Myst Series

The Myst games are an interesting series of games. I can tell you that I've played just about every game in this series...except for Uru.

I will also say with brutal frankness that I had to cheat and look at strategy guides and walkthroughs on every game in this series. Those games have some ridiculously hard puzzles at some point. Still, there are parts to each game that are very much worth the effort.

Is there anyone here who has played Myst and its sequels?

Myst was fantastic. My favourites are Riven and Revelations, with Exile a close third.

Never played V though. Uru was kinda good (Teledahn, Path Of The Shell, particularly Anohay, Kadish Tolesa) but I thought the D'Ni level was absolutely horrible, and the fireflies level was even worse. So much of the game was clearly unfinished.

Myst was... kinda blah, if I'm honest. Not enough plot, or atmosphere. Connected atmosphere, I mean.

I've played and beaten all the Myst games except for the online Uru stuff. Had to use guides on all of them, though (although after going through the original a couple of times I can now beat it from memory). While most of the series' story has been wrapped up, I kind of wish they'd make one more game as an epilogue.

Also, is the fourth book ever going to freaking come out???

Myst is awesome - in fact, I'm pretty sure it was the means by which I got to TV Tropes. I've beaten all of the games except for MOUL (tech issues are getting in the way of beating Minkata) and, kind of, Riven. :D

...I wish more fantasy worlds were like the Ages. :(

Played through 1-5, Myst and Riven on a really old computer we didn't get around to throwing out, and I'm currently working my way through Uru: Complete Chronicles on Steam. There's just something amazing about this series, and the makers never really seemed to just try to cash in. When the games were farmed out to someone else with 3 and 4, they tried to make a game loyal to the first two. Myst V was kind of strange, but as it was technically a sequel to Uru, which I am only now getting around to playing, I guess that's to be expected.

Myst V was kind of odd even as a sequel to Uru...

I feel like I should leave this here. ^_^

I have to agree, Myst V just really felt weird and out of place. Let's see...Yeesha is now much older and not as you know her. Escher seemed to be a mix of Sirrius and Achenar, and he was practically a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere. Yeah, I sit there and wonder "Who is this guy and what does he have to do with anything?" Well, I was a little surprised that they put a Myst book into the game. Then again, maybe the developers realized that Myst was becoming increasingly irrelevant to the franchise as it went on and decided to put it in there one final time. I was surprised Atrus at the end of the game didn't say something like "And now the ending has finally and truly been written!"

I frankly thought it was weird that Gehn got trapped in Riven and...was never brought up again. Sure, Yeesha did mention that he's still trapped and has never gotten out, but that's it, really. Of course, that could qualify as Fridge Horror, because Gehn is probably experiencing an And I Must Scream Fate Worse than Death being trapped in whatever's in that book for the rest of his life.

The Gathered shall Tread
The TV Tropes Thread

I really wish that they'd tried to conclude the Myst series separately from Uru, or if not at least sort of quietly abandoned it. It didn't really end the series properly, as you said, simply because it had drifted so far from where it started that the story they were telling no longer had anything to do with Atrus or Myst at all.

Though, to be honest, I think I preferred the Myst stories over the Uru stories, anyway.

I completely ignore Uru and Myst V, not because they're bad per se, but because I can't get over the fact that they're set in modern times, whereas the previous four mysts were set in the 19th century. I feel they kinda lost that fantastical vibe because of that. Seeing traffic cones in ages really pulled me out of the experience.

I found the traffic cones quite haunting in Gareeshaan (sp? — you know the one). You've got this high technology, and ancient forests, and then some strangers turned up, walked the paths you walked with the intentions that others should follow them, then they were washed away.

Ur U is like, half a good game with terrible controls, and half blank canvas. The mushroom level, Kadish Tolesa and Ahonay. The rest is either mostly mostly empty, or their incredibly tedious (the garden worlds made me want to scream).

I've not played V, but it might turn up cheap on Steam or something.

Got realMyst and Riven from the old GOG summer sale to try out. Money well spent.

http://www.starryexpanse.com/what-is-starry-expanse/

Thought this deserves some attention, although the project has been inactive for a while.

Also this

edited 15th Jul '13 5:27:22 AM by GiantRobots

I miss these games. They're the standard I hold all other adventure games to, and nothing really measures up. There are other good games, but they're inevitably mediated by some anthropomorphic cartoon animal which hand holds you all the way through while cracking jokes. I liked the exploration in 'Myst', I liked the expansive quality to the games, and I liked the way you observed and adapted various systems.

Sometimes they were bogus rubbish (I don't know how well the Selenic Age from Myst or the age with all the nuns in Revelations hold up, but I don't think they really do) but they could be pretty damn good when they wanted to be, which was often.

Favrourite ages? Least liked?

I can't help but feel like that's a shot at the owl from King's Quest you're taking there.

I like Selenitic a lot, actually. I'm not sure I would count it as one of my favourites, but the puzzles based on signal detection and sound patterns were an interesting theme. The optional puzzle at the beginning of Revelation ("Try adjusting the phase!") was kind of a development of that, I thought.

Serenia (the age in Revelation with all the nuns) was rubbish though. Sorry, no, souljars and bodysnatching don't fit into a Myst game in any way. :P

I'm not sure what my favourite Age is. Spire is pretty high on the list, but so are Riven, Amateria, Stoneship, Channelwood, and Kadish Tolesa. And I'm really annoyed that the Torus age never made it into any of the games. >:P

And yet Serenia — if I'm thinking of the correct Age; the Age of Revelation that had the floating bubbles and the entry in the the dream world — is one of my favourite Ages in the Myst Games (noting, admittedly, that I haven't played URU). Indeed, I very much enjoyed the Soul Jar and Body Snatching business. :P

For me, the elements in the series that I felt didn't fit were the portals and the Bahro magic encountered in End of Ages.

As to the Ages that I least liked... Hmm. It's been a while, so the only ones that stand out offhand are the Age in the first Myst that involved directing a mine cart, and, if I may single out a puzzle, the piano keyboard in the same game (I'm terrible at distinguishing one tone from another, I fear, and thus such puzzles are a recurring bane to me).

@Nicknacks: With regards to more games like Myst, am I correct in presuming that you're looking specifically for adventure games with similar gameplay and viewed from a similar perspective — thus excluding games like Gabriel Knight and the upcoming Mœbius? (A thread related to that last, since we don't seem to have a page for it at time of writing.) If so, perhaps you might find something to your taste in this list. ^_^

edited 17th Jul '13 7:35:43 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

Well, there's the Journeyman Project, but it has a wisecracking sidekick. Who isn't an animal. There's also the Aura games, but they aren't that great. Schizm as well, but it has a stupid-hard puzzle that you have to do twice.

Oh, I don't like the portals and Bahro-magic much either. :P I like to treat Uru and End of Ages as a separate sequel series, they've diverged so far from the original games in plot and tone.

And Esher made me want to shoot him. STOP TALKING AND LET ME GET ON WITH IT ALREADY.

There's also the... is it called the Submachine series? It's been a while since I played it.

edited 17th Jul '13 9:25:35 PM by Noaqiyeum

OH! Used to want this when I was a kid, but I never got the chance. That's for reminding me.

Oh, and Mystery Of Time And Space, for the old school, and VideoGame.The Room, for the new school.

Here's something I've been wondering about, and figured it'd be worth discussing...

How would you make a modern version of Myst? Not like a remake, just a new Myst game. Utilizing all the technology games have today, how would you envision Myst?

The Witness, the next game from Jonathan Blow seems to be aiming towards that.

I think as far as interfaces go it would be a lot like Revelation. Only more so. More immersion. More surreal. DOF shifting was beautiful.

My favorites are Revelation, Exile, and Uru. I love this series to death. It is the best of the things.

I just wish Revelation and Exile would get a digital release.

Oh hey I never posted the news in here! Guess what Cyan has been up to. ^_^ [happy dance]