For me, this is where memories of Myst are best left. At the time I loved it, but in the early 90s one was willing to forgive a game a great many short-comings in sympathy to the state of modern games technology. Myst was very much “state of the art of the possible at the time”. I’d argue that much of the appeal of 90s Myst for some was that such a world could be made at all, let alone be a reasonably competent adventure game to boot. It was also one of the first to give us an excuse to do something cool with our fancy new CD-ROM drives.
Timing was critical too for Myst too I think; it came at the point when many ‘ordinary’ (for want of a better word) families were buying their first home PCs. My experience was that Myst and Riven found fans among people not traditionally PC gamers, often via word of mouth that this was something interesting one could do on their relatively expensive new fangled PC investment.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think it holds up all that well as a ‘game’ in 2018, our expectations of video games are rightly so much greater. The standards of adventure games improved dramatically in subsequent decades. If you are looking for a Myst style puzzle world to lose one’s self in in 2018, Jonathan Blow’s game “The Witness” is arguably a strong modern spiritual successor.
Timing was critical too for Myst too I think; it came at the point when many ‘ordinary’ (for want of a better word) families were buying their first home PCs. My experience was that Myst and Riven found fans among people not traditionally PC gamers, often via word of mouth that this was something interesting one could do on their relatively expensive new fangled PC investment.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think it holds up all that well as a ‘game’ in 2018, our expectations of video games are rightly so much greater. The standards of adventure games improved dramatically in subsequent decades. If you are looking for a Myst style puzzle world to lose one’s self in in 2018, Jonathan Blow’s game “The Witness” is arguably a strong modern spiritual successor.