Designed to take advantage of the enhanced storage capabilities of the CD-ROM format with its detailed, full-screen, computer-rendered environments, Myst quickly became a showpiece for new computer owners, who used it to show off their rigs the way stereo enthusiasts do with Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. There’s no question, however, that it’s one of the best-selling video games of all time. Perhaps because of this middle ground it treads, Myst has gone down in history as a divisive game, with critics and players split on whether it gave new life to adventure games or suffocated the genre. Full-motion video only showed up to depict environmental animations resulting from a player’s actions, and live actors only showed up around a handful of mysterious artifacts that tied into the player’s ultimate goals. Myst simply made the genre more accessible to the masses than the often unforgiving works of the ’80s had been its use of “Siliwood” style green-screened movies was sparing (to say the least). In every meaningful sense, it embraced the rules and design of adventure games. Its austere worlds were loaded with puzzles and mysteries, and players could absorb as much narrative and backstory as they liked while journeying through its unique environments. Despite its uncluttered interface and simple interface design, there was no mistaking what genre Myst belonged to. Myst debuted in 1993 for Macintosh and PC and took what was, at the time, a radically minimalist approach to the adventure format. If The Secret of Monkey Island represents a high point for classic point-and-click adventure gaming, and Star Wars: Rebel Assault points to the genre’s bend toward “interactive movie” experiences once CD-ROM technology came along, Cyan Worlds’s Myst (and its updated version, realMyst ) could be seen as a midpoint between the two.
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