Myst

Myst is an adventure video game designed by Rand and Robyn Miller. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and first released in 1993 for the Macintosh. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the environment by clicking on pre-rendered imagery. Solving puzzles allows the player to travel to other worlds ("Ages"), which reveal the backstory of the game''s characters and help the player make the choice of whom to aid The Miller brothers had started in game development creating black-and-white, largely plotless works aimed at children. They wanted Myst to be a graphically impressive game with a nonlinear story and mystery elements aimed at adults. The game''s design was limited by the small memory footprint of video game consoles and by the slow speed of CD-ROM drives. The game was created on Apple Macintosh computers and ran on the HyperCard software stack, though ports to other platforms subsequently required the creation of a new engine. Myst was a critical and commercial success. Critics lauded the ability of the game to immerse players in its fictional worlds. It has been called one of the most influential and best video games ever made. Myst''s gameplay consists of a first-person journey through an interactive world. Certain objects on some screens allow players to interact with them by dragging or clicking on them. The player progresses by clicking on spots depicted on the screen; the scene then crossfades into another frame, and the player can explore the new area. To help in quickly traversing previously visited places, Myst offers an optional "Zip" feature that allows users to click and jump several frames to a different spot when a lightning bolt cursor appears. This offers a quick way to move about, but it can also make gamers overlook crucial objects and hints. The player can carry and read some materials, such as backstory-filled journal pages. Only one page may be carried at a time by players, and dropped pages return to their original positions. The player has to explore the island of Myst to the fullest in order to finish the game. The player finds and follows hints there to travel through "linking books" to other "Ages," each of which is a stand-alone mini-world. To fully explore each of the Ages—called Selenitic, Stoneship, Mechanical, and Channelwood—the player must work out a number of rational, connected riddles. The main Myst problem in the game requires exploration of each Age. Apart from its predominantly nonverbal storytelling, Myst''s gameplay was unusual among adventure games in several ways. The player is provided with very little backstory at the beginning of the game, and no obvious goals or objectives are laid out. There are no obvious enemies, no physical violence, no time limit to complete the game, and no threat of dying at any point. The game unfolds at its own pace and is solved through a combination of patience, observation, and logical thinking.