I played as a kid at the library. I kept a notebook full of clues/attempts to solve puzzles. I also had another friend that was really into the game. Somehow together we progressed pretty far over months of play. I don’t believe we solved every puzzle or even finished every age, but I remember we happened upon the end of the game by accident. If I recall, just flipping the switches in a certain combination on the main island without even visiting the other ages or collecting pages for the brothers gives you a white page that you can use to end the game. In some ways it is like a slap in the face to the player because the game is so hard, but the ending is right under your nose. As far as speed runs go, you can finish the game in minutes.
The re-release is actually good. They fixed a few of the worst-offending puzzles design-wise and it is absolutely worth playing. It makes me want them to give the same treatment to Riven and Exile.
Yeah, you have to read some of the books to figure out some of it. I like that the puzzles take some work.
I watched a girl play through it on YouTube. It was fun to watch, and I’m glad I did it that way instead of going back and trying to play it myself again. I just don’t have the time.
The video may have had some parts edited for time, and she had people in the live chat (originally a livestream) providing hints. From what I recall it took around 3 hrs to watch.
There’s a combination lock puzzle where you have to hold the mouse button down so it rotates 3 numbers instead of 2 with just a click. Nothing in the game indicates how this is supposed to work. There’s a line between being spoon-fed and being obtuse.
Edit: after looking around a bit, I think some of the later editions fixed that particular puzzle. You might have played a tweaked version that tightens up the puzzles.
Ah, that reminds me of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I was stuck at a door with no apparent lock or switch. I finally got mad and pushed it a whole bunch of times despite having tried to push it before and it didn’t work. Apparently, you had to push it a bunch of times to open it…
I discovered that all the videos were in the disk unprotected, so I would watch them all for clues and just finished most of the game that way. I also discovered that the end pages could be accessed without doing anything else and worked. I got Riven, got stuck, went to the disk files and laughed since they put all the files in some strange archive I wasn’t familiar with at the time. No cheating for young men. I wonder about now, though.
Pretty sure it was just bink video format, very popular format for the time. Anyway, finished all the Myst games and Riven, 10/10 would get stuck for hours again.
About the only thing I remember about it was there was one section that wasn’t making any sense and seemed completely random, until someone suggested I try playing with the sound enabled.
One of my first video games was this Diablo-like, and my brother and I would play it a lot, but always struggle, always getting swarmed by enemies.
After a few years, we got a new monitor. The R in RGB had always been terrible on the old monitor.
Well, guess what we spotted for the first time: The minimap had red dots showing enemy positions long before they came onto screen, making it really easy to avoid groups and bait enemies individually.
Worst part was that you could’ve spotted these dots on the old monitor, but we never did in our hundreds of hours played, because they were basically dark red on brown.
I have played it through a few times, allways with a walkthrough, the keyboard puzzle SUCKS, but a good walkthrough will explain how to count the notes on the sliders.
Riven is brilliant, but still need a walkthrough to finnish it, I have the official guide book to Riven, and it has damn well helped me a lot.
Myst III was never made by Cyan, but by Presto, and while very similar to the original games, it has a different feel.
Myst IV was made by Cyan, and in terms of story I find it lacking, especially the spirit puzzle was a mistake, there is also too much live action for my taste, but the environments are beautiful and the visual quallity of the game is fantastic.
Myst V is a major departure from the rest of the games, both in terms of story and visual quallity. The story is about the end of Dn’i, and setting a slave race free, I never got into it, the visual design is made in a full 3D engine and looses the gorgeous visuals of the last game.
URU was a side project where Cyan tried to make a Myst themed MMORPG, where you travel to the cleft and start your own Myst adventure, the idea was that people would meet up and go to adventures together, but it never got off the ground.
Myst Online is an effort by the fan community and Cyan to make the URU live portion work, and is currently free to play.
Myst 2021 is a complete remake of Myst in the Unreal engine, the game looks fantastic and can even be played on iOS and in VR with the Quest.
Cyan has had a few other large impact releases:
Obduction: a sci-fi adventure puzzle game where you are abducted into an alien world and have to solve a mystery with a lot of puzzles, fantastic graphics.
Firmament: another sci-fi adventure puzzle game, where you explore worlds with weird technology, I don’t know that much about it despite having played it on release last year.
Fun fact since Myst has been released so many times over the years it has a huge list of supported platforms:
Myst IV was made by Ubisoft Montreal. They had some heavy hitters on the team, Mary De Marle is an excellent writer and went on to do amazing things! Jack Wall, the composer that did Myst iii became a very productive video game composter.
URU wasn’t a side project, it was cyan’s big bet that nearly tanked the company. They had other side projects like a third party QA and testing department that kept them afloat. URU got cancelled before launching properly.
Myst V wasn’t meant to exist. After losing so much money on URU, Ubisoft pressured Cyan to put their unused assets from URU into a game that would sell. So they slapped it together with the Myst name that was more recognizable. The game plays and feels just like you’d expect.
Obduction was their big comeback and return to form. Myst-like game without the baggage of the old franchise.
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