History VideoGame / Myst

There are also several tie-in novels, authored by the Miller brothers themselves[[note]]Well... it should be noted that while the by lines say Rand (and Robyn, for the first one) Miller ''with'' David Wingrove, it would be more accurate to say that the novels were written by David Wingrove under the Millers' supervision. The fact that by the third book Cyan was too busy with Riven to really rein him in is something of a sore spot among the fans[[/note]]. ''Myst: The Book of Atrus'' tells the story of Atrus's early life with his grandmother Anna and his father Gehn. ''Myst: The Book of Ti'ana'' tells the story of the downfall of the D'ni (so this takes place before the Book of Atrus). ''Myst: The Book of D'ni'' tells of Atrus's attempts to find D'ni survivors and rebuild the D'ni civilization. And finally, ''Myst: The Book of Marrim'', which seems to be permanently mired in DevelopmentHell, though a preview chapter was released with the European Special Edition of Myst V. A fan-produced webcomic adaptation of ''The Book of Atrus'' was being made for a while and showed promise, but updates eventually [[ScheduleSlip stopped as the author got a job]]. And that was before host site Website/SmackJeeves went under, though backups of the published pages can [[https://www.deviantart.com/larkinheather/gallery/36007726/myst-comic still be found at the artist's DeviantArt]] and the [[https://archive.org/details/smackjeeves-116685 Jeeves archive.]]

* CallForward: With a careful look at the brothers' 3D-rendered models in the 2021 remake, [[spoiler: particularly in their freedom endings]], you can see their clothes now correspond to what they're depicted wearing in ''[[VideoGame/MystIVRevelation]]''.

* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence: For whatever reason, you aren't able to carry two pages at once. If you want to bring back both pages, you're forced to go to every age twice as a result.

* BeautifulVoid: TropeNamer. The island itself is a setting that lacks a background and supporting characters, in a deliberately jarring fashion. You've arrived AfterTheEnd, and the only people you can interact with are trapped in books. Nothing will jump out at you, nothing will attack you, and nothing is going to hurt you. But it still feels oddly tense walking around the empty areas, simply because you see what once was and wonder what may have caused it all to happen.

Enter ''Myst'', a puzzle-heavy first-person {{adventure game}} which [[FollowTheLeader sparked off a new sub-genre]]. Developed by the brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1993 who took inspiration from ''Literature/TlonUqbarOrbisTertius'' and ''Literature/TheMysteriousIsland''. The game became an unexpected hit, mainly due to its eerie atmosphere and (for the time) outstanding graphics.[[note]]The passage of time has masked this somewhat, but ''Myst''[='=]s graphics were ''revolutionary''. Look at the page picture. Now consider that the rest of the computer game world was still doing 16-bit.[[/note]] It was swiftly followed by a host of imitators, most of which are decidedly inferior to the original.

''Myst'' is famous for its mind-bending logic puzzles and lack of character interaction - most of the games feature only a handful of {{NPC}}s and very little dialogue. Unsurprisingly, adventure fans are heavily divided over the merits of the game, with most players falling firmly into the 'love' or 'hate' camps. It has even been accused of [[GenreKiller helping to hasten the 'death' of adventure games]], even though many gamers were introduced to the genre by ''Myst'' and its sequels.

** Versions have been released for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS, [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable PSP]], UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS, and iPhone.

** A remake built on Unreal Engine was released for use with the UsefulNotes/OculusQuest on December 10th, 2020. A version that supports other PCVR headsets and standard monitor play was made available on August 26, 2021, alongside releases for the Macintosh, UsefulNotes/{{Xbox|One}} [[UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS consoles]] and [=iOS=].

** A remake built on Unreal Engine was released for use with the UsefulNotes/OculusQuest on December 10th, 2020. A version that supports other PCVR headsets and standard monitor play was made available on August 26, 2021, alongside releases for the Macintosh and the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox|One}} [[UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS consoles]].

* LostInTransmission: The red and blue books which contain Sirrus and Achenar respectfully are full of color-coded static interference. As a result, communication with the two of them is difficult, since their speech is frequently cut off by the static blocking them. If you open the books without inserting any of the pages, you just get this static and nothing else. The more pages you return to the books, the clearer the picture becomes. By the time you've got every page but the last one, their transmissions are much clearer, allowing them to give much more detail about what's going on.

* UncertainDoom: The game doesn't make a point clear during the GoldenEnding, but it seems as if the chances of survival are not very high. [[spoiler:Upon freeing Atrus and returning to the library, the player sees scorch marks where the trap books for Sirrus and Achenar used to be. But it isn't made clear whether burning those books killed the brothers, or merely made them suffer a FateWorseThanDeath. A future game in the series would later retcon it to be the latter.]]

* BittersweetEnding: In the GoldenEnding. [[spoiler:Atrus is freed in the end, albeit in the knowledge that most of his books have been destroyed and his sons have turned to evil. He mentions that [[SequelHook an even greater foe awaits. Meanwhile there is no way for you to get back home, the only person you can talk to is constantly busy, and the only thing to do is walk around the same five places you've been wandering around for hours.]]]]

* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler:The game doesn't make it clear whether Atrus actually killed his own sons at the end of the game or not. The player sees scorch marks where their book traps were previously sitting, but it isn't made obvious whether burning those books killed his children along with it too, or merely made them suffer a FateWorseThanDeath.]] A future game in the series [[spoiler:officially retcons it to be the latter.]]

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Both Sirrus and Achenar claim that their brother is wicked, and that the other is responsible for their father trapping them both in the red and blue books when he couldn't decide which one of them was more guilty. In actually, the brother who is truly wicked is [[spoiler:both of them. Should you listen to either brother, you'll swap places with them and end up in the same AndIMustScream situation that they do once they tear out the pages from the red or blue book]].
* BittersweetEnding: In the GoldenEnding. [[spoiler:Atrus is freed in the end, albeit in the knowledge that most of his books have been destroyed and his sons have turned to evil. He mentions that [[SequelHook an even greater foe awaits]]. Meanwhile there is no way for you to get back home, the only person you can talk to is constantly busy, and the only thing to do is walk around the same five places you've been wandering around for hours.]]

** Unlike later games in the series, there's no random code blocking your way to the ending -- once you know what to do you can bypass all the ages and jump straight to victory. The record for a SpeedRun of this game is less than two minutes.