Until The Sims broke the record in 2006, the best-selling PC game of all time was a slow series of vignettes across parallel worlds. It was Myst, a revolutionary and strange puzzle game that looked and played like nothing else.
Myst, originally released in 1993, was drizzled with mysticism and mystery; a tale of books and authors who could use those books to entangle and reshape entire realms. It was interested in exploration and sometimes-excruciating puzzles and had no interest in most standard videogame tropes. There were no enemies, no friends, and little guidance. Despite that, its fans remember Myst as stunningly lifelike.
“We’re not game designers," Rand Miller told Grantland in 2013. “We were place designers.” For co-creators Rand and Robyn Miller, Myst was about the geography, and the stories that it told.
This year, the Millers' company Cyan Worlds has returned to its origins with Obduction. Kickstarted during the gold rush of 2013 and available now for PC, it represents an attempt to capture the spirit of Myst in a different place and time. Considering the vastly different videogame landscape of 2016, the fact that this game exists at all is surprising. Even more surprising is how well it succeeds.
Cyan Worlds
