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MYST AND RIVEN

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS

Contents

Introduction.................................................................1The Myst Phenomenon..........................................................3Myst and the Adventure Game Genre............................................7Early Works of the Miller Brothers...........................................22The World of Myst............................................................35MYST ISLAND..................................................................39THE STONESHIP AGE............................................................51THE CHANNELWOOD AGE..........................................................54THE MECHANICAL AGE...........................................................60THE SELENITIC AGE............................................................62DUNNY (D'NI).................................................................68THE RIME AGE.................................................................70Beyond the Game: The Other Myst Products.....................................73From Myst to Riven: Subcreation and Expansion................................79The World of Riven...........................................................84TEMPLE ISLAND (DOME ISLAND)..................................................88JUNGLE ISLAND (VILLAGE ISLAND)...............................................91TAY (THE REBEL AGE)..........................................................96BOOK ASSEMBLY ISLAND (CRATER ISLAND).........................................98SURVEY ISLAND (MAP OR GARDEN ISLAND).........................................101THE 233RD AGE (GEHN'S OFFICE AND BEDROOM)....................................103PRISON ISLAND................................................................105Riven's Fortunes and the Rest of the Myst Series.............................106Myst's and Riven's Influence on the Adventure Game Genre.....................109Notes........................................................................113Glossary.....................................................................119Index........................................................................123

Chapter One

The first time I encountered Myst was at the 1994 Digital World Expo in Los Angeles. A back room, away from the noise of the main convention halls, was lined with software booths where companies were promoting and hyping their latest products. Among them one vendor area stood out not for what it had, but for what it lacked: the lighting was minimal, almost dark, and there was no one to answer questions, not even a booth for that matter, just three white pedestals with computers on them, running the same program. The only signage was a white card that simply said "MYST" with no further explanation. Each computer displayed a different screen from the game, wherever the last participant had left off. Drawn by curiosity, conference attendees wandered into the quiet space and attempted to find out what exactly this low-profile piece of software was, an experience very much like the game itself, with no directions or obvious objective, just the free exploration of a contemplative landscape. And I (along with many others, no doubt) was hooked.

In 1993, the same year Jurassic Park brought photorealistic computer-generated creatures to the big screen and the World Wide Web became worldwide on computer screens, Myst appeared and quickly became the best-selling computer game of all time. (Of course, to call Myst a "game" implies a broad definition of the word, as Myst is perhaps better described as a single-user interactive virtual environment; there was no term to cover it at the time, and game was more specific than software.) Initially inspired in part by Jules Verne's novel The Mysterious Island (1874), at least for its tone and setting, Myst was created by Rand and Robyn Miller's company Cyan (now Cyan Worlds) and released by Brøderbund on September 24, 1993, for the Macintosh, with an IBM-compatible version available the following March. By April 1994 it had already sold 200,000 copies, a phenomenal amount considering that most CD-ROMs of the time were fortunate to sell in the tens of thousands. By January 1995 Myst had sold 500,000 copies, and sales would reach a million five months later. By June 2001 it had reached 5.5 million copies. With continuing sales that kept it on the charts, Myst remained the best-selling computer game until 2002, when The Sims would overtake it with 6.3 million units sold.

Nine years is an amazingly long time to remain number one in a medium that is growing so fast, both aesthetically and technologically. What accounts for Myst's longevity? Myst was, at the time, a unique computer game experience, and its lush (for 1993) imagery gave it a different feel and more atmosphere than the typical video games of the day. Perhaps as important was Myst's crossover appeal. The success of many of the best-selling games throughout video game history, including PONG (1972), PacMan (1980), Super Mario Bros. (1985), Myst (1993), and The Sims (2000), has been due in part to their widespread appeal and ability to reach people outside of the typical audience in the video game market. Myst, like the other four games just mentioned, was also nonviolent and easy to play, and, unlike many games of its day, it was available on a variety of platforms, including Sony PlayStation, Sega Genesis, Atari Jaguar, and both Macintosh and IBM computers. Myst's system requirements allowed it to be played on a wide variety of machines; since its images were all pre-rendered, high processor speeds and graphics cards were not as crucial as they were for games that rendered their graphics in real time.

Myst's approach to graphics was another reason for its success. With all its imagery pre-rendered, Myst could offer beautiful graphics, allowing Robyn Miller's art background to come through in the play of light, shadow, and texture, despite the constraints imposed by 8-bit color and dithering. The rather limited use of animation and the slow, contemplative pace of the game meant that the imagery would be more closely scrutinized than it would in a game with fast action and quick-changing scenery, and Myst's images held up to that scrutiny. Four years later Riven: The Sequel to Myst would raise the standard even more, and later versions of Myst, Myst Masterpiece Edition and realMYST, featured graphical improvements that made the original Myst graphics seem crude and static by comparison, making it hard to remember just how groundbreaking Myst's look was in 1993. Not only did Myst have good graphics, it had more than 2,500 screens' worth of imagery, which helped make up for their stasis. This profusion became possible through the use of CD-ROM technology, and Myst became the first big hit to appear in the medium. For some people it was one of the main reasons to buy a computer with a CD-ROM drive. Myst was well suited to CD-ROM technology, due to the fact that the running of its program did not require continuous accessing of the CD-ROM, which is still, even today, a relatively slow process requiring pauses for loading to be worked into the gaming experience....