I absolutely love that, after all these years, Myst is still capturing our attention. I am not a huge gamer, but of all the games I have played, Myst still remains my favorite.
imzadi•7mo ago
I think it's the first game that really transcended what games were at the time. Prior to PCs, games were mostly just hand-eye coordination checks. Myst was the first game I played that really engaged the brain and problem solving.
mwigdahl•7mo ago
You never played interactive fiction games prior to Myst? There was plenty of thinking and problem solving in those games. It was certainly a huge graphical leap forward over the previous point-and-click adventure game, but I didn't feel it was particularly a qualitative jump in puzzle content.
dylan604•7mo ago
I was wondering about the text based games myself while reading GP. Zork was nothing but a puzzle game that definitely did not require hand-eye coordination or any other skill set other than solving puzzles. That's what Myst was as well, only with pretty pictures
imzadi•7mo ago
Sure, I played the heck out of games like that on my Commodore 64, but it still doesn't match, for me at least, the depth of the puzzles and problem solving in Myst.
tralarpa•7mo ago
> Prior to PCs, games were mostly just hand-eye coordination checks
Not sure what you call a PC, but there are 17 years of problem-solving computer games (text adventures, click-and-point adventures, RPGs, real-time and round-based strategy games,...) before Myst.
atrus•7mo ago
Including from Cyan! But the gps point still stands Myst felt more...alive? than other IF games of the time. The videos, graphics, and atmosphere were top notch of the time, and it drew people in like crazy.
lukas099•7mo ago
To be fair, they did say "mostly".
bigtex•7mo ago
Myst was the top selling game for several years.
Analemma_•7mo ago
There were lots of adventure games on PCs before Myst, where Myst differed was in atmosphere and immersion: it was arguably the first game where you really felt like you were in a different world, as opposed to playing something on your computer. I think that's why it is lodged so deep in collective memory.
p_ing•7mo ago
Cyan even made The Manhole prior to Myst. I remember playing that on a Mac SE/30.
I don't think this was ever confirmed, but based on the spelling of the art assets in the original game ("dunny") I always assumed it was a pun on "Done," because the D'ni study chamber is where the last interactions occur.
starshadowx2•7mo ago
I'm getting a 404 from this.
fitsumbelay•7mo ago
every year for the past decade and change I've gotten to see Myst and Riven mentioned in Twitter and sometimes here. I really doubt this is coincidence or the law of averages doing its thing. Each instance delivers many awesome nostalgic feels of reading Wired (or was it Mondo 2000?) in the mid-late 90s and thumbing past the fairly large sized ads with the ill fantasy ladscapes which in turn made me think of Bryce 3D ...
z-10•7mo ago
I missed this train when I was a kid, but now with myst and riven re-released I played it with my son. We have a journal for each game, that we filled with hints, translations and solutions we found.
That was a precious time.
LambdaComplex•7mo ago
I played through a bit of Riven within the last few years, for the first time since I was a kid.
I don't think I would've gotten anywhere if I hadn't been writing things down on paper. It feels more like cultural anthropology than it does a videogame.
NoSalt•7mo ago
imzadi•7mo ago
mwigdahl•7mo ago
dylan604•7mo ago
imzadi•7mo ago
tralarpa•7mo ago
Not sure what you call a PC, but there are 17 years of problem-solving computer games (text adventures, click-and-point adventures, RPGs, real-time and round-based strategy games,...) before Myst.
atrus•7mo ago
lukas099•7mo ago
bigtex•7mo ago
Analemma_•7mo ago
p_ing•7mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manhole
jonah•7mo ago
shadowgovt•7mo ago
fitsumbelay•7mo ago