Retro Let's Play: Myst (1993)

Retro Let's Play for early December 2018: Myst

Originally developed by Cyan Inc, and published by Brøderbund for Macintosh computers in 1993.

To find out what this is and why we're doing it, click here.

In a world before internet access had really taken off in a mass-consumer way, the ideas of interactive media were being experimented with by many. Dubbed (presumably by marketing types) "Hypermedia", a popular programming language appeared based on this idea named "Hypertalk", itself used to control an interactive database engine named "HyperCard". While all of this "Hyper-*" may sound silly today, don't forget that the "H" in "HTTP" stands for "HyperText", which is still the primary way in which most web systems and applications transfer human-understandable data today.

In 1988, bothers Robyn and Rand Miller decided they wanted to make puzzle video games, inspired by other text puzzle games like Zork and novels like Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island". Neither considered themselves "gamers" by the 1980s and 90s definition of the term, which at that point had entirely childish connotations about it in the west. The brothers wanted to make a "game for adults", decided to use the Hypercard system to generate an interactive puzzle. Their first game was titled "The Manhole". After it they published two more games, "Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel" and "Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo". Finally, their fourth and most famous game, "Myst" was produced.

The game sees you as someone who discovers a book named "Myst". Upon touching it, you are transported to an island of the same name, and forced to explore the island to uncover the puzzles and mysteries it holds.

The gameplay is driven entirely by mouse, and clicking on elements in the game moves the player throughout the game, represented by still 3D renders of the world. Within the world are various switches and elements that can be interacted with, required to solve the puzzles of the island.

While the original "still image" game was the first incarnation, remakes of the title were made in fully realtime 3D rendered engines. This new version was titled "realMyst", and offers an almost identical puzzle experience but with more fluid transitions between scenes.

Ports of the games and its hit many systems, including: Mac OS, Saturn, PlayStation, 3DO, Microsoft Windows, Atari Jaguar CD, CD-i, AmigaOS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, iOS, Nintendo 3DS, and Android.

Playing the game:

Myst was groundbreaking in its time, and due to its popularity has seen ports to almost every console and computer system imaginable. Today it's available on many platforms, including:

* Android (realMyst): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noodlecake.realmyst&hl=en_AU

* iOS (Myst): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myst/id311941991?mt=8
* iOS (realMyst): https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/realmyst/id524988885?mt=8
* PC and Mac via GoG (Myst, driven by ScummVM): https://www.gog.com/game/myst_masterpiece_edition
* PC and Mac via GoG (realMyst): https://www.gog.com/game/real_myst_masterpiece_edition
* PC and Mac via Steam (Myst): https://store.steampowered.com/app/63660/Myst_Masterpiece_Edition/
* PC and Mac via Steam (realMyst): https://store.steampowered.com/app/244430/realMyst_Masterpiece_Edition/

There are also many copies of the game for download on archive.org:
PC versions:
https://archive.org/details/MystCollection
https://archive.org/details/Myst_1994_Broderbund
https://archive.org/details/Myst_1995_Mindscape_DE

Sega Saturn version:
https://archive.org/details/Myst_1994_J_color
https://archive.org/details/Myst_1995_U

And at least one version that can be played in-browser (warning: its a 300MB+ download to the emulator running in your browser) - this version happens to be the PlayStation version (can also be downloaded locally if you want):
https://archive.org/details/psx_myst

Also available are the soundtrack:
https://archive.org/details/cd_myst-the-soundtrack_robyn-miller

The game's official manual:
https://archive.org/details/Myst

And many guides:
https://archive.org/details/Myst_Gamespot_Guide
https://archive.org/details/mystsolutions00mich
https://archive.org/details/Myst_I_Strategy_Guide_PrimaGuides
https://archive.org/details/Myst_BradyGames_Official_Players_Guide

More information:

HG101: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/myst/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst

Box art:



Long play:

(Obviously full spoilers, as it's a puzzle game):

 

Oh boy, i can feel the anxiety of 10 year old me flowing through me once again.

 

A great opportunity to finally play this game. As a fan of point and click adventures and puzzle games always really wanted to. Can't really say why I didn't play it until this point, this game was all over the place - discussed in magazines and on the web since early 90s.
Today I found out it was even inducted into Inducted into MoMA Department of Architecture and Design.

 

have finished this game several times on different platforms and versions. If you find your self enjoying it play all the rest! especially Riven, my personal favourite.

for you modern newbies i'd recommend suffering through the first release on a console!

and if i'm completely honest you'll probably be better off playing the realMyst: Masterpiece Edition https://store.steampowered.com/app/244430/realMyst_Masterpiece_Edition/ even though as a fan i was immensely disappointed in the releases bare bones approach.

 

Apparently the HG101 Top47K crew marked this way down, and have received non-stop grief for it for over a year since.

This is what I'm playing.

I remember when Myst first came out, some people said it was hard sometimes to understand where you ended up with a mouse click (might have just been the early days of 3D space interpretation in video games, might be the actual game). But realMyst certainly takes that concern away. Everything is clear, and you know exactly what you're doing and where you're going.

I can - too many games. Even as a enthusiastic (sometimes rabid) old video game player, there's so much I've missed in my life. It's (quite selfishly) the entire reason I started this "Retro Let's Play" series.

 

Enjoying Myst so far. The game made no sense until it suddenly did. Finished the "The Ship in the Rock" level. Sunk 3.5 hours including reading all the books and writing down / sketching x6 A5 pages of hints scattered around the game world. Plenty of backtracking but the level of "sense of exploration and adventure" is really high with this game.

 

There's no way I have the time to properly explore this game, and I never played it when it was new, though I had some friends with Macs and this was to Mac gaming what the Quake series was to Linux gaming.

So I've started watching the longplay, and it pretty much lives up to my expectations of insanity. The amount of traveling you need to do to put the puzzles together is crazy, if you were playing for the first time then each puzzle would require multiple passes of wandering around the areas you have access to.

My experience with games like this was pretty much Zork: Nemesis (which came out a few years later), and I don't remember it being as massive as this.

The FMV point-and-click adventure genre was an interesting point in game technology though, we still have similar styles of games but they're easily rendered live.

 

That box art brings back all the memories! I had this on our 486 DX2-66 with CD ROM drive! Sadly I tossed this (along with Creature Shock and a pile of others) during the last interstate move. I remember my painstakingly drawn map of the tunnels on the mine cart and all the other notes I made while playing, still in a notebook in the box when it was tossed along with all the original inserts, books etc that came with it

A lot of the appeal of this game was the multimedia awesomeness of it all which was new, hell CDs were new technology! Similar in approach to Iron Helix and later Wing Commander 3 which could bring video cutscenes and inserts to games. The rest was that through Myst was of discovery as you tackled each of the puzzles to get through the worlds.

One of the few games I have ever finished end to end. I recently bought this again on Steam to relive those memories and I have to say the way it runs has not stood the test of time very well. Still, a lot of memories in there. I found that playing it again wasn't the same. Maybe I didn't have the time to really appreciate it or maybe it's because I remember how to solve each puzzle, maybe not exactly, but enough that there isn't really a challenge.

If anyone is interested, before I tossed it, I had copied this off the CD which was one of the special features.

The Making of Video from my original CD-ROM, it's amazing just how much went into this little game:
http://mooshen.com/shared/MAKINGOF.mp4 (14MB of 240 x 180 glory!)

Correction, I bought this on GOG... twice now

 

Thanks for the video th3_hawk! Would love to check it out after I'm done with the game (finished or not).

Couldn't figure out a simplest thing for quite a while. To get elevators moving you need to close the door first, DUH. 5h 20m in 5 days so far: 2 worlds done, 2 more yet to be done (in case there as many worlds as there are books in the library).

 

Finished the game. This is such a gem. Turned out to be much easier than I ever expected it to be. Played the "masterpiece edition" of original, not realmyst, because that's how I remember it from the 90s. Not sure if it "holds up" or not, all the games are kind of a blur these days. Still remember Myst screenshots from shoddy publication I borrowed from a friend at the time and how I was wondering what was up with all the weird narrative attached to the game's marketing. It all makes perfect sense now and I loved the thing to bits. Will definitely return for a sequel or two at some point.

 

This popped up in my feed today:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/exploring-myst-25-years-later

 

I remember the video reviews of this game back in the day, they implied you needed you to read tattered old books within the game to read cryptic messgaes in order to progress?

It was a turn off never played it myself, the other cd-rom classic of the day was 7th guest I would imagine a game worth visiting

 

I'm eagerly awaiting a Return to Zork review, "Want some rye? Course ya do!" god the memories.

 

And just in time, GoG have "Myst: Masterpiece Edition" on special:

https://www.gog.com/game/myst_masterpiece_edition

AU$4.95 currently.

 

I bought RealMyst: ME about a year ago and never got around to playing it very much... Just picked up this version instead (as it does away the 3D stuff I didn't really like in RealMyst) and Riven in the hopes of playing it this time around

 

I was playing again today. I still think alot of the fun is gone when you know where to go and what to do, even if you don't remember the exact combinations to the various puzzles going to the tower and looking them up isn't exactly hard and it's not exactly skill that then lets you play through, just persistence and the right answers.

I might have to ditch Myst and go onto Riven instead since I never played that before.

 

i seem to recall attempting to play it on a slowish PC and it was painful as it would load like crazy between clicks and if it went the wrong direction then time was spent in rage waiting.

 

Myst fans, the modern spiritual sequel "Obduction" is FREE on GoG for the next 38 hours:
https://www.gog.com/game/obduction

 

this is a great game, I've already played and completed it near launch and can attest to it being a spiritual sequel. I may or may not have activated the free GoG copy for no good reason already anyway too. lol