Myst

Presentation

Myst was sold to 14 million specimens and held the title of video game more sold of all times during most of the years 1990. Its success generated:

Four continuations: Riven, Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, and Myst V: End off Old which encloses the history of the series.
Two republications: realMYST and Myst: The Apogee
Uru: Old Beyond Myst: a play directed in the beginning towards the massively multijouor, but this mode fell to water fault from participants. The mono-player mode takes again the elements of the universe of Myst, but at our time. Reopening of an on-line version via Gametap at the end of 2006 - at the beginning of 2007.
Four books derived from the play, write by the Miller brothers using David Wingrove and published by Hyperion: Myst, the book of Atrus , Myst 2, the book of Ti' ana , Myst 3, the book of nor and Myst 4, the book of Marrim (publication during 2006).
Two cartoons, published by Dark Horse. In the beginning, a series of approximately 4 numbers was envisaged, but Cyan stopped the production after the second data base, because in particular of the freedoms taken by the authors as for the universe of Myst.

Myst is at the origin of a new kind of video game, Myst-like, a play with the first nobody halfway between the Jeu of adventure and the play of reflection. This characteristic makes that he was regarded a long time by the critics as a UFO among the video games.

Development

Left in 1993, it was one of the rare plays initially available Mac (1993) and then on PC (1994).
It was conceived by Rand and Robyn Miller.
For reasons of budget, the Miller brothers incarnate themselves in the play the characters of Sirrus (Robyn), Achenar and Atrus (Rand). At the time of its exit, principal publicity was the word of mouth.

Myst was like a revolution in the world of the video game: images precalculated in 3D, 256 colors At the time, it required the most powerful configurations (computer 486DX 25 MHz and 4 Mo of RAM). It is however impossible to make it turn on a Macintosh recent because it is based on Hypercard. Myst was one of the first plays to being published on CD-ROM.

Development team

Designers : Rand Miller, Robyn Miller
Graphics: Chuck Casing, Robyn Miller
Animation: Chuck Casing, Robyn Miller
Sound: Chris Brandkamp
Musical Score : Producing Robyn Miller
: Laurie Strand
Assistant Product Manager : Matt O' Hara
Lead To program : Grace Kim
Programmer: Ben Ceschi
Programming Windows 95: Scott Henderson
Programming Project Lead : Launch Groody
Image Processing : Wendy Johnson
Sound Processing : Tom Hays
Sound Direction: : Tom Rettig

Synopsis

Myst is a play with the first nobody, i.e. the player with the same vision of the explored universe as the character that it incarnates. Displacement is carried out using the mouse, while clicking at the place one one wishes to go. The player can also interact with certain objects while clicking above or by trailing them. There is neither enemy here, neither death threat, nor range over . The only possible opponents with the progression of the player are the enigma S met during the play, which are more or less difficult to solve. The player must come to end from all the enigmas to have the necessary informations to finish the play. The least patient will be able to consult the total solution available in many versions on Internet to finish the play in a few minutes (it is possible to finish the play in 2 minutes, while going directly at the end. For that it should well be known how there to go, therefore to have already finished the play, or to have the solution.) One of the aspects of the play which largely contributed to its popularity is the anonymity of the character whom the player incarnates. In the original version (in English), this character does not even have a sex (the French translations will make a man however of it). This anonymity makes it possible to the player to be identified with the character and to be immersed even more deeply in the play and its intrigue.

In the play, one feels the influence that Jules Verne had on the 2 creators, in particular the book the mysterious Island . According to the creators, this book at the same time inspired the mysterious atmosphere of the play and its name.

Intrigue

During all the play, the player incarnates a mysterious character, that the creators of the play named “the Foreigner”. This one then discovers in obscure circumstances a strange entitled book Myst , which describes an island with a high degree of accuracy. In the first page is an animated panel, like a screen, which shows an outline of the described island. In concerning, the player is téléporté on the island of Myst, which it is then brought to explore.

The player finds himself then only in a completely unknown universe, and it does not have any idea of its objective. The island being extended little, the player will quickly find a library with in particular 2 books of color: a blue and a red. These two books resemble the first book ( Myst ), each one with a screen on the first page, but it seem they to miss many pages, and the quality of the image and sound of the screen are very bad. In each screen, the player can see and hear a character who begs it to bring pages of the same color to him that the book. The character of the fore-mentioned red book Sirrus and that of the blue book Achenar; they affirm being the wire of called Atrus, which proves later to be the owner of the island of Myst, and equipped with the capacity to write books which make it possible to transport that which touches it with the place described inside.

By continuing the exploration of the island, the player will discover that the island of Myst in fact is connected to other islands (called Âges ) which it can join via these famous pounds provided with a screen, called books of connection. On each island is a blue page and a red page, that the player can pay in the library of Myst to restick them with the book of the same color. The more the player resticks pages, the more the communication with the character corresponding is easy.

The brothers will be released at the end of the 6th page; but which to help: Sirrus or Achenar? The various Ages are truffles of indices on the true nature of each of the two brothers, to help the player to make his choice.

Ages

Progressively of his exploration, the player discovers books of connection which, as their name indicates it, make it possible to create a bond towards the world describes inside. The Art of the Writing comes from the Of nor , an old civilization which lived in a large underground cave.

The play includes/understands the following Ages:

the island of Myst , the starting age ( Myst Island )
the Age of the wood footbridge ( Old Channelwood )
the Age of stone boat ( Old Stoneship )
the Age selenitic ( Old Selenitic )
the mechanical Age ( Old Mechanical )
the Age of Rhyme ( Rhyme Old ), only present as no-claims bonus in realMyst
K' Veer , which proves to be only one small portion of Of nor itself.

For more information on the Ages of Myst, to see the page Ages of Myst

Bearings

3DO, Philips TDCI, Jaguar CD: bearing identical to the original version left on Mac.
Amiga: because of the limited capacities of the Amiga, this bearing suffers from graphics and a band its in on this side original version.
Mega CD: a version Mega CD was envisaged by Sega but was cancelled because of the capacities limited of Mega CD.
Saturn, PlayStation: bearing identical to the original version, however the graphic resolution was re-examined with the fall.
Windows: the oldest bearing, identical to the original version left on Mac, however the sound quality of the latter is higher to him.

Remakes

Myst: the Apogee

Myst: the Apogee is a remasterized version of Myst, with images real colors (million colors) instead of 256, a better sound environment (sounds and music), and in more one assistance system and charts.

realMyst

realMyst: interactive 3D edition is a version in 3 dimensions of Myst. Many improvements were made by reports/ratios to the original version:

the graphs are returned by the engine 3D in real-time Plasma which will be improved to be useful then in Uru: Old beyond Myst.
within sight of what precedes, navigation is made much more intuitive and easy.
of the effects of climate like storms or rising/sunsets was added.
some changes minor on the island of Myst like the addition of a tomb stone for Ti' ana , made it possible to adjust the gameplay with the novels derived and the series Myst.
the age of Rime is added and inserted in the scenario.

realMyst was developed by Cyan, Inc. and Sunsoft , and published by Ubisoft . He is then regarded as some like a test for Uru: Old beyond Myst, which was at the time still under development.

This version was marketed only in the United States: a European version, named Myst Dimension was envisaged, but finally did not leave.

Remake PSP

Published by Midway and left in 2006, this remake intended for the portable console of Sony includes/understands old the Rime which was absent from original version (but already seen in realMyst ).

Remake Pocket PC

Developed by Mean Hamster Software, Inc, version dedicated to the Pocket PC.

Remake Nintendo DS

Published by Midway and envisaged for November 2007, this version should comprise entirely remasterized vidéos and sound effects. The play should also benefit from the two screens of the console and be entirely playable with the stylet. The age Rime will be included there.

Parodies

Pyst made use of the success of Myst like springboard. This satirical version of the universe of Myst was carried out by John Goodman. Although it was only about one kind of diaporama of screens of Myst, the play was enough popular to generate “Pyst: Special Edition” which contained a préversion of “Driven: the sequel to Pyst” (instead of “Riven: the sequel to Myst”, driven wanting to say “led”), which forever considering the day since the editor, Parroty Interactive , went bankrupt.

Mylk , produced by Bart Gold (version PC by Wayne Twitchell), is a parody based on the dairy products and other food products (milk results in milk).

External bonds

Official site of Cyan, Inc.
Official site of the series Myst
Web site of Ubisoft for the community Myst

Simple: Myst

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