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Myst

Myst is a graphic adventure computer game created by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., a Spokane, Washington based studio, and published and distributed by Broderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in 1991 and released it on September 24, 1993.

Accomplishments

Myst has sold over 12 million copies and held the title of best-selling computer game of all time throughout much of the 1990s. Its popularity led to:

• Three sequels: Riven, Myst III: Exile and Myst IV: Revelation.
• Two remakes: Myst Masterpiece Edition, and realMYST.
• Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, a hybrid single-player game set in the Myst universe, but in the modern day. (An online version of this game (somewhat similar to a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) was planned and developed, but was cancelled a short time after it went live.)
• Three derivative novels, written by the Miller brothers together with David Wingrove and published by Hyperion, entitled Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, Myst: The Book of Atrus, and Myst: The Book of D'ni (with two more releases coming up)
• Two comic books, published by Dark Horse. A series of about four was originally planned, but Cyan cancelled the series after issue #1 due to grievious artistic licenses taken by its designers and a refusal by Dark Horse to correct them.

Myst was the spark for a new genre, the first-person adventure-puzzle game. The games that followed this genre are often referred to by both fans and non-fans as "Myst clones".

Development

The game was created entirely on Apple Macintosh computers, especially Quadra models. The entire game was essentially a very large, color HyperCard stack, with each card consisting of a three-dimensionally rendered scene. The game was ported to Microsoft Windows in 1994.

Gameplay

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

The gameplay of Myst consists of a first-person journey through an interactive world. The player moves the character by clicking at the outside border of the game display and can interact with specific objects on some screens by clicking or dragging them. Unlike some computer games, there are no enemies or threat of "dying" or a "game over" event. The only competition is the player versus the puzzles presented in the game. To complete the game, the player must discover and follow clues to be transported via books to several Ages, each of which is a self-contained mini-world. Once traveling through the Selenitic, Stoneship, Mechanical, and Channelwood Ages, the player would return to the starting point of the game, Myst Island, with all the information necessary to complete the game. For those less patient, this information could be obtained from an outside source and the game objective could be completed in a matter of minutes.

According to the creators, the game's name, as well as the overall solitary and mysterious atmosphere of the island, was inspired from the book Mystery island by Jules Verne.

Story

A mysterious person known as the Stranger (the player), under obscure circumstances, finds a strange book called 'Myst' which describes perfectly an island. The first page however is occupied by a magical animated panel, like a screen, that shows a flyabout of the island described. Touching it, it teleports him to Myst island.

Many mechanisms and puzzles on the island reveal some other hidden strange books that describe other islands of other worlds (called 'Ages'). The purpose is to find in those islands all the blue or red pages and then find another Myst linking book in order to return.

Those pages are then to placed in either the red or blue book found in the Myst library. Those books are prisons, and feature a panel of two persons imprisoned, begging for help and freedom. Having collected 5 pages, the imprisoned person is freed (the player must decide which one to help).

But this happens until the player understands the truth... The islands and the scenery are full of hints of what happened before and the whole background! This will help him to decide whom to help... and whether!

Ages

Some clues in the game lead the player to linking books, books that let a person link to the worlds (in the terms of the D'ni, who had the knowledge of how to create linking books, these worlds were referred to as 'Ages') described in them.

The game included the following 'Ages':

• Myst Island, the starting Age. This island remains the central 'hub' Age throughout the plot.
• Channelwood Age
• Stoneship Age
• Selenitic Age
• Mechanical Age
• Rime Age, found only as a special bonus at the end of realMYST
• D'ni, later revealed to be only a small part of D'ni proper.

See Ages of Myst for descriptions.

Remakes

Myst: Masterpiece Edition

Myst: Masterpiece Edition was an updated version of Myst, with re-rendered images in million colors instead of 256, newly rendered point-of-view images, better audio effects and music, a hint system and maps.

realMYST

realMyst: Interactive 3D Edition was a re-make of the Myst computer game, featuring various changes over the original:

• graphics were rendered by the real-time 3D Plasma engine also later used (in an improved version) in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
• navigation provided vastly more freedom due to the above
• weather effects like thunderstorms and sunsets / sunrises were added
• some minor changes to the main world (Myst Island), like the addition of a gravestone for Ti'ana, adjusted the gameplay to the Myst novels and sequels
• Rime as a new world was added and loosely tied into the storyline

realMyst was developed by Cyan, Inc. and Sunsoft, and published by Ubisoft, and regarded by some as a test project for the then-in development Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.