The myst developer is one of the most polarizing games in history, loved and hated in equal measure. It was an adventure game that strayed from the norm by not having combat, and it was developed in a time when piracy was still a serious issue.
It was also the first game ever published on CD-ROM. And while the Mac version was popular, its publisher Broderbund knew that the game’s real potential lay with Windows, where non-gamers and other new demographics were eager to see how a multimedia presentation could work on their bare-bones computers.
Luckily, Cyan’s slideshow visuals were possible even under Windows’s sluggish graphics libraries, and Apple had just ported its QuickTime video system to Microsoft’s platform. So Myst’s cult following was assured.
But what made it so successful? The most obvious answer is that it was an exciting-looking, goal-less software toy aimed at children. But it was also the game’s CD-ROM distribution, and the fact that it was a good-looking product that worked on almost any computer.
In fact, it was so much a hit that 200,000 copies of the game were sold on the Mac in its first six months of release. This number is surprisingly high, given that it was published on a relatively small market.
This was enough to make it a critical and commercial success. It won numerous awards, and it was a big hit among gamers. Its sales soared to the point that Myst became an international sensation.
The myst developer was founded in 1987 by the Miller brothers, who had been working with their parents to create hypertext and other virtual worlds for their kids’ projects. They had been experimenting with HyperCard, a Mac authoring program that allowed them to write games in pictures rather than text, and it was this technology which provided their inspiration for Myst.
Myst, the first of what would become a series of games about an explorer named Atrus who travels to other worlds and assists them in solving puzzles, began life as a simple toy for children. But the game’s creators took it in a different direction when they began designing it as an adventure game, and it is this approach that has earned it the reputation as one of the most challenging games of all time.
It’s not easy to get into, but once you start, it’s an experience that genuinely rewards the effort. If you’re patient and don’t mind putting in some time trying to figure out how all this machinery hangs together, it can be an enjoyable challenge, particularly if you like mechanical puzzles or puzzles in general.
But it’s also not for everyone. Many people don’t like to spend too much time in an environment, and if you don’t have the patience to explore all that Myst has to offer, you may be left frustrated.
That’s why, when Cyan conceived of a Myst “redo” several years ago, a team of fans pushed them to abandon the concept entirely. Then a few years later, the team decided to give it another go, and now, 20 years after the original, they’ve re-imagined the Myst world as a fully navigable 3D one. This is the first time Myst has been remade since the early 1990s, and it looks set to be just as memorable – if not more so. the myst condo