Myst (series) - WikiHQ

Myst is a franchise centered on a series of adventure video games. The first game in the series, Myst, was released in 1993 by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller and their video game company Cyan, Inc. The first sequel to Myst, Riven, was released in 1997 and was followed by three more direct sequels: Myst III: Exile in 2001, Myst IV: Revelation in 2004, and Myst V: End of Ages in 2005. A spinoff featuring a multiplayer component, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, was released in 2003 and followed by two expansion packs.

Mysts story concerns an explorer named Atrus who has the ability to write books that serve as links to other worlds, known as Ages. This practice of creating linking books was developed by an ancient civilization known as the D'ni, whose society crumbled after being ravaged by disease. The player takes the role of an unnamed person referred to as the Stranger and assists Atrus by traveling to other Ages and solving puzzles. Over the course of the series, Atrus writes a new Age for the D'ni survivors to live on, and players of the games set the course the civilization will follow.

The brothers developed Myst after producing award-winning games for children. Drawing on childhood stories, the brothers spent months designing the Ages players would investigate. The name Myst came from Jules Verne's novel The Mysterious Island. After Riven was released, Robyn left Cyan to pursue other projects, and Cyan began developing Uru; developers Presto Studios and Ubisoft created Exile and Revelation before Cyan returned to complete the series with End of Ages. Myst and its sequels were critical and commercial successes, selling more than twelve million copies; the games drove sales of personal computers and CD-ROM drives as well as attracting casual gamers with its nonviolent, methodical gameplay. The video games' success has led to three published novels in addition to soundtracks, a comic series, and television and movie pitches.

Plot

thumb|A linking book as seen in [[Myst#Remakes_and_ports|realMyst. By touching the animated panel, players are warped to the Age described.]]

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible floatright"

! scope="colgroup" colspan="4" style= | Myst story chronology

| scope="rowgroup" colspan="4" |

Mysts story begins with the arrival of a people known as the D'ni on Earth, almost 10,000 years ago. The D'ni are an ancient race who used a special skill to create magical books that serve as portals to the worlds they describe, known as Ages. The D'ni build a great city and thriving civilization in caverns. A young geologist from the surface, Anna, stumbled upon the D'ni civilization. Learning the D'ni language, Anna becomes known as Ti'ana and marries a D'ni named Aitrus; the couple have a son named Gehn. Soon after, D'ni is ravaged by a plague created by a man named A'Gaeris. Aitrus sacrifices himself to save his wife and child, killing A'Gaeris while Ti'ana and Gehn escape to the surface as the D'ni civilization falls.

Ti'ana raises Gehn until he runs away as a teenager, learning the D'ni Art of writing descriptive books. Ti'ana also cares for Gehn's son, Atrus, until Gehn arrives to teach Atrus the Art. Atrus realizes that his father is reckless and power-hungry, and with the help of Ti'ana and a young woman, Catherine, Atrus traps Gehn on his Age of Riven with no linking books. Atrus and Catherine marry and have two children, Sirrus and Achenar. The brothers grow greedy, and, after plundering their father's Ages, they trap Catherine on Riven. When Atrus returns to investigate, the brothers strand him in a D'ni cavern before they themselves are trapped by special "prison" books. Through the help of a Stranger, Atrus is freed and sends his benefactor to Riven to retrieve Catherine from the clutches of Gehn.

Atrus writes a new Age called Releeshahn for the D'ni survivors to rebuild their civilization as he and Catherine settle back on Earth, raising a daughter named Yeesha. As Atrus prepares to take the Stranger to Releeshahn, a mysterious man named Saavedro appears and steals the Releeshahn Descriptive Book. The Stranger follows Saavedro through several Ages (which were used to train Sirrus and Achenar in the art of writing Ages) before finally recovering the book. Ten years later, Atrus asks for the Stranger's help in determining if his sons have repented after their lengthy imprisonment; the Stranger saves Yeesha from Sirrus's machinations, but Sirrus and a repentant Achenar are killed. D'ni is not fully restored until the creatures the D'ni enslaved, known as the Bahro, are freed.

Characters

Atrus and Catherine

Atrus is the main non-player character in the Myst series, appearing in all five games of the main series; he also narrates the opening of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. He is a member of the ancient D'ni civilization, though his only D'ni inheritance is through his paternal grandfather. The D'ni perfected a craft known as the Art, which allowed them to create portals to other worlds known as Ages by writing a descriptive "linking book".

On Riven, Atrus meets Catherine, a local inhabitant and a brilliant student of Gehn's who shows promise in the Art of writing Ages, despite not being D'ni herself. Together they trap Gehn on Riven. Atrus' grandmother, Anna ("Ti'ana"), helps Catherine by writing the Age of Myst as an escape route while Atrus destroys every other linking book on Riven. Catherine and Atrus start a family on Myst, raising their two sons, Sirrus and Achenar; however, both boys grow greedy and seek to strand their parents, trapping Atrus on K'veer and luring Catherine to Riven, where she is captured by Gehn. The Stranger's discovery of the Myst linking book saves Atrus from being trapped in K'veer a second time, and Catherine from Gehn's clutches. Atrus is played by Rand Miller in all the Myst installments. Catherine is portrayed by Sheila Goold in Riven, with her voice dubbed by Rengin Altay, and Maria Galante in Exile.

Sirrus and Achenar

Sirrus and Achenar are the sons of Atrus and Catherine and are the eldest of their three children. They first appear in Myst, trapped in two different books. Each swears that he is innocent of plundering their father's Ages, claims that Atrus is dead, and that the other brother is to blame. In actuality, both brothers grew greedy, destroyed Atrus' library, killed the inhabitants of the Ages, and attempted to strand their parents forever. They in turn are trapped in special prison books Atrus designed to imprison unwanted travelers. During his imprisonment in the inhospitable Age of Spire, Sirrus learns to harness the Age's electromagnetism to create crude airships and crystalline explosives. He is thoroughly embittered by his exile, especially when he learns about his sister Yeesha and how Atrus is teaching her the D'ni language and the Art of Writing, which he never taught his sons. Sirrus uses his explosives to breach the linking chamber Atrus installed, and manages to escape. Achenar, trapped in the jungle Age of Haven, becomes a game hunter preying upon the local wildlife. However, he is overcome with remorse when he hunts one species to extinction, and is later befriended by a group of monkey-like creatures. After Sirrus helps Achenar escape, they travel to the Age of Serenia. According to a journal Achenar kept on Serenia twenty years before, Sirrus' original plan was to trap Catherine on Riven and use an aging "Memory Chamber" to steal Atrus' knowledge of the Art. After escaping from Spire, Sirrus kidnaps Yeesha and uses the old Memory Chamber to take over her body, intending to play-act as Yeesha long enough to learn the Art before killing his parents. Achenar, who has reformed during his imprisonment, helps the Stranger set Yeesha's memories right again. Sirrus is killed when the Stranger reverses the mind-switch; Achenar is fatally poisoned when he repairs the machinery to save his sister. In Myst, Sirrus was played by Robyn Miller, and Achenar by his brother Rand; in Revelation, the brothers are played by Brian Wrench and Guy Sprung, respectively.

Yeesha

Yeesha is the only daughter of Atrus and Catherine. She is briefly mentioned in the novel Myst: The Book of D'ni, and is first seen as an infant in Exile. Yeesha is seen by her parents as a correction to the mistakes they made with their wayward sons. Her parents teach her D'ni and the Art. In Revelation, her brother Sirrus attempts to use Yeesha in a plan to learn the Art and kill his parents, but Yeesha is freed by the Stranger and Achenar.

An adult Yeesha appears in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and is one of two main characters in End of Ages, where she tries to persuade the player to help free an enslaved race known as the Bahro by unlocking a powerful Tablet. Over the course of her life, Yeesha takes on many roles, eventually assuming the aspect of a prophesied D'ni savior-figure known as "The Grower". Baby Yeesha is played by Exile game producer Greg Uhler's daughter. Juliette Gosselin plays a young Yeesha in Revelation and Rengin Altay voices the character as an adult in Uru and End of Ages.

Gehn

Gehn is the father of Atrus, and the antagonist of Riven. Gehn is born to Master Aitrus of the Guild of Surveyors (for whom his son is named) and his human wife, Anna (or Ti'ana, as she is known in D'ni), shortly before the downfall of the D'ni civilization. Believing that he creates worlds by writing linking books, Gehn considers himself a god and dedicates his life to rebuilding the fallen D'ni empire. Realizing his madness, Atrus turns against his father; with the help of Catherine, he traps Gehn on the Age of Riven, "a prison of my own creation" as Gehn later relates it, for nearly thirty years. Gehn tends to be unimaginative: besides having no talent for the Art, he merely numbers his Ages rather than naming them (Riven is his "Fifth Age", for instance), and as long as it will give him what he seeks, prefers to smash his way through D'ni puzzle locks made with delicate materials rather than figure them out.

When Catherine is stranded on Riven, Atrus must send the Stranger to rescue her, as he is busy making changes to the Age to delay its collapse. The Stranger tricks Gehn into a special prison book created by Atrus, and Gehn's oppressed subjects are evacuated from Riven before the Age of Riven closes forever. Gehn is portrayed by John Keston.

Saavedro

Saavedro is the antagonist of Exile. Depicted as a vengeful and broken man, Saavedro is an inhabitant of the Age of Narayan, one of the Ages chosen by Atrus to try to teach his sons Sirrus and Achenar about the Art of writing books linking to other worlds. Saavedro agrees to help tutor Atrus' sons, but is shocked when the brothers instigate a destructive rebellion and abandon the Age to be destroyed from within. When Saavedro pursues Sirrus and Achenar to the Age of J'nanin, he is assaulted and left for dead. Trapped on J'nanin and believing Narayan destroyed and his family to be dead, Saavedro's mental health deteriorates during his years of captivity. When Saavedro is unexpectedly freed and travels to Tomahna in hope of finding the brothers, he steals the linking book for Releeshahn in a plan to lure Atrus to Narayan and exact revenge. Once on Narayan, Saavedro discovers that his people have not been destroyed. Cornered by the Stranger, Saavedro gives up the Releeshahn book. In the game's optimal ending, the player enables Saavedro to peacefully return to Narayan, before taking Releeshahn back to Atrus. Saavedro is portrayed by veteran actor Brad Dourif, who accepted the role of Saavedro because he was a Myst fan. Dourif said that his role for the game was much more difficult than working on movie sets, as he could not see the player he was addressing or interact with the game environment. If the player gives Esher the tablet instead in one of the bad endings of the game, Esher proclaims that he wishes to use the Tablet to control a powerful race of creatures called Bahro for his own purposes, and strands the player on the Age of Myst. The best ending the player can choose results in Esher being handed over to the liberated Bahro to pay for his crimes. Esher is voiced, and portrayed (in the form of video-recorded facial texture-mapping), by David Ogden Stiers, who received acclaim for his performance.

Games

{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"

|- style="text-align: center;"

! rowspan="2" | Game

! | Release year

! | Developer

! | Platforms

| colspan="5" style="background:#c5f3c6;"|

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| Myst

| 1993

| Cyan

| 3DO, AmigaOS, CD-i, iOS, Jaguar CD, Mac, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation, PSP, Saturn, Windows, Windows Mobile, Android

| colspan="5" style="border:none; vertical-align:top;"|The first game in the Myst series was the eponymous Myst, developed by Cyan, Inc. and Broderbund. Originally released in 1993 for Macintosh and PC platforms, the game was later ported or remade for the Saturn, Windows, Jaguar CD, 3DO, CD-i, PlayStation, AmigaOS, PSP, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and iPhone. In Myst, players travel across Ages using a point-and-click interface, using the mouse to interact with puzzle objects such as switches or gears.

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| colspan="5" style="background:#ddf3c5;"|

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| Riven

| 1997

| Cyan

| Mac OS, PlayStation, Saturn, Windows, iOS, Android

| colspan="5" style="border:none; vertical-align:top;"|Flush with the success of Myst, Cyan moved to a new office and began work on Riven, which was released in 1997. Like Myst, Riven was a commercial and critical success, selling more than 4.5 million units. Exile was a commercial success (though not to the extent of Myst or Riven), selling millions of units.

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| colspan="5" style="background:#ecc5f3;"|

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| Uru: Ages Beyond Myst

| 2003

| Cyan Worlds

| Windows

| colspan="5" style="border:none; vertical-align:top;"|Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was a departure from the previous games in the series, featuring graphics rendered in real time and a third-person camera. Through avatar customization, players could create their own character to solve puzzles and uncover story information. Uru was to ship with a massively multiplayer online portion, Uru Live, but the initial release was canceled shortly before the single-player aspect was released. Uru Live was rereleased in several incarnations, being canceled each time. Cyan Worlds currently operates the servers for latest iteration of the MMO, MO:ULagain, which is free to play. The running costs are covered through player donations.

Though initially well-received, Uru was considered a financial disappointment. Its expansion packs and originality earned the title a cult following.

In 2011, Cyan Worlds and OpenUru.org announced the release of Myst Online's client and 3ds Max plugin under the GNU GPL v3 license.

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| colspan="5" style="background:#c5cdf3;"|

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| Myst IV: Revelation

| 2004

| Ubisoft

| Mac OS X, Windows, Xbox

| colspan="5" style="border:none; vertical-align:top;"|Myst IV: Revelation was produced entirely by Ubisoft, and marked a return to the prerendered graphics of Exile. Since the studio had little experience with such games, Ubisoft hired new employees who had experience in the field. The game was seen as an improvement over Uru, and was favorably received upon release.

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| colspan="5" style="background:#9cb6f0;"|

|- style="background:#f2f2f2; text-align:center;"

| Myst V: End of Ages

| 2005

| Cyan Worlds

| Windows, Mac OS X

| colspan="5" style="border:none; vertical-align:top;"|Cyan returned to develop Myst V: End of Ages, billed as the final game in the series. As with Uru, End of Ages featured graphics rendered in real time, allowing uninhibited player movement. Three control methods were offered to players, similar to those respectively used in Myst, Exile and Uru. The game was judged a fitting end to the series, though a lack of financial backing for new, non-Myst projects nearly caused Cyan to shut down before the release of the game.

Development

thumb|right|Rand (left) and Robyn Miller in 2014|alt=Two men with glasses seated on a stage, with microphones. One is talking and gesturing, and the other is looking at him.

Myst was originally conceptualized by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller. The Millers had created fictional worlds and stories as young children, influenced by the works of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov. They formed a video game company together called Cyan, Inc.; their first game, called The Manhole, won the Software Publishers Association award in 1988 for best use of the digital medium. Cyan produced other games, aimed at children; the Millers eventually decided their next project would be made for adults.

The brothers spent months designing the Ages comprising the game, which were influenced by earlier whimsical "worlds" Cyan had made for children's games. The game's name, as well as the overall solitary and mysterious atmosphere of the island, was inspired by the book The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. As development progressed, the Millers realized that they would need to have even more story and history than would be revealed in the game itself. The game was to ship in late 1996, but the release was pushed back a year. Development costs were between $5 and $10 million, many times Mysts budget. After the release of Riven, Robyn Miller left the company to pursue other projects, while Rand stayed behind to work on a Myst franchise.

thumb|left|[[Richard A. Watson (programmer)|Richard Watson developed a language and numerical symbols for the D'ni culture.]]

While Rand Miller stated Cyan would not make another sequel to Myst, Mattel (then the owner of the Myst franchise) offered the task of developing a sequel to several video game companies who created detailed story proposals and technology demonstrations. Presto Studios, makers of the Journeyman Project adventure games, was hired to develop Myst III. Presto spent millions developing the game and used the studio's entire staff to complete the project, which took two and a half years to develop. and Exile publisher Ubisoft developed the sequel, Myst IV: Revelation, internally. Meanwhile, Cyan produced the spinoff title Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, which included an aborted multiplayer component allowing players to cooperatively solve puzzles.

Cyan returned to produce what was billed as the final game in the series, although this did not impact the release of the game; the company was able to rehire its employees a few weeks later, and continued to work on non-Myst projects The D'ni language was the language presented in various games and novels of the Myst franchise, created by Richard A. Watson. Several online D'ni dictionaries have been developed as part of the ongoing fan-based culture associated with the game.

Music

The music for each game in the Myst series has fallen to various composers. Originally, the Millers believed that any music or sound besides ambient noise would distract the player from the game and ruin the sense of reality; Myst, therefore, was to have no music at all. A sound test eventually persuaded the developers that music heightened the sense of immersion rather than lessening it, and as such Robyn Miller composed 40 minutes of synthesized music for the game. which were released in 1998.

For Myst III: Exile and Myst IV: Revelation, composer Jack Wall created the music, developing a more active musical style different from Miller's ambient themes. Wall looked at the increasing complexity of games as an opportunity to give players a soundtrack with as much force as a movie score, and tried to create a distinctive sound that was still recognizable as Myst music. In Revelation, Wall adapted the themes for the recurring characters of Myst, and collaborated with Peter Gabriel, who provided a song to the game as well as voicework.

The music for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Myst V: End of Ages was composed by Tim Larkin, who had gotten involved in the series doing sound design for Riven. Larkin stepped away from his background as a jazz composer and musician to create music with less structure and without a definite beginning and end. Larkin created different music depending on the location, giving each setting and Age a distinctive tone.

Adaptations

Rand and Robyn Miller both wanted to develop Mysts back story into novels. After the success of Myst, publisher Hyperion signed a three-book, US$1 million deal with the brothers. David Wingrove worked from the Miller brothers' story outlines. The three books — Myst: The Book of Atrus, Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, and Myst: The Book of D'ni — were released in 1995, 1996, and 1997, respectively. but further books were canceled after Cyan decided the first issue did not live up to expectations. Another comic, Myst #0: Passages, was later released online.

Various proposals for films and television series based on the franchise were planned or rumored but never came to fruition. They include:

The Sci Fi Channel announced a TV miniseries in 2002, but it never materialized. According to Rand Miller, none of the various proposals met Cyan's approval, or were too formulaic or silly.
Independent filmmakers Patrick McIntire and Adrian Vanderbosch wanted to produce a motion picture based on the story revealed in the Myst novels and in 2006 sent a DVD proposal to Cyan The film was set to be based on the novel Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, but no longer appears to be in production.
In 2014, Legendary Entertainment announced that it was developing a television series based on Myst, but nothing came of it.

In May 2015, Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages of MYST and Beyond was published by Inkworks Productions as an authorized, Myst-based pencil-and-paper role-playing game. Unwritten was built on the popular Fate Core RPG system with a focus on investigation and non-violent adventure. Two small supplements exist as background for game-players: The D'Ni Primer explaining the history of the D'Ni, and The Myst Saga giving a chronology of the Myst series.

In 2016, Cyan Worlds released the Kickstarter-backed Obduction. While Obduction is not narratively linked to Myst, the game was considered by Rand Miller to be a spiritual successor to the Myst series, borrowing several of its themes and puzzle-design approaches, as well as incorporating full-motion video in homage to Myst. Robyn, who had left Cyan before this point, collaborated to help score the game and take on the role of one of the in-game characters.

In anticipation of the first game's 25th anniversary in September 2018, Cyan Worlds secured the necessary rights to release all of the Myst games, updated for modern Windows systems with assistance of GOG.com to be released as a collected physical collectors edition. Further, Cyan launched a Kickstarter in April 2018 to provide digital copies of the seven games as well as backer rewards including a simulated Linking Book, using an LCD screen inserted into a book binding. The Kickstarter was successfully funded, bringing in on a target goal.

On June 26, 2019, Village Roadshow Entertainment Group announced that they have acquired the rights to the franchise and plans to expand its mythology to develop a multi-platform universe that includes movies and TV series. They will work alongside Miller and his brother Ryan as well as Isaac Testerman and Yale Rice of Delve Media.

<!-- The television streaming service Hulu had obtained the rights to create a television series around Myst in May 2015. The series would explore the origin of the main island featured in Myst. The Hulu series was to be produced by Legendary Television, which had acquired the television rights from Cyan for the series in late 2014. The show was to have been produced by Matt Tolmach and written by Evan Daugherty. Rand Miller stated in a September 2016 interview that with the show, "we're farther along now than we've been in a long time", but timelines remain uncertain.

In June 2019, Village Roadshow Pictures announced they had acquired the rights to make Myst films, television programs, and other programming, leaving the fate of the Legendary Television vehicle in doubt. Ashley Edward Miller was announced as the showrunner and writer for the show's pilot. -->

Reception and impact

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%;float:right;margin-left: 1em;"

|+ Aggregate review scores

!Game

!Metacritic

!GameRankings

|Myst

| style="text-align:center" | n/a

| style="text-align:center" | 82.57%

|Riven

| style="text-align:center" | 83%

| style="text-align:center" | 84.60%

|Myst III: Exile

| style="text-align:center" | 83%

| style="text-align:center" | 77.07%

|Uru: Ages Beyond Myst

| style="text-align:center" | 79%

| style="text-align:center" | 76.19%

|Uru: The Path of the Shell

| style="text-align:center" | 72%

| style="text-align:center" | 67.69%

|Uru: Complete Chronicles

| style="text-align:center" | n/a

| style="text-align:center" | 84.67%

|Myst IV: Revelation

| style="text-align:center" | 82%

| style="text-align:center" | 81.72%

|Myst V: End of Ages

| style="text-align:center" | 80%

| style="text-align:center" | 79.82%

|Myst Online: Uru Live (GameTap)

| style="text-align:center" | 78%

| style="text-align:center" | 82.67%

Overall, the Myst series has been critically and commercially successful. Rand and Robyn Miller were expecting Myst to perform as well as previous Cyan titles, making enough money to fund the next project. Instead, Myst sold more than six million units, becoming the top-selling PC game of all time until The Sims surpassed Myst sales in 2002. The first three games in the series have sold more than twelve million copies.

1UP.com writer Jeremy Parish noted that there have been two main opinions of Mysts slow, puzzle-based gameplay; "Fans consider Myst an elegant, intelligent game for grown-ups, while detractors call it a soulless stroll through a digital museum, more art than game." Game industry executives were confused by Mysts success, not understanding how an "interactive slide show" turned out to be a huge hit. Online magazine writer Russell Pitts of The Escapist called Myst "unlike anything that had come before, weaving video almost seamlessly into a beautifully rendered world, presenting a captivating landscape filled with puzzles and mystery. In a game market dominated by Doom clones and simulators, Myst took us by the hand and showed us the future of gaming. It took almost a decade for anyone to follow its lead." Critics from Wired and Salon considered the games approaching the level of art, while authors Henry Jenkins and Lev Manovich pointed out the series as exemplifying the promise of new media to create unseen art forms.

The series caused a major shift in the adventure game genre. Unlike previous games, Myst attempted to keep players immersed in the world by removing all information not associated with the fictional world itself—no explanatory text, inventory, or score counters. Myst has also been cited as the reason for the decline of the adventure game genre; eager to capitalize on Mysts success, publishers churned out mediocre Myst clones, which flooded the market. By Exiles release, games like Myst were considered to be an "antiquated" form of gaming by some critics.

The title was widely credited as one of the first games to appeal not just to hardcore gamers but to casual players and demographics that generally did not play games, such as women. The Millers' decision to develop Myst for the nascent CD-ROM format helped boost interest and adoption of disc drives.

The game inspired a CD parody game called Pyst, written by comedian Peter Bergman and featured John Goodman in video scenes. Players traveled across the spoiled island of Myst after millions of players walked over it, with the parody game poking fun at elements of the prototype.

Fan conventions

thumb|Attendees of the 2014 Mysterium convention in [[cosplay]]

The game has spawned annual fan conventions around the world. Mysterium has been held since 2000, which grew out of the plans of a small group of fans who wanted to meet in person. Approximately 200 people attended the meeting in Spokane, Washington, which was held at the headquarters of Cyan Worlds, developers of the game. Subsequent conventions have been more formally planned, involving presentations and live music.

References

External links

Cyan Worlds