Myst at 25: How it changed gaming, created addicts, and made enemies

Post by phillco » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #42

sdegutis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I was like 9-12 at the time I played Myst and I got maybe 10 minutes into the game and spend countless hours trying to find something I couldn't find. Really frustrated me and made me hate the game. I think I eventually found it or figured it out, but the very next "clue" or whatever was even harder and after a while I just gave up on the game completely.

Myst wasn’t actually a very good game for this reason. A lot of the ‘puzzles’ were just clicking every pixel on every screen of the island to find some hidden thing. Riven was a good game though, with challenging but fair puzzles. It’s basically like how Super Mario 3 is one of the greatest games of all time, but the only real was to beat the original was by cheating since the last level was an invisible maze with no…

Post by jfk13 » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

geerlingguy wrote: post #62

wmeredith wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I think you were just too young. Sure there were outliers, but it was targeted at an older gaming crowd.

We played it as a family; one of us would take notes, another would be 'at the controls', and the rest would be observing and helping solve the puzzles. Social gaming back before everyone had their own pocket-sized computer :-)

Post by fjsolwmv » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

lgeorget wrote: post #15

wycy wrote: post #11

I don't know if I was just too young at the time, but I had Myst/Riven as a kid and never even began to understand what the objective was or what I was supposed to do. Aside from a little bit of walking back and forth, I don't think I accomplished a single thing in game. Given the article references 6 and 8 year olds playing, maybe I was just a dumb kid.

Or just not patient enough? Note that the kids from the article were guided by their parent in the game. My experience is not very different from yours. I remember going back and forth on the first island and playing with the different puzzles. I was just minding my own business in the game and imagining my own story without taking any interest in the game scenario.

Post by mikepurvis » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 7:52 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #69

gdubs wrote: post #19

I vividly recall playing Myst, headphones on, snow falling outside, in a time before cellphones and (for our family) high speed internet. Cliche as it is, I felt transported. At times I felt spooked. I also remember getting a hold of every magazine I could that went into the making of Myst, transfixed by the creators’ sketches and drawings. Few cultural artifacts — not limited to games — have had as lasting an impact…

For me, this is where memories of Myst are best left. At the time I loved it, but in the early 90s one was willing to forgive a game a great many short-comings in sympathy to the state of modern games technology. Myst was very much “state of the art of the possible at the time”. I’d argue that much of the appeal of 90s Myst for some was that such a world could be made at all, let alone be a reasonably competent adven…

Post by illlogic2 » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #69

gdubs wrote: post #19

I vividly recall playing Myst, headphones on, snow falling outside, in a time before cellphones and (for our family) high speed internet. Cliche as it is, I felt transported. At times I felt spooked. I also remember getting a hold of every magazine I could that went into the making of Myst, transfixed by the creators’ sketches and drawings. Few cultural artifacts — not limited to games — have had as lasting an impact…

For me, this is where memories of Myst are best left. At the time I loved it, but in the early 90s one was willing to forgive a game a great many short-comings in sympathy to the state of modern games technology. Myst was very much “state of the art of the possible at the time”. I’d argue that much of the appeal of 90s Myst for some was that such a world could be made at all, let alone be a reasonably competent adven…