
Myst at 25: How it changed gaming, created addicts, and made enemies - johnshades
https://www.fastcompany.com/90240345/myst-at-25-how-it-changed-gaming-created-addicts-and-made-enemies
======
symfoniq
It's entirely possible that the only reason I'm a programmer today is because
of Myst.

For reasons that I either never fully learned or fail to remember, my father
received a CD in the mail from Myst's publisher (Broderbund?) containing a
demo of the game. Only, someone screwed up, and instead of the CD containing a
demo, it actually contained almost the entire game in a just-before-release,
playable state (only a single world was unfinished). And all the HyperCard
scripting was unlocked and viewable by the player.

Myst was amazing for its era, so of course, wanting to know how such a game
was possible, I took full advantage of being able to read all of the HyperTalk
code. And I'd be lying if I claimed I didn't use this access to "solve" a few
of the more difficult puzzles. The times spent understanding and "hacking"
Myst are among my fondest memories.

All of this led to me learning HyperCard and HyperTalk myself, and eventually
moving on to CodeWarrior/C, Perl, PHP, Ruby, etc.

So thanks to Robyn and Rand Miller for the awesome memories. It had a huge
impact on my life.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
Have you ever thought of uploading that HyperCard stack somewhere?

I mean it would probably be taken down in a heartbeat, because the disclosure
of the source code was very likely unintentional, but, you never know!

~~~
symfoniq
Unfortunately, the CD is long lost to the "mysts" of time...

------
gdubs
I vividly recall playing Myst, headphones on, snow falling outside, in a time
before cellphones and (for our family) high speed internet. Cliche as it is, I
felt transported. At times I felt spooked. I also remember getting a hold of
every magazine I could that went into the making of Myst, transfixed by the
creators’ sketches and drawings. Few cultural artifacts — not limited to games
— have had as lasting an impact as those days playing Myst in my bedroom in
the mid 90s.

~~~
giobox
For me, this is where memories of Myst are best left. At the time I loved it,
but in the early 90s one was willing to forgive a game a great many short-
comings in sympathy to the state of modern games technology. Myst was very
much “state of the art of the possible at the time”. I’d argue that much of
the appeal of 90s Myst for some was that such a world could be made at all,
let alone be a reasonably competent adventure game to boot. It was also one of
the first to give us an excuse to do something cool with our fancy new CD-ROM
drives.

Timing was critical too for Myst too I think; it came at the point when many
‘ordinary’ (for want of a better word) families were buying their first home
PCs. My experience was that Myst and Riven found fans among people not
traditionally PC gamers, often via word of mouth that this was something
interesting one could do on their relatively expensive new fangled PC
investment.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think it holds up all that
well as a ‘game’ in 2018, our expectations of video games are rightly so much
greater. The standards of adventure games improved dramatically in subsequent
decades. If you are looking for a Myst style puzzle world to lose one’s self
in in 2018, Jonathan Blow’s game “The Witness” is arguably a strong modern
spiritual successor.

~~~
illlogic2
I would check out Quern. Quern is an excellent Myst style game and comes
closest to Myst style puzzles. From what I've seen of the "The Witness" is
looked to be the same maze puzzle but repeated throughout the game. I loved
Johnathan Blow's "Braid" but I passed on the Witness after seeing some
gameplay.

~~~
flowardnut
I rather enjoyed The Talos Principle, and bought The Witness hoping to love
it.

I couldn't get into it. When I ran into a memorization "puzzle" I knew it
wasn't the game for me :(

~~~
joshschreuder
I don't recall the puzzle you're talking about, but there are a massive
variety of types of puzzles in the Witness. Was it early on?

I loved Talos Principle also, and I genuinely think the Witness is one of the
best games of the last decade. Hopefully you can give it another go :)

~~~
Karunamon
IIRC it may be one of the water reflection puzzles. You see the solution
reflected in one half of the room, and have to repeat it on a panel in the
other half. One of a small handful of puzzles I cheated - my short term memory
is horrid.

~~~
StevenRayOrr
You should have seen my camera roll on my phone while playing through some
areas. It was an incredibly helpful tool for getting through the game.

------
wycy
I don't know if I was just too young at the time, but I had Myst/Riven as a
kid and never even _began_ to understand what the objective was or what I was
supposed to do. Aside from a little bit of walking back and forth, I don't
think I accomplished a single thing in game.

Given the article references 6 and 8 year olds playing, maybe I was just a
dumb kid.

~~~
jandrese
I made decent progress solving the puzzles in Myst until I got to that rocket
ship and discovered that my tin ear was a showstopper.

It didn't help that my machine (A Mac LC with 4 MB of RAM) was only barely
powerful enough to run the game, and when it ran out of resources the first
thing to go was the sound.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Despite playing the piano, I never could get past that puzzle until I figured
out how to make the computer record itself. I recorded playing the notes on
the spaceship's keyboard, then played it back as I adjusted the sliders on the
other side of the ship.

Did anyone else solve it this that way?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
That's very cool. I love that a game inspired someone to problem solve on that
sort of level.

That's what I feel Myst brought that has been so rarely replicated.

------
Eyght
The article didn't make mention of the role of sound in Myst. I remember
people setting up their big 90's stereos with massive speakers to fully
immerse themselves in the Myst world. The game really built a strange,
otherworldy atmosphere.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The music and the sound in Myst and Riven were both outstanding - absolute
classics of the genre, and even more amazing given that they were an amateur
effort by one of the creators, and not the work of a full-time composer or
game sound designer.

There was one location in Riven where I spent about fifteen minutes listening
to a short-ish music loop over and over and watching a simple atmospheric
location animation, because both were just so perfect.

~~~
netwanderer2
This really proves in the arts and creative business, it's really an
individual's work that connects the souls. You can have a team of thousands of
people, but if no one has any vision or creativity then their work can go
straight down the toilet.

~~~
mercer
Prince of Persia and Rollercoaster Tycoon come to mind (and are apparently
quite the HN darlings).

------
danesparza
This article misses a few major points about Myst (IMHO):

\- Myst was one of the first CD-ROM based games. It helped drive CD-ROM
adoption. Even Doom (which came out around the same time) was installed via
floppy.

\- Myst felt expansive in a way that made it ahead of it's time by several
years.

\- Myst made you feel like you were in the middle of a story. Its lack of
interaction made the player the focus of the game -- which was unique at the
time.

------
annadane
Riven was absolutely captivating for its time. It still looks gorgeous today.
They did an absolutely incredible job.

~~~
duskwuff
_Riven_ was also a huge improvement in worldbuilding. The world of _Myst_ was
often rather contrived; the places it depicted didn't always seem particularly
"lived in", and the puzzles were often rather contrived in nature -- in many
cases, their motivation was simply that the world itself was created as a
puzzle. The rocket ship piano puzzle falls squarely into this category, for
instance!

 _Riven_ , on the other hand, depicted a much more natural-seeming world, and
its puzzles fit much more organically into that world. For instance, one early
puzzle involves learning the Rivenese number system from a child's toy. Some
of the Moiety puzzles seem a little artificial, but even those do have some
in-game motivation (as part of a security system).

~~~
geerlingguy
It also had 5 CDs, and you'd have to swap between them all the time. But it
was definitely worth it!

~~~
Karunamon
They were pretty good about only putting the CD swaps only in major area
transitions. Anytime I saw one of the magnetic rail trams, I knew it was time
to get the disc box out and prepare for a swap.

------
jandrese
If anybody is still jonesing for that Myst hit, the pointlessly-online version
is completely free to play:

[https://mystonline.com/en/](https://mystonline.com/en/)

~~~
severine
If they're really jonesing they'd like to know that you have to create an
account to download a Windows only installer ;)

~~~
phaylon
And they want your phone number :)

------
whamlastxmas
Just throwing this out there for Riven fans: A community-made (still in
progress with a long way to go) 3D real-time version of Riven:
[http://www.starryexpanse.com/](http://www.starryexpanse.com/)

------
theandrewbailey
I played Myst when I was a kid, but even to this day, never really understood
it. I kept going back to other games, like Kings Quest 6, that had characters
and whose world felt lived in.

Also, I despised the Quicktime for Windows that it installed with.

~~~
Karunamon
Which, IIRC, played a “calibration video” on first install. I’d never seen
such a concept before or after.

------
apercu
I sort of got sidetracked in the article when I read this:

"As we collaborated over puzzles played out on vintage machinery, my older
daughter said, “People back then must have been incredibly creative to make
something like this."

I don't know any 6 or 8 year olds that talk like that.

~~~
jfrankamp
Not saying you're wrong, its anecdotal on both our parts. But I do! If you say
to a kid "They built all of this by hand on pen and paper from ideas in their
head! (amazed expression)" they'll parrot back to you the above sentence if
they catch the meaning and context. My 3 year old does this already, although
she'll say "fantastic" instead of "incredible".

~~~
Loughla
I would agree with this. My observations after having children, is that they
do exactly what they see until they understand what they see and make it their
own.

For example - my youngest recently had an abscessed tooth removed. He is 5
this year. The dental surgeon was astounded that he used the words nitrous-
oxide and Novocain. The surgeon said things like giggle gas and sleepy juice,
and the five year old dead pan corrected him.

Kids will say what they hear - outside of a disability/difference of that
kind. If they hear short baby talk, they say short baby talk. If they hear
larger words, in context, often, then they'll use those.

------
JKCalhoun
Myst required a CD ROM drive — one of the earliest games to do so. This when
optical drives were new, add-on devices that few people had.

This should have been an obstacle to the game's success but lesson learned: it
seems that everyone that had a CD ROM drive bought the game.

I'll never to fall for the least-common-denominator school of marketing. Ship
your games and require the most high-end of hardware. :-)

Oh, and it helps if your game is great (and the game's size no doubt helped
reduce piracy).

~~~
Alex3917
> it seems that everyone that had a CD ROM drive bought the game.

And a lot of people bought new computers with CD ROM drives just to play the
game. It’s really what popularized the CD ROM in a lot of ways.

------
dabernathy89
An aside, but I'd love to have Myst, Riven, and the other sequels available on
the Switch.

~~~
Z-Widwil
If you need a portable version, it is available on iOS (and realMyst is
available on Android) and a demo is available for both. It is also available
on DS and PSP but I wouldn't recommend those version as much. I've played the
iOS version and touch controls offer a good recreation of the original. Though
I would recommend it for replaying the game, not playing it the first time.
Some of the immersion is lost on playing a device that can provide other
distractions. For me, playing through while sitting down at a screen with a
notebook next to you for tracking things you find, is the best way to play for
the first time.

------
jamesfmilne
FYI they recently did a kickstarter for a special Myst 25th Anniversary
Collection of all the Myst games in a special linking book box, complete with
video screen! I'm eagering awaiting delivery of mine:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1252280491/myst-25th-
an...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1252280491/myst-25th-anniversary-
collection)

------
reidrac
Never played the game, but someone bought me the novels in a pack for my
birthday and because back then I would read _anything_ , I read them without
many expectations, and they were quite alright.

All the world rules and the lore was interesting, but I don't know how much of
that would be in the games. The books didn't have tricky puzzles, of course,
but I kind of tells how big the games were.

~~~
Fellshard
I'd still recommend them today. Riven is a triumph of world-building fused
with gameplay, even if some of the navigation gets a bit too obtuse. The later
Ubisoft games are visual spectacles that maybe expect a bit too much
generalized scientific knowledge in places. Haven't gotten around to Myst V
yet...

------
NickBusey
I can't wait for the inevitable Myst VR remake.

~~~
abakker
I've said to several of my friends that this would be the killer VR game for
me. Just give me a giant world to explore!

~~~
weaksauce
if you haven't played it obduction is also in VR and is also made by cyan. I
thoroughly enjoyed it but it's definitely harder than myst was.

~~~
giobox
Yep, this basically is the VR Myst, no need to hold off.

It’s of course compromised in all the usual ways 2018 VR typically is, but if
you want a Myst style adventure in an expensive, low res vomit inducing
uncomfortable headset, have at it! (I say this as a very disgruntled Oculus
Rift + Touch owner...)

~~~
jamiek88
Kind of fitting that Myst was at the edge of technological capability back
then, stretching cdrom tech. Now we are at the ‘barely able to do it cheaply’
stage for VR bringing it back to that medium or Cyan doing something in VR
like the old days we need imagination from the players too, letting
imperfections slide as long as the story is there.

------
toast0
I never owned a copy, so inevitably I only played Myst at computer stores --
it looked interesting, but I never really understood what was going on. Games
of this era would tend to come with an instruction manual that was book sized
and could really help with understanding what was going on.

For the Mystics? out there, what's the best way to play the game for a person
who knows of Myst, but hasn't every played it? What can I read to get started,
but that's not a walkthrough?

Sort of related, I recall Pyst appearing in stores about a year or two after
Myst; is that worth trying to run as well?

~~~
OrwellianChild
Myst is kind of defined by it's lack of boundaries and structure. The point is
to just boot up the game and start exploring and interacting. The story will
slowly unfold as you explore the world. The only think you really need to
understand is that all the buttons and switches _do_ affect the world, so
observe the results of all your tinkering.

------
simonswords82
Myst was the first really immersive game I remember playing and thinking "I
feel like I'm actually a part of this world". I was a bit too young to really
grasp how to play it but that didn't stop me clicking around just exploring
because the game (for its time) was just so beautiful and engaging despite the
graphical limitations at the time.

For those looking for a Myst nostalgia trip:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtO4E3cIn0w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtO4E3cIn0w)

~~~
madeuptempacct
I didn't care about Myst at all. I don't get what the big deal is, never did.

~~~
drb91
1) the visuals were excellent, and still hold up against contemporary games.

2) the narrative was high quality.

3) the puzzles were very satisfying to solve.

Aside from that, it’s just taste, my friend.

~~~
poisonarena
Also.. the soundstrack was amazing (and CD Quality!!), really added to the
ambience of the levels..

Myst Soundtrack - 15 Above Stoneship (Telescope Theme)
[https://youtu.be/MTruv9DbnrE](https://youtu.be/MTruv9DbnrE)

------
elorant
The one thing that I remember about Myst is how damn hard it was. Adventures
games of the time were all about combining items and trying things. To solve
Myst you had to immerse yourself in the story. You couldn't just try dumb
luck, it wouldn't work like that. This along with the spectacular graphics and
the storytelling was that made it a milestone in video games.

~~~
gnulinux
Maybe I'm a stupid person, or maybe it's just that I'm not a native English
speaker or that I get bored of games super quick. Myst was one of the first
games I ever bought (I mean... bought with my parents money :-) and played for
maybe something like 10 to 15 hours? The only thing I remember about Myst is
that I made absolutely no progress. Like none. I couldn't even get the
premise. I was stuck at the very first stage of whatever puzzle the game had.
I suppose I was something like 12 years old.

------
libraryatnight
Myst was so immersive. For me it created a real sense of wonder and
exploration. There was something beautiful about being alone in a gorgeous
world filled with puzzles that gradually revealed a story.

Also the first Myst tie-in novel is one of the only game tie-in books that I
really enjoyed. I was quite young, so I'm not sure how the book holds up, but
I remember really enjoying it.

------
baud147258
There's a very good article on Myst, with a lot of details on its history
there:

[https://medium.com/picking-up-the-pieces/two-histories-of-
my...](https://medium.com/picking-up-the-pieces/two-histories-of-
myst-8b37e1504f9e)

Also this article spend a lot of time talking about the cultural impact of
Myst, now and then.

------
dmschulman
The documentary that was included with the CDROM definitely looks 25 years
old:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pzx_9LkVI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pzx_9LkVI)

I still watch this thing every couple of years and remember how much I loved
that game.

------
illlogic2
All those looking for a fresh Myst-like experience should check out Quern:
Undying Thoughts.

~~~
k__
liked it very much.

talos principle was nice too

------
hnu0847
Here's an interesting video about the game's history and creation:

[https://youtu.be/h4wWITMUop0](https://youtu.be/h4wWITMUop0) ("A Brief History
of...Myst" (2016))

------
codingdave
Also released in 1993 was the first of the X-wing series from LucasArts. I
ended up only playing Myst a couple years later, after hearing so much hype...
but the pace was so different that it wasn't living up to that hype for my
personal tastes. Still, even not being a big fan, I do recall that everyone
talked about it, even in those days where gaming was nowhere near the
popularity it is today.

------
rocky1138
If you haven't had the chance to play Scratches, another game mentioned in the
article, you should. It's fantastic and has a really great soundtrack. The
developer is launching a new scary adventure game, soon, and it looks really
really good.

------
NeoBasilisk
My first game of the point and click adventure genre was Return to Zork, which
I believe was released a few months prior to Myst and had many similarities,
but was never nearly as popular for whatever reason.

------
walrus01
Until today I had no idea that the two guys who created Cyan were from a rural
area outside Spokane. What a random pacific northwest trivia tidbit.

------
xfitm3
I remember the long periods of inactivity in Myst. The time to slow down and
think. A stark contrast to games I've played recently.

------
poisonarena
Real hackernews readers have played Cyans other games, like Spelunx, and
unlocked the secret level by entering the code in the elevator

------
neom
Shout out to the grim fandango, my second fav game.

