![]() To borrow a phrase that author Douglas Adams used to describe the games, you are greeted with a “beautiful void.” There is evidence that there used to be inhabitants, but no one is around anymore. But much like the main Myst Island, these other worlds are abandoned. Throughout the game, you travel to other worlds through books, which is perhaps the greatest literal depiction of a metaphor ever. ![]() While there ends up being a core set of goals in Myst (finding Blue and Red pages for their respective books), it isn’t the only thing going on. ![]() In any case, each of these little things winds up being a piece of the greater mystery of the game. Or perhaps the first thing you stumble upon is one of the intact journals in the library full of burned books. Maybe it’s the letter outside the Planetarium, addressed to someone named Catherine. Perhaps it is the Forechamber located on the dock, with its mysterious bubbling cauldron (or is it a cauldron?). You wander, investigating your surroundings until you find something. You are not told who the guy falling in the beginning is, you are not told who you are, you are not told how the books work, you are not told where this island is, nor are you immediately given an end goal. In Myst, you have no idea what is going on. It’s spelled out pretty black and white in the manual. You chase him down, beat him up, and save the day. Look at most of the Mario games at that point: Bowser is a jerk who kidnaps a Princess. While, yes, there were plenty of story driven games with rich backstory before this, but I had not really played any of them at that point. This was the game that really introduced me to the idea of storytelling in video games and the different ways it can be accomplished. You are here, and it is now up to you to figure out a direction. The game doesn’t really give you a direction. There is no point in the manual that gives you a backstory. We boop the picture and suddenly we are on the island. There’s a pretty moving picture of some island. The book falls through space, backed by some narration. The game opens with a cutscene, of a man falling through a rip in the sky. When I initially booted up the game, I had no idea what was going on. And for a game that focuses as much on the atmosphere as Myst does, that certainly helps. But, back in the ’90s, when all of my friends were playing their Sega Genesis and their Super Nintendos, it was amazing for me to have something that looked far better than anything any of those consoles could put out. While graphics can make a video game experience better, graphics, in and of themselves, do not improve how well a game feels. I am not one of those people who are obsessed with graphics in video games. The first was that this was a really good-looking game (at the time). When we got the game working, there were two things that jumped out at me. So the fact that she saw this game and immediately proceeded to buy it, is something that had never happened before. The most mom usually got into computer games was playing endless rounds of Solitaire while waiting for our dial-up internet connection to load. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, they were too busy with work and attempting to raise three kids to really get into video games. Neither of my parents have ever been gamers. The other incredibly unusual thing about us getting Myst is that my mom picked it up to play it herself. Very rarely did we get a top of the line game right off the bat. Most of the games we got at the time were either educational things my mom found for us, gifts from a family friend or games that my parents let my siblings and I pick out of bargain bins. The purchase of this game was unusual for numerous reasons. I first experienced Myst back around 1994, back around when I was in the second grade. What is it about these games that still continue to energize their fanbase? I feel that in order to answer that question, we have to go back in time. While not as large or as vocal as some other fandoms, Myst fans are no less passionate. There is still a regular Myst convention in Spokane, Washington, and while a new game within the series hasn’t come out since 2010, the rereleases are still regularly purchased, and the fandom goes wild for spiritual successors like Obduction, released in 2017. And yet, Myst still has an excited and devoted fanbase. Looking at it now, Myst doesn’t seem all that impressive. It may seem odd that a point and click adventure game from almost thirty years ago would engender such passion.
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