9 ms·
Looking back on the game 'Myst' on its 20th anniversary
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- axxl 13y agoI think a Myst game with the Oculus Rift could be amazing. Especially with some sort of wiimote type device to manipulate objects.
- rocky1138 13y agoI used to play realMYST (the real-time 3D version) with my 3D stereoscopic glasses back in ~2004 and it was indeed awesome. Exploring the ages was a treat in real 3d.
- fennecfoxen 13y agoWould it be outrageous to suggest that smaller and narrower (but still exploratory) indie puzzle-solving games like _Machinarium_ occupy a substantial portion of the Myst-like niche in the modern video game market?
- FredFredrickson 13y agoYou stated this as if it would be a controversial opinion, but I'm not sure I understand why that it would be.
- sliverstorm 13y agoBecause not-actually-controversial opinions that market themselves as controversial get more meaningless internet points?
- fennecfoxen 13y agoWell, because it seems as if the article suggested that nothing has filled the niche, and because the exploratory nature of Myst is present to a smaller extent, and various other features such as the "unassuming stranger" component are replaced. And because I'm in a rhetorical mood tonight because of work-related communications sitting in my inbox, since you ask. :P
- jljljl 13y agoIt's part of it, but Myst's allure was always more than pure puzzle solving. There were plenty of adventure/puzzle games before Myst, but it was the open world, exploratory nature of Myst that was its unique appeal.
- fennecfoxen 13y agoPerhaps _Skyrim_ etc, then?
- geuis 13y agoAfter a fashion, I think part of the success of Minecraft is because it ties deeply into the open world, build and explore feelings that Myst hit upon. Indeed, the audience of players is similar in how it ranges from young kids to the oldest of us. On the UK Minecraft server I frequent, the average age is late 20s up. Some of us are in their 40's and 50's even. I definitely think there's room for Myst today.
- nevster 13y agoThe whole time I was reading the article I was thinking, "what about Minecraft!"
- duskwuff 13y agoI seriously doubt that. Myst was entirely unlike Minecraft - it contains a finite amount of content to explore, and your interactions with that content are limited entirely to viewing and exploring what the developers put there. You can't create anything, and you can't go outside the boundaries drawn by the game.
- wtallis 13y agoMinecraft's lack of borders is certainly part of why it has managed to outsell the entire Myst series (though it's less impressive when you consider how much larger the market is these days, and how much easier it is to get to 12 million sales). But the atmosphere of mostly-peaceful exploration of a different world is something that Mincraft and Myst undoubtedly share, and something that hasn't been recreated by very many games in between. Bethesda's RPGs do an okay job of allowing exploration, but they come with a heavy emphasis on combat and a very in-your-face plot line that completely changes the mood of the exploration. Minecraft and Myst just drop you into a new world without any preface, challenge, or goal.
- pokpokpok 13y agojonathan blow's the witness
- druiid 13y agoI think the Cyan Worlds guys might have the right idea at the right time. With the Oculus Rift coming out at some point soon in a more general fashion, it could be very good timing. I think basically this class of games could actually be perfect for the platform. A lot of the video of trying to play Team Fortress and similar on O.R. kind of makes me dizzy. I think many people (myself included) would be very interested in seeing a O.R powered 'Myst' game of some sort or another. If anyone remembers the movie eXistenZ, I can somehow see worlds like that eventually happening. Would be interesting stuff if actually taken outside of the sci-fi context! Edit: The right idea at the right time was in regards to Kickstarter.
- devindotcom 13y agoYes, more cerebral yet immersive games like The Witness, Kairo, Dear Esther, and Routine are definitely on the rise, and OR support will make some of them really shine, I think. I'm really looking forward to those rather than, say, Call of Duty: OCULUS EDITION.
- tobobo 13y agoThank you for mentioning Dear Esther! One of the most memorable games I've ever played. I'll check out the others you've listed.
- jamesbritt 13y agoYou might also like Kentucky Route Zero.
- cshesse 13y agoYou should definitely check out Gone Home then.
- jared314 13y agoOpenUru [1] has the source code and the content creation tools required to do something like you are describing. You might have to modify the client, to handle the perspective change, but it would even allow for online multiplayer puzzle solving and user created content. [1] http://openuru.org/ http://openuru.org/
- breckinloggins 13y agoMaybe part of its popularity was the illusion (through pre-rendered images) that your computer could show you more "real" worlds than you ever thought possible. That was certainly one of the things I thought was so cool about Myst. If that's the case, it partly explains why nothing seemed to follow in its footsteps: you can only pull the rabbit out of the hat once.
- metaxy2 13y agoI think that really happened with Riven. It's easy to forget, but some of those stills were as beautiful and realistic as anything being done in realtime 3D games today. [1] [2] [1] http://www.mysterium.ch/riven/pictures/riven_05.jpg http://www.mysterium.ch/riven/pictures/riven_05.jpg [2] http://www.grandecaverna.com/myst2/myst2_eramoiety.jpg http://www.grandecaverna.com/myst2/myst2_eramoiety.jpg
- jerf 13y agoEh, I'd have to argue we've passed those. I'm pretty sure this is rendered realtime, for instance: http://www.bioshockinfinite.com/images/media/screenshots/SkyLines_FoundersSoldiers.jpg http://www.bioshockinfinite.com/images/media/screenshots/Sky...
- sillysaurus2 13y agoFrom a purely photorealistic perspective, that looks absolutely awful. It's literally a cartoon world. That was their stylistic choice, of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it's off the mark to hold that up as an example of excellence in photorealism. It certainly wasn't trying to look real.
- jerf 13y agoI wasn't trying to hold it up as an example of photorealism. One of the things we've learned since then, by virtue of our ready access to high-quality realtime graphics, is that photorealism was overrated at the time. Indeed, it is a choice... and that is part of my point. We've not only got very photorealistic graphics, we've got the experience to know we can do better. Odds are Myst, if made today, would not be seeking photorealism itself! I'm sure it would adopt a style too. But in terms of quality, yes I still say this looks better. Where Myst has a muddy, hypercompressed image that can barely fit the one visual theme in it due to resource constraints, Bioshock here has the visual bandwidth to show multiple focal points of interest, without it having to feel "crowded" because it's so much bigger, and yes, all in realtime.
- jared314 13y agoThe article doesn't mention Openuru [1]. Cyan Worlds released the source and content creation tools to build custom shards. [1] http://openuru.org/ http://openuru.org/
- 6thSigma 13y agoSome of my most vivid memories regarding video games is playing Myst and Riven with my friends. We took turns controlling the player. We would take notes of things that might be useful in later puzzles with actual pencils and paper. We stayed up all night playing it trying to get as deep into the world as possible. I still have a copy of the game and play it every once in awhile for nostalgia's sake.
- Zimahl 13y agoWithout Myst there's no Grand Theft Auto V or Assassin's Creed Really? That's a bold statement. I don't agree with it, but it's bold nonetheless. There's going to be some big publishers out there who will want to do this [too]. There's big money here for them. And I don't think they went after it. Off the top of my head I can think of 'The 7th Guest'. There were plenty of rendered CD-ROM games just none as successful as 'Myst'.
- seany 13y agoI actually preferred The 7th Guest to Myst. It was a much darker game though, which probably hindered it's popularity with some people. The music/sfx in it were fantastic imho.
- Dove 13y agoIf you liked Myst and 7th Guest, you should take a look at The Room, a game that I would say is somewhere between the two both in tone and in puzzle style and intensity. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.FireproofStudios.TheRoom https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.FireproofS...
- jevinskie 13y agoThe 7th Guest also had a story where you interacted with the multitude of other people in Stauf's mansion. In Myst, your brief interactions were with two dudes in books. You were very alone in Myst, not as much in the 7th Guest.
- devindotcom 13y agoIn a certain abstract sense, blockbuster games of previously unacclaimed genres all enable one another. Without Super Mario Bros 3, there would be no Myst, if you look at it from that angle. Yet without D&D, there would be no Super Mario Bros. And without Tolkien, there would be no D&D! So Without Tolkien, there is no GTA V.
- Apocryphon 13y agoMuch was said when Bioshock Infinite came out that such a well-crafted world (though admittedly, a bit more like a theme park than a believable city) deserved to be the setting for an adventure/exploration game, not merely an FPS.
- GrantS 13y agoInteresting. Myst was a defining part of my childhood and I reluctantly put up with the shooting and fighting elements of BioShock, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead Redemption, and Mass Effect just so that I can experience and explore the worlds in which they take place. Loved this article.
- ynniv 13y agoAnd yet no one seems to do this in games built around this idea like Second Life. Does it take a AAA shoot-em-up title to commission a virtual world worth exploring?
- idProQuo 13y agoI felt exactly the same way. I "tolerated" the gun fights in Infinite, but the story and world-building were what I was really there for. I was talking with a friend today about how interesting it would've been if Elizabeth's "quantum powers" had been explored as a puzzle solving device rather than a "summon furniture" mechanic. I feel like that could've been a Portal-esque revolution in gameplay.
- elangoc 13y agoI love discovery- & puzzle-based exploratory story games. Grim Fandango was another one, which I adore. It came out a few years after Myst, and I really wished that they would make another Grim Fandango (or at least make it playable on today's computers)!
- 6thSigma 13y agoScummVM works very well for Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, and other Scumm-based games. I do wish they would re-release these games on Steam though.
- thristian 13y agoA minor correction: Grim Fandango used the GrimE engine, not the SCUMM engine, and it doesn't work with ScummVM. However, ScummVM's sister project, ResidualVM, was created to do for the GrimE engine what ScummVM did for the SCUMM engine, so you can still play the game on modern OSs without too much hassle. The likelihood of Lucasarts classics ever being re-released is miniscule, since why would Disney put effort into putting out The Dig or even Monkey Island when they could make ten times as much money from Star Wars?
- MartinCron 13y agoYou should play Gone Home if you haven't yet.
- drblast 13y agoI'm kind of perplexed that "adventure games" that consumed much of my childhood seem to have died as a genre. Myst seemed like another in a long line of fantastic games where the goal was exploration and puzzle solving, like Maniac Mansion, Space Quest, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, etc. I think Limbo was the most recent game I played that had that same feel. Why aren't there games like this now? Is there no interest?
- arfar 13y agoThe "Horror Adventure" or "Survival Horror" genre has spawned off this style of game. They have similar aspects like puzzle solving, no focus on killing enemies. They are actually quite scary though and that is the focus, so there's less puzzle solving.
- wolfgke 13y agoThere are lots of these games (at least in Germany where they are rather successful, although in its niche). For example I can recommend most of the adventure games that Daedelic Entertainment (a studio from Hamburg/Germany) produced: - The Whispered World - Edna bricht aus (Edna & Harvey: The Breakout) (don't be put off by its graphics) - Harveys neue Augen (Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes) - The sequel to Edna & Harvey: The Breakout The Deponia series from Daedelic is also said to be very good (haven't played it, though). I could list you lots of other very good adventure games from the last years, also from other studios.
- benihana 13y agoMyst's legacy is that if something is pretty, people will buy it, play it, talk about it until the newest pretty thing comes out, then forget about it. This article is completely delusional. Myst was not this huge, influential masterpiece the way it paints. The Sopranos changed television. Myst did not change video games. It was talked about like the Sopranos, but only for a year after it came out. And it didn't have a lasting impact on the games industry. It looked good for the time, then quickly became outdated and is clearly a relic of its time, like wide, ill-fitting jackets and pleated pants. The gameplay offered nothing new - better adventure games (like those offered by LucasArts and Sierra) were doing more for longer. But its influence was an illusion. Graphics have always been getting better and striving for more photorealism. Myst didn't have any affect on that mindset, it just had decent graphics for when it came out. Myst's legacy is that if you make something pretty enough, the buzz it generates will lead to huge sales until people realize it's an illusion. Which is why these guys weren't able to do anything after Myst. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto, Half Life, Assassin's Creed, and Zelda and Mario, these games that Myst apparently enabled, continue to move people and make huge amounts of money.
- seiji 13y agoBreathe. Calm down. It'll be okay.
- baddox 13y agoSerious question: if Myst didn't actively influence games, why is it that I have heard of Myst despite it being "before my time" (I was 6 when it was first released)? I've never played the game or seen anyone play it, and yet in my mind's eye I can see the iconic art style, the iconic "M Y S T" logo, etc. Does it just have a cult following that I've been exposed to due to my participation in online communities and other PC gaming communities?
- jlgreco 13y ago> Does it just have a cult following that I've been exposed to due to my participation in online communities and other PC gaming communities? I think that would be fair to say. It left an impression on people, just not necessarily on gaming.
- chrisgd 13y agoAs a video game. Not everything needs a legacy
- diminoten 13y agoThere was another game of this genre (static user open world adventure??) that taught intro physics, and you used the learned knowledge to solve the puzzles: Physicus! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6BC_ssnkaw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6BC_ssnkaw
- drawnalong 13y agoAs a non-programmer, I'm surprised that folks aren't talking about Myst's Hypercard/Hypertalk roots: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/25-years-of-hypercard-the-missing-link-to-the-web/2/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/25-years-of-hypercard-t... Also, Brendan Eich was inspired by Hypercard/talk as well when he was pushing out Javascript: https://twitter.com/search?q=%40brendaneich%2C+hypercard https://twitter.com/search?q=%40brendaneich%2C+hypercard Add that to the fact that Tim Berners-Lee was also inspired by Hypercard, I feel like the web that we have now really is a big, beefed-up, networked remanufacture of Hypercard. Whenever I see a Myst screengrab I always think "Look, the Web!" Again, as a non-programmer, this is probably just some useless observation, but its inspirational and evocative to me nonetheless. It gets me musing that there are some uses for what we've got now that we're not seeing, and some folks should be exploring. For me, its storytelling, and I bet we could all do some pretty damn cool storytelling with the toolkit we're sitting on. Perhaps Myst doesn't actually demonstrate a hidden value, but I always point to Hypercard and its friendliness & useability when smarter-than-me people tell me Javascript is crap. People I know from that era that were technically inquisitive tend to point to Hypercard and go: "Yeah! Hypercard was the shit!" or some variation of that.
- Terretta 13y agoI felt like the whole Flash bubble was a desperate attempt to make websites into mini Mysts.
- faddotio 13y agoHypercard/HT was just used to stitch it together, most of the presentation was done with the help of a crapload of XCMDs. I doubt the HyperTalk involved was particularly complicated, but I can't say for sure, because they managed to make the stacks resistant to introspection.
- drawnalong 13y agoHow much of a "market" was there in XCMDs? As in, were they commonly exchanged or reused in any sort of open-source way, or were they written in-house? I know we're talking about Myst specifically, but I wonder if there's any community parallel to what we see with libraries & APIs now. Although I'm just flipping over rocks looking for similarities, it's a blast to see when and how certain structures have been tried-out. Holy Smokes.. the more I read about Hypercard, the more I realize that Myst was quite a huge hack! The XCMD part is clutch. I'm curious what that community looked like, and how that code was exchanged. Beyond disks, did anyone ever host anything that looked like a repo on the early Net?
- rocky1138 13y agoI once heard the upsurge in interest in comic books in the early 90s described as though they thought comic books were becoming as popular as pop music when in reality it was more like jazz: a lot of good stuff, but not widely popular. Adventure games are the same.
- lvturner 13y agoI think with the revival of VR tech (Oculus Rift) games like Myst might come back round. Actually the thought of a Myst-esque game on the Rift sounds like something I could lose a lot of time playing.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoSo I've been playing through Mass Effect 3 again on the PS3 and can see the sorts of influences Myst had on designers of more "modern" games. One of the more interesting aspects where the 'side' stories, not essential to the game but added depth to some part of it. Reading through the political infighting in the email on data pads, or some of the radio stuff on GTA. All "atmosphere" which, prior to Myst, wasn't nearly so prominent.
- glenra 13y agoMarathon (released in 1994) did the same sort of thing - lots of backstory revealed in drips and drabs via computer terminals. The team that did the Marathon series (originally a Mac-only title) later went on to develop Halo.
- tomlu 13y agoRemember Pathways into Darkness? AFAIK that was their very first game. Brutally hard, and revealed the story in a similar fashion.
- dhughes 13y agoOther than the graphics the big thing I remember about Myst is the gameplay was so different than arcade style games, it was a thinking game. It was one of the main reasons I finally took the plunge and got a PC, nearly $4,000 (1993/94 Canadian dollars) to play a game :P well more than that but it was a good part of it. At the time a PC in a private home wasn't really all that common, at least in my region, so this hot game on this thing called an "IBM compatible personal computer" piqued the interest of many people and drove sales.
- andyjohnson0 13y agoSlightly OT, but boingboing have an article [1] today about companies in Beijing that offer real-world "mystery room" scenarios that resemble Myst puzzles: "...customers are locked into single-room funhouses where they have to solve a mystery in order to escape. Some mysteries are supernatural, others are crime-scenes, and others are "hospital-themed." They're inspired by similar video-games and cost less than a movie-ticket to play." More at [2]. [1] http://boingboing.net/2013/09/24/beijings-mystery-rooms.html#more-257625 http://boingboing.net/2013/09/24/beijings-mystery-rooms.html... [2] http://kotaku.com/escape-from-chinas-mystery-rooms-1369688560 http://kotaku.com/escape-from-chinas-mystery-rooms-136968856...
- splitbrain 13y agoAm I the only one who found Myst incredibly sterile and boring coming from LucasArts and Sierra Adventure games? I never played it for more than maybe 20 minutes.