Myst

Platform(s): Mac, PC, Sat­urn, Playsta­tion, 3DO, Jaguar CD, CD-i, Ami­gaOS, Playsta­tion Portable, DS, iOS
Developer(s): Cyan
Release Date: Sep­tem­ber 24, 1993

Myst is a graphic adven­ture video game designed and directed by the broth­ers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was devel­oped by Cyan (now Cyan Worlds), a Spokane, Washington––based stu­dio, and pub­lished and dis­trib­uted by Brøder­bund. The Millers began work­ing on Myst in 1991 and released it for the Mac OS com­puter on Sep­tem­ber 24, 1993; it was devel­oper Cyan’s largest project to date. Remakes and ports of the game have been released for Sega Saturn, Microsoft Windows, Atari Jaguar CD, 3DO, CD-i, PlaySta­tion, Ami­gaOS, PlaySta­tion Portable, Nin­tendo DS, and iOS by pub­lish­ers Mid­way Games, Sunsoft, and Mean Ham­ster Software.

Myst puts the player in the role of the Stranger, who uses a spe­cial book to travel to the island of Myst. There, the player uses other spe­cial books writ­ten by an arti­san and explorer named Atrus to travel to sev­eral worlds known as “Ages”. Clues found in each of these Ages help to reveal the back-story of the game’s char­ac­ters. The game has sev­eral end­ings, depend­ing on the course of action the player takes.

Upon release, Myst was a sur­prise hit, with crit­ics laud­ing the abil­ity of the game to immerse play­ers in the fic­tional world. The game was the best-selling PC game, until The Sims exceeded its sales in 2002. Myst helped drive adop­tion of the then-nascent CD-ROM for­mat. Myst’s suc­cess spawned four direct video game sequels as well as sev­eral spin-off games and novels.

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