Alright, truth time. I’m a Sega freak. I never should have cared about PC gaming. But some guy named Blue Disc made me care one summer day in 1994. I was at my friend Tony’s house when he shoved a blue CD case in my face. “Dude, you have to see this.”
Tony’s family had recently purchased one of those primo Compaq Presario desktops with a CD-ROM drive — which was basically a freaking spaceship at that point.
I was skeptical at first. Sure I had a Genesis at home but I also had Sonic — what could a stupid computer game show me that I hadn’t already experienced? But Tony was persistent, so I gave it a chance. He popped the CD into the computer and clicked around some menus until suddenly we’re watching what can only be described as a real movie – we weren’t watching some half-assed FMV clip like Sega CD games, this was something totally different. When the cutscene ended, and I realised I could actually click around this beautifully-rendered island…
I actually think my mouth fell open. “Can I play?” I asked, reaching for the mouse before he could stop me.
Three hours later his mother brought us sandwiches because we forgot we were hungry. I sat inches from the monitor gobbling up every last secret Myst had to offer, furiously scribbling notes into Tony’s algebra textbook. Poor Tony spent the afternoon sitting next to me hoping I’d finish soon so he could play again, only asking the occasional questions when I needed help. “Have you tried switching those levers on and off?” “Remember seeing that symbol back in THAT room?”
By the time I looked up, it was dark outside and my eyes hurt like sandpaper. “I HAVE TO HAVE that game,” I told him later that night.
Here’s the thing you have to understand about PC gaming in 1994 — It sucked. Frankly, it still does by most standards today. Most PC games were big-ass piles of ugly pixels, with somewhere around 256 colours, and cheesy MIDI music that would drive your Game Gear into depression. Myst was running off a CD-ROM with 650 megabytes of storage space. We were used to 1.44MB floppy disks. That alone should tell you how insane this game was. Imagine games like Spiderweb Software’s desktop-quality RoPAD adventures running on a Sega CD. Myst pushed the limits of what games should look like with its jaw-dropping pre-rendered graphics that surpassed consoles by years, real video of actual humans pretending to live on this island, and atmospheric audio that made you feel like you were actually trekking through that forsaken island.
I wound up taking lawn jobs and guilt tripping my parents every which way possible to scrape together $60 to buy my own copy. As soon as I got it home I immediately gobooted Tony out of his own computer chair and proceeded to completely devastate the joint. My father was baffled by my obsession. Until Myst, he used our computer primarily to run QuickBooks and play solitaire so he couldn’t understand why I needed to monopolize the thing for entire weekends at a time. “What are you DOING?” he would angrily ask after watching me click around every rock on the island for the umpteenth hour. “Exploring.” I told him as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. He sat there quietly for a moment, and then finally said, “Nothing’s happening! You’re just staring at pictures!” Sure Jim, but those weren’t just any pictures. I was staring at the best damn video game in existence.
From day one Myst treated you like you were smart. THERE ARE NO TUTORIALS. No freaking tutorials. Throughout your adventure not a single character stops you to explain every minute detail. There isn’t some stupid character following you around to tell you where to go next. Myst dumped you into a world of abandoned technology and simply said “Explore at your own risk.” As soon as you step foot into that island you realise that everything you see could be important. Every scrap of paper may hold some kind of crucial information about how to solve a puzzle. Every sound you hear might be the clue that unravels the entire mystery. Even the position of each and every switch may be important to YOUR puzzle solving experience. Coming from platformers where the majority of your time is spent shooting things and running into corners, Myst taught me a new language.
My Myst notebook quickly became the holy grail of my gaming collection. It started out so neat and tidy, with perfectly drawn maps and beautifully rewritten ancient text. By the end it was scribbled so fiercely that you could barely understand what I was trying to say. Entries like “Mechanical Age Rotation: 2-3-1 Click Right Then Left!!!! IMPORTANT!! !” accompanied completely illegible drawings of the fortress rotation mechanism. “Stoneship Water Level = Key to Lighthouse?????? ?” is followed by about 15 underlines and exponentially more desperate exclamation points. When I rediscovered this gem a few years ago while cleaning out my childhood bedroom I wasn’t prepared for just how crazy I must’ve looked while attempting to solve Myst.
Don’t even get me started on the whole brothers story line – Sirrus and Achenar trapped inside of those red and blue books that taunt you. Who’s telling the truth? Are you about to unleash some ancient demon by collecting every last page? Myst tells a beautiful story without blatantly spelling everything out for you. One telling clue that can help you figure out who killed Atrus? Cheque out each brother’s rooms. Torture devices cover Achenar’s halls while Sirrus’ rooms are filled with treasure he plundered from his brother. Myst lets you come to your own conclusions without ever forcing you into a set path. I spent more than one lunch break arguing with friends over who was more trustworthy and dissecting every inch of their rooms like we were FBI investigators.
Linking books. Each puzzle was flawless. They required you to think logically, while at the same time feeling absolutely INSANE. Getting the fortress to rotate in the Mechanical Age had me stumped for weeks. Literally screeching in delight when I finally understood that precious nugget of wisdom is a memory I’ll never forget. Making sure I memorized every.single.sound in the Selenitic Age so I could hum them quietly on the school bus. Don’t even get me started on the subway puzzle. To this day I STILL have nightmares about THAT.
If you got stuck in Myst back in ’94, you were fucked. Google? What’s that?! YouTube didn’t exist, nor did GameFAQS. You basically had three options: keep randomly clicking until something magically worked, pay money for some stupid hint hotline (*cough*parents strictly forbid*I bought_randb paid), or stalk a friend who had already beaten the game. I gave up my Myst pride one day and turned to a friend for help. The Stoneship Age had me confused for two weeks. My friend Jason smirked at me one day and muttered one cryptic hint: “Remember how water levels can behave in ways you don’t expect.” I ran home and spent the next three days glued to the computer until I solved that mother.
Who knew pointing and clicking could be so liberating after years of crappy text parsers? Remember those conversations? “OPEN DOOR” “I don’t know what you mean.” “UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY” “You don’t have a key.” “INSERT KEY IN LOCK” “Into what?” “OH FOR FUCK SAKE YOU IMBECILE INSERT KEY IN LOCKET!” Myst didn’t make you guess what word the shitty programmer thought you should use. Point and click interfaces became MYthing.
Nobody expected Myst to sell as well as it did. SIX MILLION copies. At the time it was the best-selling PC title of all time, until Myst proved THAT was possible. I remember distinctly seeing Myst start appearing at Target and Walmart, not just your computer geek stores. For a brief moment in time during the mid-1990s it felt like everybody with a CD-ROM drive owned a copy of Myst, gamer or not. Hell, my English teacher one day casually mentioned that she played Myst too. Pretty much gave her cool points for life right there.
Needless to say I pre-ordered the day Riven was announced. First ever pre-order. My friends were geeking out of control by the time Riven released. When I finally got my hands on it (spread across FIVE CDs folks!!) I made my entire weekend empty therefore allowing me to play Riven all damn day. Riven was bigger. Riven was better looking. Riven had more puzzles. Yet it just didn’t have the same impact as when I popped in that old blue CD twenty years ago. Maybe it was because Myst was so groundbreaking at the time. Maybe it was because by the time Riven released in 1997, internet forums were picking up steam and the urge to cheat was stronger than I could resist. Whatever the reason, exploring that first hour of a new linking book universe still filled me with wonder.
You see Myst’s DNA littered throughout gaming today. Games that emphasize storytelling through the environment (Gone Home), brain-smashing puzzle games (The Witness), and just damn games that are meant to be EXPERIENCED (hello walking sims). Myst was crafted in a way that was truly ahead of its time.
And everytime I fire up a game that allows me to explore their world without explicitly telling me what I need to do every five seconds, I can still feel that same euphoric high from the day I stepped onto Myst Island.
I own pretty much every version of Myst that’s come out since ’94. The Deluxe CD remake, the Masterpiece edition, the realMyst port that allowed you to move around in true 3D, and more recently the VR version of Myst that made me feel like I was playing it for the first damn time all over again. I know all of the answers now. Every puzzle solution ingrained into my mind thanks to countless hours of trial and error. But every time I step back into that library, hear that glorious soundtrack kick in, and gaze upon those pristine linking books just begging to be opened I get chills.
What Myst gave me wasn’t knowledge of how to solve a puzzle. The isolation Myst crafted made me feel something most games today are terrified to make you feel again. There’s almost a meditative quality when exploring Myst at your own pace with no aggressors trying to kill you, no timer urging you to rush, and no flashy distractions telling you where to go next. Take your time. Listen to the waves crashing on that dock. Listen to the clicking of those mysterious machines in the Mechanical Age.
Myst made you care about everything you clicked on. Pull every single lever. Every book you find furthers your story. Every puddle of water could contain the secret to unlocking that next area. There’s no random junk to sift through in Myst. Every puzzle piece was placed there for a reason. Myst didn’t waste your time with pointless treasure chests full of feathers just to lengthen the game. Everything mattered.
I wonder sometimes if gaming tastes would have been different for me if I hadn’t stumbled upon Myst the summer before my Senior year of High School. Would I still love games that make you THINK? Would I appreciate games with gigantic amounts of atmosphere? Honestly I don’t know. But I do know Myst forced me to slow down and pay attention when I was young, and for that I’ll always appreciate clicking that first page.
About a year and a half ago, I decided it would be cool to have my now-13-year-old nephew experience Myst for the first time. He’s super smart and enjoys a good puzzle, so I knew he’d dig this old classic regardless of how horrendous the graphics may be by today’s standards. He played on the computer for roughly 10 minutes before giving me that “What am I supposed to do?” look. “Just explore dude,” I told him. “Pay attention to your surroundings. Try and solve the puzzles yourself!” He nodded his head, concept completely lost on him. How could he have known what to look for when there aren’t characters telling you the game’s plot? No highlight shows what you can click on. 5 minutes later he politely asked if he could play something else…
I can’t blame him. How could a game designed around instant Google searches and pointing you directly from one objective to the next possibly compete with Myst?
Still, I pick up notebooks before every single adventure game I play because that’s how Myst trained me. My brain will automatically try and draw a map of each new area I’m in, and I Fight against the instinct to simply GOOGLE the solution when I get stuck. Myst changed how I play games, and I’ll forever be grateful for the days I spent trapped inside of those magical linking books.
Whenever a modern game successfully captures that same magic Myst gave me all those years ago, I’m instantly taken back to Myst Island. I hear that ambient sound scape pumping through my headphones. I feel alone again. Lost in a world that’s mysteries I can’t wait to unlock. Myst enchanted me in the best way possible, and I will forever be haunted by its greatness.
Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”
0 Comments