| Classic Game Lookback - MYST |
| Written by Luke |
| Monday, 12 October 2009 21:19 |
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After much trial and tribulation involving Windows Vista 64-bit (64-bit OS's are incompatible with 16-bit applications), I finally achieved something I have been trying to do since I bought my system a year ago; Myst now works.
 I am not going to get too far into technical issues, but the installation required a hand-made installer instead of the standard installer and to remove Apple QuickTime only to replace it with the version included with Myst is what is required to make it work. I am by no means an expert at skirting around these sorts of compatibility issues, so please, no questions about it; but I digress.
Myst is what many refer to as a "classic game". Created in 1993 by a couple of game designers by the names of Rand and Robyn Miller, it was done for a low cost only to receive worldwide praise for its ingenious system of puzzles involving not only sight but sound as well. A true reflection of this is that it was the best selling PC game of all time until the release of The Sims in 2002. This game has been used over the years in schools as a learning tool to apply the use of note-taking and listening skills to apply lateral thinking in order to finish the game correctly. Believe me, it is not that easy to do.
 These days, the graphics can't be considered the best example of 3D rendering, however there have been a few re-releases that have improved this - such as "Myst: Masterpiece Edition" (released in May 2000) which changed the graphics from 8-bit colour to 24-bit colour, and "RealMyst" (released in November 2000) which rendered the whole game to match the style of the Myst sequels. I prefer to stick to the original 8-bit colour just for nostalgic purposes - that and I don't own RealMyst.
My exposure to Myst was fairly similar to most people's exposure to any game in the mid-nineties: a friend had it. I had the pleasure of seeing the game on an old Macintosh computer, the release of such version included not only the game and its manual in a shiny cardboard box, but it also came with a handy Myst-esque notebook that allowed you to record the things that you would need to go through each age and eventually finish the game. It intrigued me, but I was unable to find a copy anywhere. It was a further 4 years before I could get a hold of it as a PC ported version in 1999, two years after I purchased the game's sequel: Riven in 1997 upon release.
The story of this game is about a "stranger" (the player character) who ended up in the land of Myst after stumbling upon a book with a picture on the final page THAT MOVES! The stranger touches this picture with fascination only to be sucked into the picture and appearing on a dock where a ship is sunk in a weird world where things are not as they seem. The first thing you see is a sheet of white paper lying on the ground addressed to Catherine, the wife of the signatory; Atrus.
The instructions given to Catherine from Atrus provide the first puzzle. The solution to which allows you to see an image of Atrus' bearded face addressing Catherine and telling her of something that went wrong, suspecting one of his sons - Sirrus and Achenar - of some wrongdoing. The explaination is vague, but it does set the tone for the entire game; it is incredibly vague in every hint. As a stranger, you don't get much choice but to take Atrus' word for it; with his first hint being the use of the "books" in their usual places.
The "books" are called "linking books"; the same as the book that you touch at the start of the game. You need to access these books (hard to do on its own) from the world of Myst and touch them only to find yourself stuck on other worlds called "ages". The ages are full of puzzles that can be incredibly hard or comparatively easy to the puzzles on the Myst world. The goal is to travel into these worlds and collect the pages to finish the blue or red books found on Myst island.
 Without giving the end away, the blue and red books are actually prison books. They contain Sirrus and Achenar; how they were trapped is not explained for some time, however it is your choice which book you wish to collect the pages for. The system of collecting pages ensures that you travel to all the worlds and see the beauty and challenge that is Myst.
The biggest reason for any gamer to play Myst is for purely one thing - the visuals. The worlds are beautiful laid out and rendered for its time and was the pinnacle of 3D graphics upon release. Its only flaw was the gameplay. It is a first-person game that runs as basically an "interactive slideshow" as I have once heard it referred to. The ability to only carry one page at a time is frustrating at the very least and saving games takes you only to the beginning of the age you were in - not your location.
Those miniscule complaints aside, this was one of the first games that had multiple endings and all of those make the game one of the most interesting games of the time.
If you get the chance, I highly recommend this total gem of a game and if you don't like it, then go play some Halo or GTA or something. |