Old School Adventure Games Part 8: Myst

I was at the impressionable age of about 12, if I remember correctly, when Myst came out. By this age I had played a few adventure games but, even to this day, none are like Myst. I'll note that not everyone is a fan of Myst. My colleague -D- is not a fan of this game. "I always found it boring and obtuse" he said in his snarky little tone.

Myst began with you on a very funky island. There were doors, levers, latches, codes, etc. all over the place. So what made this game different from every other adventure game? You viewed the entire game from a first-person perspective.



Myst was an FPA, a first-person adventure. It played more like an old RPG from the 80s where you had the first-person viewpoint but moved seemingly one big step at a time. So it's really like exploring a large series of pictures rather than a game if you think about it. The setting for the game felt like a science-fiction book out of a bizzarre universe. Everywhere you went however, seemed like a puzzle.



Since it was so long ago there isn't a lot I remember about Myst other than there were a ton of puzzles and interesting looking places. One of the things that you did in the game was try to collect these red and blue pages that had been torn out of two red and blue books. Each book contained a brother (the book was like an iPod video when you opened it) who claimed their father was the owner of the island. They wanted you to collect all the pages of their color to the book so that they might be free. However, what I didn't know as a child was that no matter which book you chose to restore both brothers would switch places with you and trap you in the book and they would be set free. Instead there was apparently a third option you could do. You got me again Broderbund.