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Myst is a graphic adventure computer game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., a Spokane, Washington based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in 1991 and released it on September 24, 1993.

Myst was so successful that it sparked a new genre of computer game, the first-person adventure-puzzle game. The games that followed this genre are often referred to by both fans and non-fans as "Myst clones".

Accomplishments

Myst has sold over 6 million copies and held the title of best-selling computer game of all time throughout much of the 1990s. Its popularity led to the following:

Four sequels: Riven
, Myst III: Exile
, Myst IV: Revelation
, and Myst V: End of Ages
.
Two remakes: Myst Masterpiece Edition, and realMYST.
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
, and its expansion packs Uru: To D'ni and Uru: The Path of the Shell, are hybrid single-player games set in the Myst universe but in the modern day. They were later released in a single compilation called Myst Uru: Complete Chronicles. An online version of these games somewhat similar to a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) called Uru Live was planned and developed, but it was cancelled a short time after it went live, after a short-lived online beta. It was brought back in a limited capacity under the name Untìl Uru.
Three derivative novels, written by the Miller brothers together with David Wingrove and published by Hyperion, entitled Myst: The Book of Atrus, Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, and Myst: The Book of D'ni (with two more releases coming up, one of which will be Myst: The Book of Marrim).
Two comic books published by Dark Horse called Myst: The Book of Black Ships. A series of four was originally planned, but Cyan cancelled the series after issue #1 due to disputes over artistic license taken by Dark Horse.

Development

The Myst creative team consisted of the brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, together with sound designer Chris Brandkamp and graphical artist Chuck Carter. Robyn Miller designed the Ages of Myst Island, Stoneship and Channelwood; Carter was responsible for the Selenitic and Mechanical Ages, as well as D'ni (K'Veer).

The game was created on Apple Macintosh computers, principally Macintosh Quadras. Each scene was modelled and rendered in StrataVision 3D, with some additional modelling in Macromedia MacroModel. Each image was edited and enhanced using Photoshop V1.0. ILM's John Knoll released a Photoshop Plugin to lead artist Chuck Carter so as to read PICS animation format files in filmstrip form which helped with some of the animation editing and color correction. Video editing, compression and compositing were performed in Adobe Premiere. The original Macintosh version was constructed in Hypercard. Each "Age" was 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 (XCMDs and XFCNs in HyperCard terminology), mainly Simplex HyperTint and Apple's QuickTime XCMD. Images were stored as 8-bit PICT resources with custom color palettes and QuickTime still image compression. Animated elements were QuickTime movies with Cinepak compression. The game was ported to Microsoft Windows in 1994.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Myst consists of a first-person journey through an interactive world. The player moves the character by clicking at the outside border of the game display and can interact with specific objects on some screens by clicking or dragging them. Unlike many computer games,there are no enemies or any threat of "dying", although you can lose the game at the end. The only competition is the player versus the puzzles presented in the game.

To complete the game, the player must discover and follow clues to be transported via books to several Ages, each of which is a self-contained mini-world. After traveling through each of the Ages of Myst, Selenitic, Stoneship, Mechanical, and Channelwood, the player would return to the starting point of the game, Myst Island, with all the information necessary to complete the game.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Myst ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Myst; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Video games - Myst

Accomplishments

Development

Gameplay

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