Myst and Riven Wolf, Mark J Published by University of Michigan Press Wolf, M. J.. Myst and Riven: The World of the D'ni. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011. Project MUSE., https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/2383 Accessed 14 Mar 2018 00:30 GMT
Myst s and Riven s InfLUEnCE on the AdVEnTURE GaME GenRE In the years following Myst, the adventure game genre grew as other games using a similar point-and-click style of adventuring in mysterious, computer-generated 3-D landscapes hoped to intrigue audiences who had played Myst. The number of games influenced by Myst was so great that Just Adventure +, a website devoted to cataloging adventure games, has an entire category of games called Myst-like among its list of genres. 1 Following a few years of lead time during which Myst s influence would infuse game design, Myst-like games began appearing en masse with the release of games like The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (1995) (and later, The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time [1998], advertised with a trailer on Riven s disc 4), Ray Bradbury s The Martian Chronicles (1995), Frankenstein Through the Eyes of the Monster (1995), Shivers (1995) (and Shivers ii: Harvest of Souls [1997]), AMBer: Journeys Beyond (1996), Bad Mojo (1996), Gord@k (1996), Lighthouse: The Dark Being (1996), Noir: A Shadowy Thriller (1996), Obsidian (1996) (which even featured an image of Achenar and a Myst book), Of Light and Darkness (1996), Pyst (1996) (a parody of Myst), Rama (1996), Timelapse (1996), Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time (1996), Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands (1996) (and later, Zork: Grand Inquisitor [1997]), Safecracker (1997), Treasure Hunter (1997), and Weird: Truth is Stranger than Fiction (1997), just to name those from 1995 to 1997 and their sequels. After Riven, the trend continued with many more games, including those of the Syberia series (Amerzone: The Explorer s Legacy [1999], Syberia [2002], Syberia ii [2004], Syberia iii [forthcoming as of mid-2010]), Riddle
myst and riven of the Sphinx: An Egyptian Adventure (2000) and its sequel Riddle of the Sphinx 2: The Omega Stone (2003), Schizm: Mysterious Journey (2001) and its sequel Mysterious Journey ii (2003), and the Rhem series (Rhem [2003], Rhem 2: The Cave [2005], Rhem 3: The Secret Library [2008]). 2 While many of these games were able to feature stunning graphics (and occasionally, even stunning graphic design), many had fairly simple stories, which often were little more than a framing device to give a premise and context to the situation in which the player-character enters the game. The integration of puzzles into world design and storylines varied, and none reached the heights that Riven was able to achieve (partly because Riven was the story of people who designed worlds, and of the designer of the world in which the game takes place; a unique narrative situation allowing world design, narrative, and puzzles to be combined in a way few storylines can accommodate). Although the adventure genre lost players to an increasing number of MMORPGs and first-person shooting games, whose three-dimensional graphics were steadily improving to the point where they could render imagery in real time that was more detailed than what was featured in Myst, point-and-click adventure games continued to be made, partly because the simplicity of the game engines required (like those based on HyperCard or Macromind Director) made the games cheaper and easier to produce (although this sometimes also led to games of lower quality). While threedimensional graphics opened many new possibilities for adventure gaming (as the difference between Myst and realmyst demonstrates), and MMORPGs can offer many of the same experiences as single-player adventures (as in the experiments with Uru and its incarnations), games using the singleplayer slideshow format popularized by Myst can still be found, and seem to be a genre whose innovations have not yet been entirely exhausted. Today, the Myst games are still selling, and at reduced prices. For under $20, one can buy the Myst: 10th Anniversary DVD Edition, which includes Myst Masterpiece, Riven, and Myst III: Exile in one package (with an interview with Rand Miller), and the three Myst novels are likewise available in one book entitled The Myst Reader. And Myst and Riven continue to find new players as they are ported to new platforms, like the Nintendo DS, the iphone, and the ipod Touch, where a younger generation may experience them for the first time. And while the series of Myst games appears to have ended, a movie based on the Myst novels is in the works, with the progress on it reported at mystmovie.com.
Myst s and Riven s Influence on the Adventure Game Genre The Myst series, and Myst and Riven in particular, have changed the adventure genre and the world of video games as well, achieving the status of classics, and have become milestones in the history of video games and media entertainment in general. With its continuing adaptation to new platforms, the series will find its way to new generations and audiences, further establishing its place in history.