20 Facts About Myst

Myst helped drive adoption of the new CD-ROM format, spawned a multimedia franchise, and inspired clones, parodies, and new genres of video games.

Myst has an optional "Zip" feature to assist in rapidly crossing areas already explored; when a lightning bolt cursor appears, players can click and skip several frames to another location.

Myst contains a library where two additional books can be found, colored red and blue.

The game's creative team consisted of brothers Rand and Robyn, with help from sound designer Chris Brandkamp, 3D artist and animator Chuck Carter, Richard Watson, Bonnie McDowall, and Ryan Miller, who together made up Cyan, Inc Myst was the largest and most time-consuming collaboration Cyan had attempted at that point.

Myst was not only the largest collaboration Cyan had attempted at the time but took the longest to develop.

Related searches

In retrospect, Robyn felt that Myst did not quite provoke the emotional reaction and ethical quandary they set out to create.

The main technical constraint that impacted Myst was slow CD-ROM drive read speeds—few consumers had anything faster than single-speed drives, limiting the speed of streaming data off the disc.

At first, Myst had no music, because the Millers did not want music to interfere with the gameplay.

Unlike other early CD-ROM games, Myst did not depend on full motion video which was of poor quality at the time, so its graphics remained appealing long after release.

Myst was the bestselling PC game throughout the 1990s until The Sims exceeded its sales in 2002, and was the top-selling game in the US for a total of 52 months between March 1994 and April 1999.

Myst became a cultural touchstone of the day; the game was so popular the Miller brothers appeared in advertisements for The Gap.

Actor Matt Damon wanted The Bourne Conspiracy video game to be a puzzle game like Myst, refusing to lend his voice talent to the game when it was turned into a shooter instead.

Myst has been used for educational and scientific purposes; Becta recognized a primary school teacher, Tim Rylands, who had made literacy gains using Myst as a teaching tool, and researchers have used the game for studies examining the effect of video games on aggression.

Myst was added to the collection of video games of the Museum of Modern Art in 2013, where it is displayed as a video presentation.

In retrospective, Myst is considered to be a precursor to casual games that gained popularity with browser platforms and mobile devices which typically do not require players to act quickly, as well as a preliminary example of a walking simulator that allow players to explore and discover the game's narrative at their own pace.

Cyan's sequels to Myst indirectly served to popularize escape the room games, which provide similar puzzle-solving experiences but in a much more confined space.

Disney approached Cyan Worlds about constructing a theme park inspired by Myst, which included scouting an island area within Disney's Florida properties that Rand Miller felt was perfect for the Myst setting.

Myst: Masterpiece Edition was an updated version of the original Myst, released in May 2000.

RealMyst: Interactive 3D Edition was a remake of Myst released in November 2000 for Windows PCs, and in January 2002 for Mac.

The remake would include additional content that was not featured in the original Myst, including the Rime age that was earlier seen in realMyst.