I do sort of agree with his assertion that "Myst" was one of those odd
games that was undeniably great while at the same time not being very
fun to play.

The wedge in the door for me with original Myst was hypercard.
Visualizing the puzzle environment and the constant clicking were big impediments for me, and I soon noped out. When Real Myst came along it was kind of a revelation, and I could suddenly solve nearly all the puzzles.
The recent VR release otoh was a big disappointment, in particular from the removal of the original videos in the game. I'm looking forward to the 3D Riven release, as that was another game I got nowhere with due to hypercard.

rms

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rms wrote:

I do sort of agree with his assertion that "Myst" was one of those odd
games that was undeniably great while at the same time not being very
fun to play.

  The wedge in the door for me with original Myst was hypercard. Visualizing the puzzle environment and the constant clicking were big impediments for me, and I soon noped out.  When Real Myst came along it
was kind of a revelation, and I could suddenly solve nearly all the
puzzles. The recent VR release otoh was a big disappointment, in
particular from the removal of the original videos in the game.  I'm
looking forward to the 3D Riven release, as that was another game I got nowhere with due to hypercard.

rms

I've heard enough about Myst, what about the sequels? I've got all four
and I need to know what order to play them in. I'd love to see someone
talk about Riven or Myst III. I wouldn't be able to play Myst I again.
I solved it into the ground. The only thing that I still do with Myst
is listen to the soundtrack.

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I've heard enough about Myst, what about the sequels? I've got all four
and I need to know what order to play them in. I'd love to see someone
talk about Riven or Myst III. I wouldn't be able to play Myst I again.

I'm in a holding pattern myself. Having bounced off original Riven (even having ebay'd a bigbox 6cd copy years ago), and also with deluxe hardbacks
of all the novels, still unread, waiting for motivation. The Riven remake
was announced but still has no release date: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1712350/Riven/
Imho they've let this series languish far too long, but I guess it’s a small miracle they are still around and doing something, however slowly.

rms

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On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 01:38:32 -0600, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Lane Larson wrote:

rms wrote:

I do sort of agree with his assertion that "Myst" was one of those odd
games that was undeniably great while at the same time not being very
fun to play.

  The wedge in the door for me with original Myst was hypercard.
Visualizing the puzzle environment and the constant clicking were big
impediments for me, and I soon noped out.  When Real Myst came along it
was kind of a revelation, and I could suddenly solve nearly all the
puzzles. The recent VR release otoh was a big disappointment, in
particular from the removal of the original videos in the game.  I'm
looking forward to the 3D Riven release, as that was another game I got
nowhere with due to hypercard.

rms

I've heard enough about Myst, what about the sequels? I've got all four
and I need to know what order to play them in. I'd love to see someone
talk about Riven or Myst III. I wouldn't be able to play Myst I again.
I solved it into the ground. The only thing that I still do with Myst
is listen to the soundtrack.

All I remember about Riven is this one terrible puzzle involving marbles
in a grid that was based on spatial-visualization cues in the
environment. It's the only way to describe it without spoilers. The grid
is *enormous*.

It gave no real feedback on its own as to what it was there for and what
you were supposed to do with it (though I did figure that much out). Once
you did figure that out, ie: where you place the marbles and why, there
was no feedback about whether you were doing the right thing. Do yourself
a favor and just Google where to place the marbles.

[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-38Ye6ytyI[/spoiler]

(If you watched the spoiler, yup... insane. The guy has a theory about a
guess. Maybe. Remember, no feedback here. None. You get a 50/50 chance of either solving a puzzle that is very hard in the first place, or getting frustrated because you guessed wrong.)

Other than that, I remember the QT movies in Riven were much bigger and prettier than Myst, and it had very satisfying puzzles. Lots more detail
in Riven. More lore. More connected story instead of just random stuff.

I have Myst III but never played it past the first few scenes.

Myst IV is very cool because it has a Peter Gabriel song embedded in it,
but is also very hard. Some call it 'unfair.'

IMO, the only way to play the original Myst is the realMyst remake, if
you can get it running. It has an extra age that shows off DX7.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

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Am 13.02.24 um 01:34 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:

(another ramble inspired by a youtube video)

Apparently "Myst" had its 30 year anniversary a few years ago--- or
will reach it in a month, depending on whether you are talking about
its initial release on Mac, or when it first hit PCs (Sept 1993 and
March 1994, respectively. I honestly can't remember if this got any
mention in this newsgroup yet. It seems like the sort of thing we'd
discuss. Anyway, some guy made a video about it (watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMgkTdPFotA ; warning, it's an hour
long).

I always had a sort of love and hate relationship with Myst, it
definitely was a milestone, but in the end it killed almost or killed
the mass market point and click adventure game genre.
Myst basically was one of the points where a single game raked a ton of
money and tons of copycats flooded, and the masses bought it for
whatever reason and they noticed that a thinking game is not for them
and left again, a few failed attempts afterwards with clones and the
genre basically was declared dead.
So yes, Myst definitely was a good game for its time, but at the same
time it was the death knell for the adventure game genre!
The fun thing is, it never was a real point and click adventure game, it belongs to a genre we nowadays define as puzzle games!

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