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Myst
Box art, showing an aerial view of the island of Myst, one of the key settings of the game
DeveloperCyan[a]
Publishers
Broderbund
DirectorsRand Miller
Robyn Miller
ProducerLaurie Strand
DesignersRand Miller
Robyn Miller
ArtistsRobyn Miller
Chuck Carter
ComposerRobyn Miller
SeriesMyst
Platform
Release
September 24, 1993
  • Mac OS
    • NA: September 24, 1993
    Windows
    • NA: March 1994
    3DO
    • NA: March 17, 1995
    Saturn
    Jaguar CD
    • NA: December 15, 1995
    • PAL: 1995
    PlayStation
    • NA: October 15, 1996[1]
    • PAL: November 15, 1996
    PlayStation Portable
    Nintendo DS
    iOS
    • WW: May 2, 2009
    Nintendo 3DS
    Android
    • WW: January 26, 2017
GenreAdventure
ModeSingle-player

Myst is a 1993 adventure video game developed by Cyan and published by Broderbund for Mac OS. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the environment by clicking on pre-rendered imagery. Solving puzzles allows the player to travel to other worlds ("Ages"), which reveal the backstory of the game's characters and help the player make the choice of whom to aid.

Designers Rand and Robyn Miller had started in game development creating black-and-white, largely plotless works aimed at children. They wanted Myst to be a graphically impressive game with a nonlinear story and mystery elements aimed at adults. The game's design was limited by the small memory footprint of video game consoles and by the slow speed of CD-ROM drives. The game was created on Apple Macintosh computers and ran on the HyperCard software stack, though ports to other platforms subsequently required the creation of a new engine.

Myst was a critical and commercial success. Critics lauded the ability of the game to immerse players in its fictional worlds. It has been called one of the most influential and best video games ever made. Selling more than six million copies, Myst was the best-selling PC game for nearly a decade. The game helped drive adoption of the CD-ROM drive, spawned a multimedia franchise, and inspired clones, parodies, and new video game genres, as well as spin-off novels and other media. The game has been ported to multiple platforms and remade multiple times.

Gameplay

[edit]
View of a marble fountain, with a small ship inside it. A white marble building with columns sits behind it.
Screenshot of the eponymous Myst Island. Solving a puzzle raises the ship in the foreground and allows the player to reach the Stoneship Age. The library in the background contains books that describe the different Ages the player can link to.

Myst's gameplay consists of a first-person journey through an interactive world. Players can interact with specific objects on some screens by clicking or dragging them.[5]: 5–6  The player moves by clicking on locations shown on the screen; the scene then crossfades into another frame, and the player can explore the new area. Myst has an optional "Zip" feature to assist in rapidly crossing areas already explored; when a lightning bolt cursor appears, players can click and skip several frames to another location. While this provides a rapid method of travel, it can also cause players to miss important items and clues.[5]: 9  Some items can be carried by the player and read, including journal pages which provide backstory. Players can only carry a single page at a time, and pages return to their original locations when dropped.[5]: 13 

To complete the game, the player must fully explore the island of Myst.[6] There, the player discovers and follows clues to be transported via "linking books" to several "Ages", each of which is a self-contained mini-world. Each of the Ages—named Selenitic, Stoneship, Mechanical, and Channelwood—requires the user to solve a series of logical, interrelated puzzles to complete its exploration. Each Age must be explored to solve the game's primary puzzle on Myst.

Apart from its predominantly nonverbal storytelling,[7] Myst's gameplay was unusual among adventure games in several ways. The player is provided with very little backstory at the beginning of the game, and no obvious goals or objectives are laid out. There are no obvious enemies, no physical violence, no time limit to complete the game, and no threat of dying at any point.[6] The game unfolds at its own pace and is solved through a combination of patience, observation, and logical thinking.[7]

Plot

[edit]

Players assume the role of an unnamed person who stumbles across an unusual book titled "Myst". The player reads the book and discovers a detailed description of an island world. Placing their hand on the last page, the player is transported to the world described and is left with no choice but to explore the island.[5]: 2 [8] In the island's library, two books can be found, colored red and blue. These books are traps that hold Sirrus and Achenar, the sons of Atrus, who once lived on Myst island with his wife Catherine. Atrus writes special linking books that transport people to the Ages that the books describe. From the panels of their books, Sirrus and Achenar tell the player that Atrus is dead; each brother blames the other for the death of their family, as well as the destruction of much of Atrus' library. Both plead for help to escape. The books are missing several pages, rendering the sons' messages unclear and riddled with static.

As the player continues to explore the island, books linking to more Ages are discovered hidden behind complex mechanisms and puzzles. The player must visit each Age, find the red and blue pages hidden there, and return to Myst Island. These pages can then be placed in the corresponding books. As the player adds more pages to these books, the brothers can be seen and heard more clearly. After collecting four pages, the brothers tell the player where the fifth and final missing page for their book is hidden; if the player can complete either book, that brother will be set free. The player is left with a choice to help Sirrus, Achenar, or neither.[9]

Sirrus and Achenar beg the player not to touch the green book located by their final pages, claiming it to be another trap book like their own. In truth, it leads to D'ni, where Atrus is imprisoned. When the book is opened, Atrus asks the player to bring him a final page that is hidden on Myst Island. The game has several endings, depending on the player's actions. Giving either Sirrus or Achenar the final page of their book causes the player to switch places with the son, leaving the player trapped inside the prison book as the son rips the pages out. Linking to D'ni without the page Atrus asks for leaves the player and Atrus trapped in D'ni. Bringing Atrus the page allows him to complete his Myst book and return to the island. Upon his return, Atrus returns to his writing and allows the player to explore Myst and its Ages at their leisure, while also asking them to be on hand to help in the future, as he was contending with a greater foe than his sons (setting the stage for Riven).[9] Upon returning to the library, the player finds the red and blue books gone, and burn marks on the shelves where they used to be.

Development

[edit]

Background

[edit]

In the late 1980s, brothers Rand and Robyn Miller were living apart in the United States. Robyn was taking a year off from university in Washington state, writing and trying to establish residency, while Rand worked in Texas as a computer programmer for a bank.[8] Rand approached his brother with the idea of making an interactive storybook using HyperCard.[10] The brothers were not big video game players themselves, although they were familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, and had played Zork.[11] In his parents' basement—Robyn did not own a computer himself—Robyn began drawing pictures and creating a nonlinear story that would eventually become their first game, The Manhole.[10] The Manhole and the games that followed—Cosmic Osmo and Spelunx—were specifically aimed at children and shared the same aesthetics: black-and-white graphics, point-and-click gameplay, a first-person point of view, and explorable worlds.[8][10] Robyn recalled that the games were more about exploration than narrative: "In the projects we did for children, we didn't really tell stories ... They were just these worlds that you would explore."[8]

Around 1990,[12] the brothers decided to create a game that would appeal to adults. Among their goals were believable characters, a non-linear story, and for the player as protagonist to make ethical choices. The Millers pitched the game to Activision under the title The Gray Summons; Robyn recalled that Activision told them to stick to children's games.[12] At the time of the rejection, they were not doing well financially—"we were eating rice and beans and government cheese and that [was] our diet."[13] Facing the end of their game-producing career, Japanese developer Sunsoft approached the Millers to create an adult-oriented game. Like with The Gray Summons, the Millers wanted their game to have a non-linear story with believable characters and an ethical choice. They also wanted to produce a game with far more impressive graphics than their previous efforts, at one point considering an entirely hand-drawn game. They also knew their story would be a mystery.[13][14]

Development of Myst began in 1991.[8] The game's creative team consisted of brothers Rand and Robyn, with help from sound designer Chris Brandkamp, 3D artist and animator Chuck Carter, Richard Watson, Bonnie McDowall and Ryan Miller, who together made up Cyan, Inc. Myst was the largest and most time-consuming collaboration Cyan had attempted at that point.[15] Cyan took inspiration from games like Zork, Star Wars' mythic universe, portals to other worlds like in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, and the mysterious islands of old literature like the works of Jules Verne.[11] The game's name, as well as the overall solitary and mysterious atmosphere of the island, was inspired by the book The Mysterious Island by Verne.[6]

Sunsoft was not interested in the PC market and was focused on the video game console market instead. At the time, consoles had no hard drives and small memory buffers, meaning the game had to be designed around these technical constraints. To solve this issue, they compartmentalized parts of the game's environments into the different Ages.[16] The Millers decided that most people did not like puzzles. Thus, a good puzzle would feel familiar and part of the world—not like a puzzle, but something for players to figure out like a circuit breaker in their house, using observation and common sense.[17] Cyan did not have fans to please, and did not know exactly who the game would appeal to; Robyn felt like they did not have to second-guess their choices and could "explore the world as we were designing" and build a game for themselves.[18] Rand stated that they strived to design the puzzles in Myst and their subsequent games by trying to balance three aspects: the puzzles themselves, the environment, and the story.[19] They wanted to make sure that clues to the solutions to puzzles were apparent and presented to the player in a manner for these connections to be made: "once the player finds the solution, if they blame us, then we haven't done a good job. But if they blame themselves, then we have."[19]

The Millers prepared a seven-page game proposal for Sunsoft from their ideas, mostly consisting of maps of the islands they had envisioned.[14] Cyan proposed Myst to Sunsoft for $265,000—more than double what they thought it would cost to develop the game, but ultimately less than the game's final cost.[20][b] Sunsoft had asked the brothers if their game would be as good as the upcoming The 7th Guest, another CD-ROM video game that had been shown in public preview demonstrations; the Millers assured them it would.[14] After getting the go-ahead, Cyan play-tested the entire game in a role-played Dungeons and Dragons form to identify any large issues before entering full production.[23]

Production

[edit]
Macintosh computers such as the Quadra 700 were used to develop Myst. Slow single-speed CD-ROM drives and game console memory limitations proved to be constraints.

Myst was not only the largest project Cyan had attempted, but also took the longest to develop.[15] The brothers spent months designing the look and puzzles of the Ages,[24] which were influenced by earlier whimsical worlds made for children.[25] Much of the early development time was spent devising puzzles and the Ages, and the story was secondary. "We were place designers [...] and the maps kind of fueled the story," Rand said. The plot evolved in tandem with the changing environment, developing new story details with each new building in the world.[8] They realized that the setting would require developing more story and history than the players would actually see.[25] The climactic ending with Atrus was a later development in the game's story, after Cyan realized they wanted to create a more complicated ending. In retrospect, Robyn felt that Myst did not quite provoke the emotional reaction and ethical quandary they set out to create.[26]

The game was created on Macintosh computers, principally the Macintosh Quadra 700, using the HyperCard software.[24] Cyan discovered using 3D rendering software was faster than the hand-drawn figures that they had used on their previous titles, and allowed the addition of color. The terrain for the Ages were created starting with grayscale heightmaps that were extruded to create changes in elevation. From this basic terrain, textures were painted onto a colormap that was wrapped around the landscapes. Objects such as trees were added to complete the design.[24] Rand noted that attention to detail allowed Myst to deal with the limitations of CD-ROM drives and graphics, stating: "A lot can be done with texture ... Like finding an interesting texture you can map into the tapestry on the wall, spending a little extra time to actually put the bumps on the tapestry, putting screws in things. These are the things you don't necessarily notice, but if they weren't there, would flag to your subconscious that this is fake."[27] The environments were rendered in StrataVision 3D, with some additional modeling in Macromedia MacroModel,[24] while Rand would place those images into HyperCard to link them up and test the puzzle aspects.[14] Overall, Myst contains 2,500 frames, one for each possible area the player can explore.[24] Some frames took hours to render, while others took days. The final images for the game were edited and enhanced using Photoshop 1.0.[24]

When Cyan began development, developing believable characters was a major hurdle. The brothers were limited to one-way communication with the player, and at any point, a player could choose to walk away and "break the spell" of the game. Displaying video in the game was initially infeasible. Designing around the limits, the designers created the trap books, which were location-specific, one-way communication devices. The release of QuickTime halfway through development of the game solved the video issue.[28]

The original HyperCard Macintosh version of Myst had each Age as a unique HyperCard stack. Navigation was handled by the internal button system and HyperTalk scripts, with image and QuickTime movie display passed off to various plugins; essentially, Myst functions as a series of separate multimedia slides linked together by commands.[29] The main technical constraint that impacted Myst was slow CD-ROM drive read speeds—few consumers had anything faster than single-speed drives, limiting the speed of streaming data off the disc.[14] Cyan had to go to great lengths to make sure all the game elements loaded as quickly as possible.[25] Images were stored as 8-bit PICT resources with custom color palettes and QuickTime still image compression. Animated elements such as movies and object animations were encoded as QuickTime movies with Cinepak compression; in total, there were more than 66 minutes of Quicktime animation.[24] This careful processing made the finished graphics look like truecolor images despite their low bit depth; the stills were reduced in size from 500 kB to around 80 kB.[24] The Millers tried to place related scenes and files close together on the disc's spiral track to reduce the seek time and in-game delay as the player transitions from scene to scene.[14]

Cyan play-tested the game with two people sitting in front of the game, finding that they would converse with each other and vocalize their likes and dislikes compared to one person silently playing. Rand and Robyn sat behind the testers taking notes, and could make on-the-fly changes and fixes. Cyan wanted the interface of the game to be invisible, and to craft a game that a wide audience would enjoy.[30] Early on they had decided that there would be no inventory, enemies, or ways to die; eventually, they included a save system as a concession to the fact that it would take most players months to complete the game.[8] Among the problems testers discovered with the story was that Myst had no inciting incident. In response, Cyan added a note that clued players in to a chamber that played a message explaining the game's objectives.[31]

Audio

[edit]

Chris Brandkamp served as sound engineer on Myst; he also doubled as Cyan's chief financial officer.[32] Brandkamp produced most of the ambient and incidental sounds in the game. To make sure the sounds fit, Brandkamp had to wait until the game's visuals were placed in context.[24] Sound effects were drawn from unlikely sources; the noise of a fire in a boiler was created by driving slowly over stones in a driveway because recordings of actual fire did not sound like fire burning.[6] The chimes of a large clock tower were simulated using a wrench, then transposed to a lower pitch. Audio of bubbles, which he recalled as "the most hateful sound", was created by blowing bubbles into differently-sized tubes in a toilet.[24]

At first, Myst had no music, because the Millers did not want music to interfere with the gameplay.[24] After a few tests, they realized that the background music did not adversely affect the game and heightened the mood of certain areas.[24] Robyn Miller ended up composing 40 minutes of synthesized music that was used in the game and later published as Myst: The Soundtrack.[24] Mixing and effects were done on an E-mu Proteus MPS synthesizer. The soundtrack was recorded over the course of two weeks' evenings.[33] Initially, Cyan released the soundtrack via a mail-order service, but before the release of Myst's sequel, Riven, Virgin Records acquired the rights to release the soundtrack,[34] and the CD was re-released on April 21, 1998.[35] A limited-edition 2-LP vinyl release was released in April 2021. The release includes two colored LPs (pink and blue) with a vinyl-exclusive never-before-released track, "AUDIO TRIAL 31—AGE FOUR", as well as never-before-seen documents, photographs, maps, and artifacts.[36]

Release

[edit]

Myst was released for Macintosh computers on September 30, 1993, marketed with the tagline "The Surrealistic Adventure That Will Become Your World".[37][38] Sample discs featuring a demo of the game's Myst Island portion were made available as previews.[39] The game was ported to Windows in March 1994.[40]: 3  Publicity for the game relied on word of mouth, especially over the internet.[6]

Myst became a massive commercial success. Prior to release, Rand Miller believed selling 100,000 copies would be "mind-blowing";[14] it sold double that amount in seven months.[40]: 4  The game quickly became Broderbund's most successful title,[6] selling more than 500,000 copies by the end of 1994,[41] and more than one million copies by March 1995.[32] It was the best-selling computer game in the United States for 52 months.[42][43] By 1997, Myst had sold 3.5 million copies.[44] It sold more than 6.3 million units worldwide by 2000, including more than 4.3 million in the United States;[45] and was the bestselling PC game throughout the 1990s until The Sims exceeded its sales in 2002.[46][47][48] Along with The 7th Guest, Myst was a killer application that accelerated the sales of CD-ROM drives.[29][49][50] The game was the first CD-ROM title to sell more than two million units.[51]

Remakes and ports

[edit]
Myst has been remade for PC multiple times since its release.
The dock from the starting position on Myst Island as a pre-rendered still in the original game (1993)
The same scene rendered in real-time 3D in realMyst (2000)
The same scene remade using the Unity engine in realMyst: Masterpiece Edition 2.0 (2015)
The same scene remade using Unreal Engine in the VR remake (2021)

Myst's success led to the game being ported to multiple platforms. Versions for the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, Atari Jaguar CD, AmigaOS, CD-i and 3DO consoles were released. A version for the Sega CD was developed and previewed by Sunsoft, but ultimately did not ship.[52] A remaster, Myst: Masterpiece Edition, was released in May 2000. It features several improvements over the original game: the images are re-rendered in 24-bit truecolor instead of the original Myst's 256 colors (8-bit); the score was remastered, and sound effects were enhanced.[53] A 2023 fan effort "demade" the game for the Atari 2600.[54]

A complete remake of Myst, RealMyst: Interactive 3D Edition, was developed by Cyan and Sunsoft and published by Ubisoft in November 2000 for Windows PCs, and in January 2002 for Mac. Unlike the original game, the gameplay of realMyst features free-roaming, real-time 3D graphics.[55] Weather effects and a day/night cycle were added to the Ages alongside minor additions to keep the game's story in sync with later entries. The game also added a new Age called Rime, which is featured in an extended ending.[55] While the new interactivity of the game was praised, realMyst ran poorly on most computers of the time.[56][57] At release, Cyan described the remake as the game they would have originally made, had it not been for previous technology constraints.[55] Robyn Miller later expressed frustration with realMyst and its marketing, saying that it was not how they had originally envisioned Myst.[58]

In 2014, Cyan released a new visually enhanced revision of the game running on the Unity engine, realMyst: Masterpiece Edition.[59] The remake was updated to version 2.0 on January 28, 2015, receiving a significant graphical overhaul in which several bugs were fixed and the detail of many models and textures was upgraded.[60]

Handheld and mobile ports include a remake of Myst for the PlayStation Portable, first released in Japan in 2006. The remake included the Rime Age from realMyst, and higher-resolution widescreen visuals.[2] Similar versions for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS were released in 2007 and 2012, respectively.[61][4] Cyan and Mean Hamster Software released Myst for the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform in 2005;[62] Riven was ported shortly after.[63] In August 2008, Cyan announced that the company was developing a version of Myst for Apple's iOS.[64] The game was made available to download from the iTunes App Store on May 2, 2009.[65] The original download size was 727 MB, which was considered very large by iPhone standards.[66] An updated version of realMyst was released for iPad 2 and above, with improved graphics over the original PC release, on June 14, 2012.[67] A version for Android devices based on the realMyst version was released on January 26, 2017, produced and published by Noodlecake, and a similar port for Riven was released on April 26, 2017.[68][69]

realMyst: Masterpiece Edition was released for the Nintendo Switch on May 21, 2020.[70][71]

3D remake for virtual reality and other platforms

[edit]

Cyan announced a new remake of Myst for high-definition screens and virtual reality, with the game's worlds fully created in free-roam 3D environments, using Unreal Engine 4, along with features like puzzle randomization, in September 2020.[72][73] Myst for the Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2 was released on December 10, 2020;[74] on August 26, 2021, for Windows, macOS, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One;[75][76][77] and on February 9, 2023, for iOS.[78] An update to include the world of Rime was added to this version of Myst in March 2025.[79]

Reception

[edit]

Myst was generally praised by critics. Computer Gaming World assured its readers that the game was not like other CD-ROM games that were "high on glitz and low on substance ... Myst is everything it's touted to be and is, quite simply, the best [Macintosh] CD-ROM game." It praised the game's open-world nature, lack of player death, and "straightforward and simple" storyline. The magazine stated that the "mesmerizing" and "stunning" graphics and sound were "not the star of the show ... the substance of the game is every bit as good as its packaging", and concluded that Myst "is bound to set a new standard".[101] In April 1994, the magazine called it an "artistic masterwork".[102] Jeff Koke reviewed Myst in Pyramid #8 (July/August 1994), and stated: "It is the first adventure game in which I left feeling as though I had visited a real place."[103]

Wired and The New York Times were among the publications that pointed to Myst as evidence that video games could, in fact, evolve into an art form.[104] Entertainment Weekly reported that some players considered Myst's "virtual morality" a religious experience.[105] Aarhus University professor Søren Pold pointed to Myst as an excellent example of how stories can be told using objects rather than people.[106] Laura Evenson, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, pointed to adult-oriented games like Myst as evidence the video game industry was emerging from its "adolescent" phase.[107]

GameSpot's Jeff Sengstack wrote that "Myst is an immersive experience that draws you in and won't let you go."[92] Writing about Myst's reception, Greg M. Smith noted that Myst had become a hit and was regarded as incredibly immersive despite most closely resembling "the hoary technology of the slideshow (with accompanying music and effects)".[7] Smith concluded that "Myst's primary brilliance lies in the way it provides narrative justification for the very things that are most annoying" about the technological constraints imposed on the game;[7] for instance, Macworld praised Myst's designers for overcoming the occasionally debilitating slowness of CD drives to deliver a consistent experience throughout the game.[108] The publication went on to declare Myst the best game of 1994, stating that Myst removed the "most annoying parts of adventure games—vocabularies that [you] don't understand, people you can't talk to, wrong moves that get you killed and make you start over. You try to unravel the enigma of the island by exploring the island, but there's no time pressure to distract you, no arbitrary punishments put in your way".[109]

Some aspects of the game still received criticism. Several publications did not agree with the positive reception of the story. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com noted that while its lack of interaction and continual plot suited the game, Myst contributed to a decline in the adventure game genre.[29] Edge stated the main flaw with the game was that the game engine was nowhere near as sophisticated as the graphics.[88] Heidi Fournier of Adventure Gamers noted a few critics complained about the difficulty and lack of context of the puzzles, while others believed these elements added to the gameplay.[87] Similarly, critics were split on whether the lack of a plot the player could actually change was a good or bad element.[110] In 1996 Next Generation called Myst "gaming's bleakest hour", saying the static graphics and purely trial-and-error puzzles epitomized poor game design. The magazine said its commercial success, which they owed chiefly to its popularity among non-gamers as a CD-ROM showcase, had led to many other games emulating its negative aspects.[111] In a 2000 retrospective review, IGN declared that Myst had not aged well and that playing it "was like watching hit TV shows from the 70s. 'People watched that?,' you wonder in horror."[49]

Myst was named Best Adventure/Fantasy Role-Playing Game at the 1994 Codie awards,[112] and received an honorable mention in Electronic Entertainment's 1993 "Breakthrough Game" category, which ultimately went to The 7th Guest. That magazine's editors wrote, "One of the best-looking, best-sounding games ever, the Macintosh version of Myst sets new standards for the effective use of CD-ROM."[113] Myst was also a runner-up for Computer Gaming World's 1993 "Adventure Game of the Year" award, but lost to Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Day of the Tentacle (tie).[114] In 1996, the magazine ranked Myst 11th on its list of the most innovative computer games.[115]

Reviews for the game's console ports generally reflected each critic's attitude towards the original game, as critics agreed that the ports for 3DO,[89][94][116] Saturn,[99][96][117] and PlayStation[100][95][118] are virtually identical to the PC original. For example, Sushi-X of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the 3DO version a five out of ten, remarking: "The graphics and sounds are decent but the game never really appealed to me on the PC", while his co-reviewer Danyon Carpenter gave it a seven out of ten and assessed that "This game was all the rage when it debuted on the PC, and that excitement should follow through on the 3DO."[89] In one of the more enthusiastic reviews for Myst, GamePro gave the 3DO version a perfect five out of five in all four categories (graphics, sound, control and fun factor), concluding: "Beautiful and enchanting, Myst will thrill you and make you think at the same time."[116] The Jaguar CD version was largely ignored by reviewers, but GamePro commented that apart from the Jaguar CD's lack of a mouse peripheral and occasionally longer load times, this version too is identical to the PC original.[119]

However, the 3DS version received negative reviews even from critics who felt that Myst's popularity was merited, citing graphics and audio well below the 3DS's capabilities and the use of awkward circle pad controls in lieu of the 3DS's touchscreen.[97][98]

Legacy

[edit]

Myst's success was due to its wide audience appeal, high-fidelity imagery combined with low system requirements, and the number of platforms it appeared on. It showed that games focused on puzzles instead of action could be major hits.[40]: 4–6  Myst's popularity baffled some, who wondered how a game that was seen as "little more than 'an interactive slide show'" turned out to be a hit.[120][50] As early as December 1994, Newsweek compared Myst to "an art film, destined to gather critical acclaim and then dust on the shelves".[50] Others criticized Myst as the "ultimate anti-arcade game", as it was much more relaxed and casual than other games—the game required no special skills and there was no score or time limit.[50] Myst was described by Stephen Kline and his coauthors as the "anti-Doom"; where Doom was violent, Satanic and focused on shock value and speed, Myst was tranquil and created by Christian developers.[121]

In the wake of Myst's sales, other developers sought to capitalize on comparing their games to Myst, or released "Myst clones" that sought to replicate its success.[29][122] Some developers of adventure games concurrent to Myst's release were critical of the game due to the number of subsequent titles that copied Myst's style.[50] As the adventure game genre faced a downturn, Gamecenter and others laid the blame squarely on Myst:

People wanted eye candy, not real storytelling. Never mind the fact that Myst had the worst ending in gaming history; never mind the fact that Myst's idea of interactivity involved sparse clicks followed by hours of skull scratching. True adventure games came—Grim Fandango, Blade Runner, Gabriel Knight 3—and they failed to get sales.[123]

In comparison, game designer Josh Mandel said the responsibility belonged to game publishers, who now expected every adventure game to be a Myst-caliber hit.[124] Edge, writing in 1998, declared the game's impact mixed, but one that ultimately did more good to the industry than harm, writing that it helped develop PC-based gaming.[125]

Myst helped create a new way of thinking about presentation in video games due to the nature of the CD-ROM: whereas most games before could be viewed as "games of emergence", in which game elements combined in novel and surprising ways to the player, Myst demonstrated one of the first "games of progression" where the player is guided through predefined sets of encounters. This helped to provide alternative experiences atypical of usual video games, and helped lay the foundations of more experimental indie video games developed in the 2000s.[126][127] The game served as a precursor to casual games, which typically do not require players to act quickly, as well as an early predecessor to the walking simulators that allow players to explore at their own pace.[50] Cyan's sequels to Myst also indirectly served to popularize escape the room games, which provide similar puzzle-solving experiences but in a much more confined space.[128]

Myst became a cultural touchstone of the day; the game was so popular the Miller brothers appeared in advertisements for The Gap.[129] Actor Matt Damon wanted The Bourne Conspiracy video game to be a puzzle game like Myst, refusing to lend his voice talent to the game when it was turned into a shooter instead.[130] Myst has also been used for educational and scientific purposes; Becta recognized a primary school teacher, Tim Rylands, who had made literacy gains using Myst as a teaching tool,[131] and researchers have used the game for studies examining the effect of video games on aggression.[132] A parody computer game, Pyst, was released in 1996; the game is a satirical free roam of Myst Island which had been apparently vandalized by frustrated visitors.[133] Myst was added to the collection of video games of the Museum of Modern Art in 2013, where it is displayed as a video presentation.[134]

Myst's success sparked a multimedia franchise. Riven was released in 1997 and continues Myst's storyline. Presto Studios and Ubisoft developed and published Myst III: Exile in 2001,[135][136] Myst IV: Revelation was developed and published entirely by Ubisoft and released in 2004.[137] The latest game in the franchise is Myst V: End of Ages, developed by Cyan Worlds and released in 2005.[138] In addition to the main games, Cyan developed Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.[139] The multiplayer component of Uru was initially canceled, but GameTap eventually revived it as Myst Online: Uru Live.[140] After Uru Live was cancelled, the game was released as an open source title.[141] The Miller brothers collaborated with David Wingrove to produce several novels based on the Myst universe, which were published by Hyperion. The novels, entitled Myst: The Book of Atrus, Myst: The Book of Ti'ana and Myst: The Book of D'ni, fill in the games' backstory and were packaged together as The Myst Reader. By 2003, the Myst franchise had sold over twelve million copies worldwide,[142] with Myst representing more than six million copies in the figure.[143] Multiple attempts have been made to adapt the games and series into television series and feature films.[144][145][146]

See also

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Notes

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References

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Myst

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Myst is a graphic adventure puzzle video game developed by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller at their studio Cyan Worlds and first published by Broderbund Software for the Macintosh on September 24, 1993. In the game, players assume the role of an unnamed stranger who discovers a mysterious book that transports them to the titular island of Myst, where they must explore interconnected fantastical worlds known as "Ages" via magical linking books, solve intricate environmental puzzles, and unravel a family intrigue involving the scholar Atrus and his imprisoned sons, Sirrus and Achenar. Featuring pre-rendered 3D graphics, ambient sound design, and no on-screen interface or combat, Myst emphasized immersive exploration and observation, leveraging CD-ROM technology for over 2,500 static images, 40 minutes of music, and more than an hour of video. It quickly became a cultural phenomenon, selling over six million copies worldwide and holding the record as the best-selling PC game until The Sims surpassed it in 2002, while being a major cause of CD-ROM drives becoming standard built-in components in personal computers and inspiring a new subgenre of narrative-driven puzzle adventures. The game's development began in 1991 when the Millers, inspired by their earlier work on the puzzle game The Manhole, sought to create a more mature, story-rich experience using emerging multimedia capabilities. Rand Miller handled programming and art direction, while Robyn contributed to design, sound, and music, with the brothers personally photographing and rendering most assets in their Spokane, Washington, home over two years of production. Broderbund's decision to publish Myst without traditional marketing—relying instead on word-of-mouth and its striking cover art—proved prescient, as the title's atmospheric mystery appealed to a broad audience beyond typical gamers, including adults drawn to its contemplative pace and intellectual challenges. Ports followed to Windows in 1994 and other platforms like Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and 3DO by 1995, expanding its reach and solidifying its status as a multimedia milestone that showcased the potential of interactive storytelling. Myst's legacy endures through its sequels, spin-offs, and a 2021 remake by , rebuilt from the ground up with real-time 3D graphics, optional puzzle randomization, and support for —which received a free update in 2025 adding the Rime Age—on platforms including PC, consoles, and VR headsets. The original's influence is evident in its role in popularizing point-and-click adventures with photorealistic visuals and non-linear narratives, though it also drew for its difficulty and lack of guidance, which some argued alienated players. By blending fantasy lore—drawn from the Millers' D'ni civilization concept—with innovative technology, Myst not only transformed into a leading indie studio but also paved the way for immersive sims and environmental puzzles in modern gaming.

Gameplay

Exploration Mechanics

Myst employs a point-and-click interface where players control an unnamed protagonist, known as the Stranger, in a first-person perspective. The game world is presented through over 2,500 pre-rendered static images that provide 360-degree panoramic views of locations, allowing players to rotate the view by clicking directional arrows that appear on screen edges. Movement occurs in discrete steps between fixed "nodes" or viewpoints, with the mouse cursor changing shape—a hand for navigation or a for examination—to indicate interactive elements, enabling precise exploration of the Myst island and linked Ages. This node-based system emphasizes deliberate pacing, as transitions between images simulate walking or turning without real-time fluidity. Unlike many adventure games of the era, Myst lacks a traditional screen; instead, players interact directly with environmental objects, collecting key items such as pages or tools that are used immediately or retained for later activation of mechanisms. These limited items, often subtle and context-specific like switches or notes, serve to unlock paths, operate devices, or reveal clues, integrating seamlessly into the environment without cluttering the interface. Puzzles may gate exploration progress by requiring such interactions to access new areas. Exploration is enriched by atmospheric sound cues and visual details that subtly guide player attention and immersion. Ambient audio, including wind, water flows, and mechanical hums, provides directional hints or feedback during navigation, while visual elements like scattered notes, symbolic markers, and environmental anomalies encourage thorough investigation. The library on Myst island functions as the central hub, housing interactive books that serve as portals to other Ages and a map device for tracking progress across the island's pathways. The original 1993 Macintosh release relied on precise mouse controls optimized for the platform's graphical user interface, allowing smooth cursor-based pointing and clicking in 256-color mode. Subsequent ports adapted these mechanics for other systems; for instance, the Windows version maintained mouse input, while console releases like the Sega Saturn (1995) and 3DO (1995) used controller analogs, mapping directional pad movements to view rotation and buttons to actions, though these often sacrificed some precision for accessibility.

Puzzle Design

The puzzles in Myst are structured non-linearly across the game's central hub of Myst Island and five interconnected Ages, allowing players to tackle challenges in variable orders while requiring keen observation, , and occasional item manipulation to progress. This design fosters a sense of discovery, as solutions often demand cross-referencing environmental details, such as aligning sounds or images from disparate locations, without a prescribed sequence. Developers Rand and emphasized integrating puzzles organically with the story and setting, ensuring each challenge emerges naturally from the world's logic rather than feeling imposed. Puzzles fall into distinct categories, including mechanical ones involving physical mechanisms like gear-based locks or rotating towers that players manipulate through to unlock access points. Logical puzzles require deducing codes or sequences from clues embedded in the environment, such as numerical patterns derived from island markers or musical notes played on a to activate a rocket ship. Exploratory puzzles, meanwhile, involve searching for hidden elements like switches or doors in labyrinthine spaces, often guided by subtle audio or visual cues that reward thorough navigation. Across these types, there are no combat encounters or punitive failure states; instead, incorrect attempts simply reset mechanisms, encouraging iterative experimentation without risk of permanent setback. The game's difficulty escalates gradually, beginning with straightforward observational tasks on Myst Island—such as matching page numbers to a safe code—and building to more intricate, multi-step challenges in the Ages that demand synthesizing clues from books, sounds, and structures. This progression relies on trial-and-error learning, where players test hypotheses on interactive elements like sliders or pattern-matching devices, gradually unveiling the underlying rules of each Age's systems. To aid this process, the limited inventory system allows carrying only one item at a time, typically the red or blue pages—mysterious artifacts that serve as key objectives, enabling players to influence the game's multiple endings by placing them in specific books. Players track clues externally via note-taking, as the game lacks an in-game journal, reinforcing the emphasis on personal deduction and memory.

Plot and Setting

Narrative Summary

Spoiler Warning: This section contains major plot details for Myst. The narrative of Myst begins with the , known as the Stranger, encountering a mysterious titled Myst in a filled with other such volumes. Upon opening the book and touching its linking page, the Stranger is transported to the isolated island of Myst, a serene yet enigmatic location featuring Victorian-inspired architecture and natural wonders. This framing device establishes the Stranger's role as an outsider thrust into an unfolding family drama, with no explicit instructions beyond . At the heart of the central conflict is the imprisoned writer Atrus and his sons, Sirrus and Achenar, who are trapped within defective linking books housed in the island's . Sirrus, the elder son, appears refined and accuses Achenar of and imprisoning their father, while Achenar, more erratic, claims Sirrus is the villain responsible for their family's downfall. Both brothers implore the Stranger to retrieve torn pages from their respective red and blue books scattered across linked Ages—otherworldly realms accessible via special books—to enable their escape, promising rewards and revealing clues about the deception. Atrus, accessible through a green book in a hidden alcove, provides a contrasting plea for a final white page to complete his own linking book, hinting at deeper betrayals without direct accusations. The Stranger's investigation reveals the brothers' manipulation and the tragic dynamics of familial strife, as environmental clues and journals expose Sirrus and Achenar's joint rebellion against their father. Major plot progression occurs through the library's exploration, where activating a pattern code unlocks access to the linking and Ages such as Mechanical, Stoneship, Channelwood, and Selenitic, each requiring puzzle-solving to obtain the necessary pages. Puzzles function as narrative drivers, revealing backstory fragments like Atrus's writings and the sons' destructive actions. The story culminates in branching endings determined by the Stranger's choices: siding with Sirrus or Achenar by inserting a colored page leads to a "bad" outcome where the chosen brother escapes and imprisons the Stranger; collecting the white page without aiding the brothers enables the "true" ending, freeing Atrus and resolving the conflict. The narrative emphasizes themes of isolation, underscored by the empty island and silent Ages; family betrayal, through the sons' treachery against Atrus; and discovery, conveyed via minimal spoken dialogue, red and blue textual messages from the brothers, Atrus's occasional videos, and immersive environmental storytelling that invites players to piece together the intrigue.

Worlds and Lore

The fictional universe of Myst centers on the Ages, parallel worlds accessible through a mystical practice known as the Art, or Rehgehstoy in the D'ni language, which allows skilled writers to craft descriptive books that serve as portals to these realms. Rooted in the ancient D'ni civilization, the Art involves inscribing precise, poetic descriptions in a special D'ni script using ink and paper from the cavernous city of D'ni, effectively linking the writer to an existing Age that matches the written vision; this process demands deep understanding of natural laws to ensure stability, as flawed writings can produce unstable or dangerous worlds. Linking books, the primary tools of the Art, feature an image of the target Age on their final page, through which a user places their hand to transport instantaneously, with return books often hidden within the Age for safe egress. The D'ni, a humanoid race that migrated to vast underground caverns beneath the Earth's surface over 10,000 years ago, built a sprawling empire sustained by the Art, which enabled them to access countless Ages for resources, exploration, and exile. This civilization flourished for millennia, developing guilds dedicated to perfecting the Art and maintaining the grand city of D'ni, but it ultimately collapsed in a catastrophic event around 9400 D.E. (D'ni Era), triggered by internal corruption, a plague, and deliberate sabotage that poisoned the cavern's atmosphere, leaving the survivors scattered or trapped in unstable Ages. Atrus, a partial D'ni descendant raised in isolation and trained in the Art by his father Gehn, dedicates himself to restoring the fallen empire by recruiting surface-dwellers, documenting lost histories, and writing new Ages to support revival efforts, a quest that forms the ongoing continuity of the Myst series across games and novels. The four Ages featured in Myst—Stoneship, Channelwood, Mechanical, and Selenitic—were written by Atrus as protective refuges and are linked from books hidden on the central Myst Island, each accessed via environmental puzzles that align with their themes to reveal the linking panel. The D'ni link, accessed by completing Atrus's green book with the white page found on Myst Island, leads to the ancient D'ni caverns. Stoneship Age evokes a serene yet precarious maritime isolation, with sheer rock pillars rising from misty, tidal waters that submerge parts of the landscape at high tide, creating an ecosystem of damp caves, sparse vegetation clinging to cliffs, and in submerged areas. Its architecture includes a wooden ship's hull embedded in the rocks as if shipwrecked by giants, connected to underwater cabins via pipelines and a powered by a hand-cranked generator that controls water levels for ; linking occurs through a in a holder atop the , activated after adjusting the generator to reveal dry paths. Channelwood Age immerses visitors in a flooded, primordial forest where massive trees emerge from shallow, murky waters like stilts, supporting a humid of dripping foliage, wooden bridges, and hidden pools teeming with aquatic and small adapted to the perpetual dampness. The architecture consists of elevated treehouses and walkways crafted from rough-hewn timber, powered by a central that operates elevators and gates to raise water levels and connect pathways; the linking book is concealed in an upper treehouse, reachable only after activating the windmill to flood lower areas and enable ascent. Mechanical Age presents a compact, industrial seascape of three small, wave-lapped linked by bridges, featuring a stark of eroded stone, salt-spray winds, and minimal life forms amid the ceaseless mechanical hum. Dominated by Victorian-inspired architecture, it includes a massive rotating fortress on the southern with interlocking gears, pistons, and a mechanism that shifts the structure's orientation, alongside ruined stone buildings and a sentry post; linking is initiated from a red-lined room within the fortress, unlocked by aligning the rotation to match directional markers on the islands. Selenitic Age unfolds across a vast, arid desert expanse under a hazy sky, marked by a deep chasm and an ecosystem of crystalline formations, echoing winds, and underground aquifers that sustain sparse, hardy scrub in shadowed crevices, with no visible large fauna. Its architecture highlights subterranean engineering, such as a sound-based navigation pod in a tunnel system lined with enormous, glowing crystals that vibrate to specific tones, and a railcar for traversing the chasm; the linking book resides in a crystalline chamber, accessed by playing a sequence of sounds to map and align the crystals' resonances for safe passage. D'ni Age, representing a fragment of the ancestral homeland, descends into the immense, unlit caverns of the original city, with an ecosystem of vast emptiness punctuated by dripping stalactites, faint bioluminescent fungi, and the echoes of long-abandoned life in the humid air. The architecture showcases the D'ni's monumental style—towering tiered structures, arched walkways, and the imposing K'veer palace with its and imager devices for viewing historical records—carved directly from cavern rock; linking leads to a foreboding room in K'veer, serving as a gateway to deeper explorations of the ruined capital. The world-building in Myst draws visual and thematic inspirations from a fusion of 19th-century Victorian engineering—evident in the gear-driven contraptions and brass fittings of Mechanical Age—with fantastical, otherworldly elements like the organic, impossible scales of Channelwood's trees and Selenitic's resonant crystals, creating a sense of isolated wonder that underscores the D'ni legacy of harmonious yet hubristic mastery over creation.

Development

Creative Origins

Cyan Worlds was founded in 1987 by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in Spokane, Washington, with the goal of creating interactive software that fostered children's creativity and exploration. The company transitioned from developing early titles like The Manhole (1988), a pioneering digital storybook that used HyperCard to enable nonlinear navigation through whimsical worlds, to more ambitious projects aimed at broader audiences. The creative vision for Myst drew heavily from literary inspirations such as Jules Verne's novels, particularly The Mysterious Island, which influenced the game's name and its emphasis on isolated, enigmatic environments filled with mechanical wonders. The Millers sought to craft an immersive "edutainment" experience that encouraged discovery and intellectual engagement without violence or combat, reflecting their desire to evoke the awe of real-world travel and fictional adventures. This approach stemmed from their personal love of exploration, blending elements of global journeys with imaginative storytelling to prioritize mystery and puzzle-solving over action. Development of Myst began in 1991 as a passion project, with the brothers creating early prototypes using hand-drawn images to test core concepts like linking books—magical tomes that transport users between worlds. These initial experiments focused on fostering a sense of wonder through exploration, evolving from the open-ended play of their prior children's games into a narrative-driven adventure. The project's collaborative family dynamic was central, with contributing photography to capture real-world textures for the game's detailed environments, while handled the writing of the underlying narrative framework, including the lore of the ancient D'ni civilization. This hands-on involvement allowed the brothers to iteratively refine the vision in their garage studio, ensuring the final product aligned with their goal of seamless immersion.

Technical Production

Myst was developed exclusively on Apple computers, leveraging as the core hypermedia platform to structure the game's interactive environment as a series of interconnected "cards." This approach allowed for and assembly of the non-linear narrative, with the Macintosh version initially built as a single large stack colorized using a proprietary tool called HyperTint developed by John Miller. As development progressed, custom programming in Think Pascal was employed to extend 's capabilities, addressing limitations in handling complex interactivity while maintaining compatibility with and requiring at least 4 MB of RAM and 256-color displays. The release of midway through production enabled the integration of pre-rendered video sequences for smooth transitions, animations, and cutscenes, totaling approximately 66 minutes of footage compressed for delivery. The emphasized within hardware constraints, beginning with in StrataVision 3D software on six dedicated Macintosh Quadras. Simple geometric primitives—such as cones for trees and basic meshes for structures—were textured and lit to create scenes rendered as static stills at 543 × 332 pixel resolution, resulting in over 2,500 individual images across the game's Ages. These were output in depth, limited to a 256-color palette per scene to ensure broad compatibility with 1990s displays; dithering techniques were applied during palette optimization to approximate smoother gradients and a wider tonal range, mitigating the banding artifacts common in low-bit-depth . Custom palettes transitioned subtly during black loading screens to avoid visual jarring between nodes. Programming the node-based navigation system presented significant challenges, as each location functioned as a discrete card linked via hotspots, enabling point-and-click exploration without real-time . The inventory system, which managed collectible pages and books through simple state tracking, was optimized to minimize memory usage, contributing to the original Macintosh release's compact installed footprint of approximately 3 MB—far below contemporary expectations for a title featuring thousands of assets—while relying on the for on-demand loading of images and videos. Art direction focused on immersive, detailed environments, blending rendered 3D elements with integrated real-world to ground the fantastical Ages in tangible realism, such as oceanic and industrial textures that enhanced the photorealistic quality of the final composites.

Audio Design

The audio design of Myst was led by composer , who created a 40-minute synthesized using a single MPS to generate ambient, looping tracks tailored to each Age, such as the watery echoes and fluid melodies in Stoneship Age that evoke its nautical isolation. Miller recorded the music over two weeks of evenings, initially developing it without a fixed plan but refining it based on playtesting feedback that highlighted its role in enhancing atmospheric mood. The score's minimalist style, featuring ethereal panpipe-like tones and subtle harmonic progressions, avoids traditional melodies or climaxes to accommodate the game's non-linear exploration, with the opening "Myst" theme serving as an that recurs subtly throughout. Sound effects were crafted by engineer Chris Brandkamp, who layered recorded environmental noises for realism, such as creaking wood from actual structures and bubbling water from natural sources, while innovating with unconventional recordings like a rolling over rocks to simulate crackling. These samples, integrated as incidental and ambient elements, contribute to immersion without , relying instead on subtle cues like mechanical clicks to subtly guide puzzle-solving and navigation. The audio engine employed looping ambient scores triggered by player location changes, ensuring seamless playback through HyperCard's integration with for handling both music and effects on Macintosh systems. This approach prioritized visual storytelling by keeping audio unobtrusive yet evocative, fostering a sense of quiet mystery that underscores the game's introspective pace.

Release

Initial Launch

Myst premiered on September 24, 1993, for the Macintosh platform, published by Software after development by . A Windows version followed in March 1994, expanding accessibility beyond Apple systems. Ports to other platforms, including the and CD in 1995–1996, in 1995, and PlayStation in 1996, extended the game's reach by 1997. Broderbund's marketing strategy emphasized Myst as a pioneer in the CD-ROM era, positioning it as a "killer app" that demonstrated the revolutionary potential of technology for interactive entertainment. The campaign targeted early adopters through demonstrations at industry events like Macworld and inclusions in holiday software bundles, capitalizing on the growing interest in CD-based titles. Distribution featured jewel-case CDs paired with companion booklets, such as the Myst Journal, which included lore excerpts, hints, and narrative elements from the game's fictional universe to immerse players and generate anticipation. These materials encouraged exploration without overt spoilers, aligning with the game's puzzle-driven design. Early adoption faced hurdles due to demanding , including a drive—still a novelty in —and at least 4 MB of RAM for Macintosh or 8 MB for Windows, restricting play to users with advanced hardware setups. This limited initial accessibility amid the transition from floppy disks to optical media.

Commercial Performance

Myst achieved unprecedented commercial success shortly after its release, becoming the best-selling of all time and maintaining that position for nearly a decade until it was surpassed by in 2002. By November 2000, the game had sold over 6.3 million copies worldwide. Sales were particularly strong on personal computers, with over 4.3 million units shipped for Windows and Mac platforms in the United States alone from January 1993 through September 1999. Console ports, including versions for platforms like the , PlayStation, and , contributed additional sales, expanding the game's reach beyond the PC market. This milestone underscored Myst's dominance in the emerging CD-ROM era, where it benefited from widespread word-of-mouth promotion, its appeal as a thoughtful gift for non-traditional , and the mid-1990s surge in affordable drives that made high-fidelity experiences accessible to mainstream consumers.

Remakes and Ports

Early Remakes

Following the immense success of the original 1993 release, which relied on pre-rendered static images due to hardware constraints of the era, and its partners pursued early remakes and ports to leverage advancing and console capabilities, aiming to refresh the experience and reach wider audiences beyond PC users. The Myst: Masterpiece Edition, released in 1999 for Macintosh and expanded to Windows in 2000, enhanced the core game while preserving its point-and-click structure. It featured re-rendered visuals in 24-bit color for greater depth and vibrancy, replacing the original's 8-bit palette, along with a remastered soundtrack and updated sound effects to improve immersion. Higher-quality animations and a new introductory flyover sequence of Myst Island were added, while an in-game hint system—accessible via a or Alt+F5—provided contextual guidance, including cursor-based indicators like lightning bolt icons for interactive elements, to assist players without altering puzzles. This edition also ensured broader compatibility across Windows and Mac platforms, facilitating easier access amid evolving operating systems. Console ports from 1994 to 1999 adapted Myst for living-room play, emphasizing controller-friendly interfaces to accommodate non-mouse inputs. The version, released in March 1995 by publisher and developer Micro Cabin, utilized the system's strengths in playback to deliver the game's pre-rendered scenes with smooth transitions and ambient audio. The port, launched in 1995 by Sunsoft and developed by Interprog, maintained fidelity to the original's graphic adventure format while supporting the optional mouse peripheral for precise pointing, alongside standard controller mappings for navigation and interaction. Similarly, the PlayStation edition, released in 1995 in by Softbank and in 1996 in by , incorporated analog stick controls for cursor movement—predating the but enabling intuitive panning across static screens—and button-based actions to streamline puzzle-solving on a TV setup. These adaptations addressed the original's PC-centric design, broadening appeal to console gamers during the mid-1990s hardware boom. In 2000, Cyan released realMyst exclusively for PC, marking a significant evolution with full real-time 3D rendering that supplanted the original's fixed pre-rendered nodes. This remake introduced free-roaming camera controls, allowing players to walk continuously across environments rather than snapping between viewpoints, alongside dynamic lighting effects that varied with time of day and player position for enhanced realism. Supporting higher resolutions up to 1024x768, it also included an exclusive new age called Rime, expanding the narrative without disrupting the core storyline. These early efforts were driven by rapid hardware progress in the late , such as improved 3D accelerators and console CD drives, which enabled to mitigate the original's perceived static quality and target emerging markets like home entertainment systems. By transitioning from constrained 1993 technology to more fluid presentations, the remakes sustained Myst's longevity while introducing it to new generations of players.

Modern Adaptations

In 2018, announced the Myst 25th Anniversary Collection via , which was released digitally in 2019, compiling the original Myst and its sequels with updates optimized for compatibility, ensuring smooth performance on modern PCs while retaining the core pre-rendered aesthetics and point-and-click mechanics. This edition included the Myst Masterpiece Edition alongside a classic mode for the 1993 original, allowing players to toggle between enhanced 24-bit color renders and the authentic low-resolution experience, highlighting the game's historical evolution without altering its foundational design. A pivotal advancement came in 2020–2021 with Cyan's full of Myst, initially launching as a VR-exclusive title on in December 2020 before expanding to PC (with VR support via SteamVR and ), macOS, and platforms in August 2021. The also launched on on September 20, 2022, supporting both flat-screen and optional motion controls. Built from the ground up in 4, this version transformed the static island exploration into a real-time 3D environment with 360-degree free movement, motion controls for intuitive interactions like manipulating books and levers, and immersive audio cues that enhance puzzle-solving in . The supports and includes dynamic weather, improved lighting, and optional puzzle randomization to extend replayability, marking a technological leap in and immersion for VR hardware. Mobile adaptations have sustained Myst's reach since the late 2000s, with the Edition ported to in 2009 and realMyst arriving on Android in 2017, both featuring touch-optimized controls and scalable graphics for smartphones and tablets. A dedicated mobile remaster launched on in February 2023 as a title with in-app purchase for full access, delivering high-fidelity visuals and seamless performance on devices like and , while Android support continued through existing versions. Complementing these, cloud streaming via became available in September 2020 for the Masterpiece and realMyst editions, allowing low-latency play on diverse devices without requiring powerful local hardware. Cyan Worlds has provided ongoing free support for these adaptations, issuing patches for VR-specific bug fixes, performance optimizations, and enhanced accessibility features such as dynamic subtitles for dialogue and ambient sounds, color-blind modes, and customizable interface scaling—additions refined through updates up to 2025, including the major "Age of Rime" expansion that integrates new content with graphical improvements.

Reception and Impact

Critical Response

Upon its 1993 release, Myst garnered widespread acclaim for its groundbreaking immersion and photorealistic graphics, which transported players to richly detailed, otherworldly environments without relying on traditional or elements. Macworld awarded the game 4 out of 5 stars, praising its atmospheric depth and naming it the Best of 1994. Similarly, reviewers highlighted the title's innovative use of pre-rendered visuals and ambient to create a sense of isolation and wonder, setting a new standard for the adventure genre. However, critics also noted drawbacks, including slow pacing that emphasized deliberate exploration over action and a lack of in-game guidance, which often left players reliant on external hints to solve opaque puzzles. The game's critical success translated into numerous accolades, including Computer Game Review and Entertainment's Best of the Year in 1994 for its technical innovation in leveraging capabilities. Myst's enduring influence was further recognized with its 2024 induction into the World Hall of Fame at National Museum of Play, honoring its role in popularizing puzzle-adventure games and driving hardware adoption. Remakes and ports have generally received positive reception for modernizing the experience while preserving the core mystery. The 2000 realMyst remake was lauded for introducing fluid real-time 3D navigation and enhanced visuals, achieving a score of 66. The 2021 VR adaptation, built from the ground up in , earned praise for amplifying the sense of presence and immersion through first-person perspective and spatial audio, with awarding it 4.5 out of 5 stars for revitalizing the classic for contemporary players; in March 2025, an update added the Age of Rime as a new explorable world. That said, some reviews pointed to potential from free locomotion in VR, alongside occasional control quirks in non-VR modes. Across versions, common themes in critical response emphasize Myst's pioneering contributions to environmental and puzzle in the adventure genre, though earlier iterations faced criticism for dated point-and-click controls that felt clunky by modern standards. The 2021 VR edition, in particular, has been celebrated for renewing accessibility through intuitive interactions and high-fidelity graphics, making the game's intricate worlds feel more immediate and explorable than ever.

Cultural Legacy

Myst's influence on the adventure game genre is profound, as it pioneered narrative-driven puzzle adventures that emphasized exploration and environmental storytelling over action, setting a template for immersive worlds without combat or dialogue-heavy interactions. This approach inspired later titles such as The Witness (), which echoed Myst's island-based puzzle mechanics and philosophical undertones in its line-drawing challenges, and Obduction (), developed by Myst's creators at as a direct featuring abducted protagonists unraveling alien landscapes through interconnected puzzles. The game's release also catalyzed the multimedia era in the 1990s, leveraging high-capacity discs for pre-rendered graphics and video, which expanded gaming's artistic scope and accessibility to non-traditional audiences. Myst is widely credited as a primary driver for the adoption of built-in CD-ROM drives in personal computers, serving as a "killer app" that significantly boosted CD-ROM hardware sales during the mid-1990s. The franchise expanded beyond the original game through a series of sequels, tie-in media, and Cyan's ongoing innovations, solidifying Myst's universe as a cornerstone of . Direct sequels include (1997), Myst III: Exile (2001), Myst IV: Revelation (2004), and Myst V: End of Ages (2005), each deepening the lore of the D'ni civilization with increasingly complex Ages and branching narratives. Complementing these were three novels co-authored by and David Wingrove—The Book of Atrus (1995), The Book of Ti'ana (1996), and The Book of D'ni (1997)—which provided backstory on key characters like Atrus and Gehn, while comic adaptations such as Myst: The Book of Black Ships (1997) and a version of The Book of Atrus (2013) extended the visual storytelling. Cyan evolved the series with Myst Online: Uru Live (2007), an ambitious multiplayer exploration of D'ni caverns that, after commercial challenges, persists as a fan-supported project, and later titles like Obduction (2016) and (2023), which blend legacy elements with modern 3D environments. Myst achieved cultural milestones through institutional recognition and scholarly analysis, including its acquisition by the (MoMA) in 2012 as a pivotal work in history, celebrated for its immersive design that created a "mystical, religious-like " via seamless transitions and atmospheric progression. Academic studies have examined its role in fostering immersion, with analyses highlighting how the game's narrative structure makes virtual s feel embodied, influencing discussions on learning and player agency in . Fan communities remain vibrant, with active projects recreating Ages in tools like Unity, and speedrunning scenes on platforms like Twitch and , where records for versions like the PSP port are regularly challenged, preserving the game's puzzle-solving legacy. Beyond entertainment, has found broader applications in , where its puzzles promote problem-solving, creative thinking, and ; for instance, schools integrated the game in 2005 curricula to enhance literacy achievements and imaginative real-world application of concepts. The soundtrack, composed by , contributed to a classical revival in game music, with its ambient, organ-like themes inspiring orchestral arrangements and live performances, such as the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Orchestra's 2015 rendition and inclusions in concerts, as well as recent programs featuring Myst scores alongside music.

References

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  3. https://cyan.com/games/myst/
  4. https://www.fastcompany.com/90240345/myst-at-25-how-it-changed-gaming-created-addicts-and-made-enemies
  5. https://www.filfre.net/2020/02/myst-or-the-drawbacks-to-success/
  6. https://www.museumofplay.org/games/myst/
  7. https://cyan.com/company/about-cyan/
  8. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/164918
  9. https://www.mobygames.com/game/1223/myst/
  10. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/89467-myst-1993/faqs/20692
  11. https://mocagh.org/broderbund/myst-manual-mac.pdf
  12. https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/10024/881909/2/Tuhkanen_Marja.pdf
  13. https://waytoomany.games/2020/05/21/interview-with-rand-miller-co-creator-of-myst/
  14. https://www.gog.com/en/game/myst_masterpiece_edition
  15. https://cyan.com/the-myst-trilogy/
  16. https://dni.fandom.com/wiki/The_Art
  17. https://mystjourney.com/myst/ages/
  18. http://ivyallie.com/myst/tiana/
  19. https://cyan.com/games/classic-cyan-games/
  20. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63351/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-myst
  21. https://www.courant.com/1994/08/22/players-find-clues-and-lose-themselves-in-this-cd-rom-computer-game/
  22. https://gamestudies.org/1001/articles/pearce_celia
  23. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/myst-linking-book/all
  24. https://www.inverse.com/gaming/myst-cyan-worlds-oral-history
  25. https://mystjourney.com/soundtracks/
  26. https://www.yourclassical.org/story/2014/07/31/robyn-miller-myst-top-score
  27. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/audio/music-from-myst-iii-exile---the-evolution-of-a-videogame-soundtrack
  28. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/sep/27/myst-creator-keeps-the-dream-alive/
  29. https://howardbesser.name/impact/w96/CD-reviews/bowers.html
  30. https://mystjourney.com/myst/making-of/
  31. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198021-myst/data
  32. https://mocagh.org/broderbund/myst-hintbook.pdf
  33. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Myst
  34. https://fortune.com/2016/03/14/myst-creators-explore-virtual-reality-with-obduction/
  35. https://web.archive.org/web/20050525124359/http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/most_influential/p14.html
  36. https://web.archive.org/web/20000302112243/http://pc.ign.com/news/11728.html
  37. https://store.steampowered.com/app/63660/Myst_Masterpiece_Edition/
  38. https://www.mobygames.com/game/1253/myst-masterpiece-edition/
  39. https://www.neoseeker.com/mystme/faqs/58311-myst-b.html
  40. https://retroachievements.org/game/16839
  41. https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/87308-myst
  42. https://segaretro.org/Myst
  43. https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2024/01/23/myst/
  44. https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2022/06/13/a-look-back-at-the-various-ports-of-myst/
  45. http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/myst/
  46. https://cyan.com/realmyst/
  47. https://adventuregamers.com/games/realmyst
  48. https://dni.fandom.com/wiki/RealMyst
  49. https://ivyallie.com/myst/remaking/
  50. https://www.pcgamer.com/the-myst-25th-anniversary-collection-will-bring-the-full-series-to-windows-10/
  51. https://cyan.com/docs/were-the-graphics-and-or-sounds-updated-are-the-games-now-in-hd-or-4k/
  52. https://www.roadtovr.com/myst-vr-remake-pc-vr-release-date/
  53. https://www.meta.com/experiences/myst/2719294624823942/
  54. https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/26/14357340/myst-game-android-announced-mobile-release-date
  55. https://toucharcade.com/2023/02/09/myst-mobile-iphone-ipad-now-available/
  56. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/gfn-announcements/22/396245/updated-geforce-now-library-updates-september-20/2842970/
  57. https://cyan.com/2024/10/28/myst-patch-notes-2-0-0/
  58. https://www.gematsu.com/2025/03/myst-remake-age-of-rime-update-launches-march-20-for-pc-and-quest-later-for-xbox-series-and-xbox-one/
  59. https://medium.com/picking-up-the-pieces/two-histories-of-myst-8b37e1504f9e
  60. https://www.mobygames.com/game/1223/myst/reviews/
  61. https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-to-play-Myst-when-it-was-first-released
  62. https://backloggd.com/reviews/everyone/eternity/liked/myst/
  63. https://www.museumofplay.org/press-release/world-video-game-hall-of-fame-inductees-revealed/
  64. https://www.metacritic.com/game/realmyst/
  65. https://uk.pcmag.com/vr-1/135539/myst-for-pc
  66. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/youve-been-asking-and-weve-been-listening-myst-remake-adds-a-whole-new-world-to-the-classic-adventure-one-originally-introduced-in-another-overhaul-from-25-years-ago/
  67. https://www.roadtovr.com/myst-vr-quest-review/
  68. https://www.adventuregamers.com/article/myst-2021
  69. https://adventuregamers.com/article/myst-2021
  70. https://www.polygon.com/2016/8/25/12644808/obduction-review-myst-cyan-PC
  71. http://birb.uk/uni-myst-witness.html
  72. https://grantland.com/features/looking-back-game-myst-20th-anniversary/
  73. https://mystonline.com/
  74. https://cyan.com/games/firmament/
  75. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230601765_6
  76. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4160466.stm
  77. https://adventuregamers.com/news/myst_teaches_young_students_to_be_creative
  78. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrjs9QiUenI
  79. https://www.rpgfan.com/2021/11/22/rhythm-encounter-72-game-music-concerts/
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