost totally seperate third-person shooter game interspersed. Both plot/gameplay would have been better served by their own mediums, instead of being composed into an awkward hybrid)

rhcom2 8y ago

I played Myst way too young. I couldn't figure out any of the puzzles and still remember just randomly pressing piano buttons but the atmosphere was so much fun to explore.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
That damn piano... I’m pretty tone deaf and had no idea what to do there.

reidjs 8y ago

Loved myst as a kid. A game I played recently that recreated that sense of wonder and exploration was the Talos Principle. Should definitely try it if you enjoyed the Myst series.

ido 8y ago
Have you tried The Witness? http://the-witness.net/ http://the-witness.net/
- wetpaws 8y ago
  I second Witness. Quern is also good, probably closest game to Myst you can ever find : https://store.steampowered.com/app/512790/Quern__Undying_Thoughts/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/512790/Quern__Undying_Tho...

torgian 8y ago

Must intrigued me, but when I played it as a kid I never got into it. Just felt like a puzzle game that was boring. However, the books that were part of the Myst universe drew me in. I loved the books.

te_chris 8y ago

Not this gamer. My dad got me a copy and I tried for a couple of hours to get past the first bit, couldn’t, and gave up forever. Evidently my brain is not suited to that stuff.

debt 8y ago

Myst was the first game that made me feel I was somewhere else.

sn41 8y ago

I played Myst and Riven at a time when the internet connectivity was very poor, so there were no tips or game guides to help. Got frustrated, me and my friend started playing it as a duo in our spare times, and we would compare notes afterwards. My friend later said that he would see an ordinary gate or a wall, and think of ways around it or over it, for days after playing Myst. Even now, I can remember some of the atmospheric backgrounds - the breezes, the creaks etc. Very spooky and enchanting games. I don't know if I loved them, just that they were an annoying part of my life for 2-3 months.

k__ 8y ago

I never played Myst, but lately I played Quern and The Talos Principle. Pretty intense games.

ngcc_hk 8y ago

Not playing myself but my wife and her cousin who happen to stay. Play for months and they keep notes. I was stunned only the graphics. The pc then was horrible compared to the mac environment. I do not know that it is faked 3D. But it looks very real to me then.

calypso 8y ago

Just today I was looking through old boxes at my parents house. I found my Myst and Riven CDs. I remember playing these games as a kid after my grandfather gave them to me so I would play something other than Doom.

nuguy 8y ago

Myst and even riven were great but very poorly designed and thought out. When you play for the first time there’s a huge hump to get over because you don’t know where the puzzle makers are coming from. I tended to overthink the puzzles and over-estimate their difficulty on first finding them, something I think can lead to people abondoning he game when they don’t need to. The witness did a great job of easing the player into things. You know exactly who is behind these puzzles and so you never lose your sense of direction so to speak. Also, the interface of myst and riven are very clunky. Clicking the side of the screen sometimes makes you do a 180 but other times only 90. Your sense of space and ability to navigate is totally fucked in myst and riven. I think a game that cleaned that up and added animations between stationary scenes would be very good.