Look, I need to be honest with you right up front – I was never really a PC gaming guy in the early 90s. I was Team Sega through and through, spending my time with Sonic and Streets of Rage while my Genesis did what Nintendon’t. But sometimes a game comes along that’s so different, so revolutionary, that even a console warrior like me has to pay attention. That game was Myst, and it absolutely wrecked my understanding of what video games could be.
First time I encountered it wasn’t even at my house. My buddy Marcus had this fancy Macintosh setup in his bedroom – his mom was an architect and had all the latest computer equipment for work. This was probably spring of ’94, and I was over there mainly to complain about how Sega was handling the Saturn launch when Marcus says, “Dude, you gotta see this weird game I got.” He fires up this thing called Myst and I’m immediately confused. No Sega logo, no blast processing, no attitude. Just this eerily beautiful island with absolutely nothing happening on it.
“Where are all the enemies?” I asked, genuinely baffled. Marcus clicks around on some books and contraptions, frowning at the screen like he’s trying to solve actual math homework. “There aren’t any enemies. You just… figure stuff out.” This made no sense to my arcade-trained brain. Games were about defeating things, collecting rings, beating levels. What was there to figure out on an empty island?
But man, something about that atmosphere got its hooks in me immediately. The way the waves lapped against those wooden docks, the mysterious humming of machinery you couldn’t see, the sense that you’d stumbled into someone else’s abandoned dream – it was unlike anything I’d experienced. Even though nothing was exploding or going fast, I couldn’t look away. Marcus had been stuck on the same puzzle for over a week, which should have been a red flag, but instead it made me more curious. What kind of game could hold someone’s attention for that long without any traditional rewards?
Two weeks later I’m at Babbages begging the clerk to hold a copy of Myst for me until I could scrape together enough cash. Sixty bucks was serious money for a fifteen-year-old in 1994, especially for a PC game when I didn’t even really consider myself a PC gamer. But I was obsessed. We’d just gotten our first family computer with a CD-ROM drive – a Gateway 2000 that my dad bought primarily for “educational purposes” and tax software. Installing Myst felt like crossing into forbidden territory, like I was betraying my Sega allegiance for something completely alien.
That first night playing it alone in our computer room changed everything. With everyone else asleep and the house quiet, Myst became this incredibly immersive experience. I’m clicking through these gorgeous pre-rendered scenes, taking notes on scrap paper, trying to make sense of symbols and mechanisms that seemed both ancient and futuristic. The game didn’t explain anything – no tutorial, no helpful hints, just pure discovery. By 2 AM I had pages of crude drawings and was completely hooked.
See, what the Miller brothers created with Myst wasn’t just a game – it was a completely different philosophy about what interactive entertainment could be. Instead of testing your reflexes or pattern recognition like most games, it demanded genuine thought and observation. Those puzzles weren’t just obstacles to overcome; they were windows into understanding how this mysterious world functioned. The rocket ship controls, the clock tower mechanism, that infuriating subway system – each one told you something about the people who built these places.
I remember spending three solid evenings on the Mechanical Age rotation puzzle, filling notebook pages with diagrams of gear positions and fortress orientations. When I finally solved it, I actually yelled loud enough to wake up my parents. My mom came downstairs in her bathrobe, saw my face glowing with triumph, and just shook her head. “That island game again?” she sighed. She never understood why I’d voluntarily put myself through such mental torture, but she recognized that look of accomplishment.
The technical achievement was staggering too. Those pre-rendered 3D environments made everything else look primitive by comparison. I’d spent years defending the Genesis’s graphics capabilities against SNES kids, but Myst made console graphics debates seem quaint. This was photorealistic imagery at a time when most PC games still looked like crude cartoons. Every screen was like a detailed painting you could step into, which made exploring feel less like navigating a game world and more like wandering through an interactive art gallery.
What really got to me was how different each Age felt. Channelwood with its organic wooden walkways and tree houses, Selenitic with its sterile technological landscape, the opulent mechanical complexity of the Mechanical Age – each one had its own distinct personality and internal logic. The sound design was incredible too. I started playing with headphones to catch subtle audio cues, and there were moments when ambient sounds would make me genuinely jump. The gentle creaking of wood in Channelwood, the ominous hums and clicks of machinery, the way your footsteps echoed differently in each environment – it all contributed to this sense of being truly present in these spaces.
Of course, not everyone in my friend group appreciated Myst’s contemplative approach. My Genesis buddy Tony tried it for maybe twenty minutes before declaring it “the most boring thing ever created.” He couldn’t understand why anyone would voluntarily struggle with the same puzzle for hours when you could just play Gunstar Heroes and blow stuff up instead. But for those of us who fell under its spell, Myst became an obsession that went way beyond typical gaming.
The linking books were pure magic – those portals between worlds accessed by touching a moving image on a page. That animation of diving into the book and emerging in another Age never lost its wonder. I remember thinking this had to be the future of gaming, and in many ways I was right. Myst wasn’t just showing off new technology; it was demonstrating that games could be contemplative, atmospheric, intellectually challenging. They could trust players to think deeply instead of just reacting quickly.
This was also peak pre-internet gaming culture, which made Myst even more special. You couldn’t just Google walkthrough videos or check GameFAQs when you got stuck. You either figured it out yourself, bought an expensive hint book, or found someone who’d actually beaten it – which was rare because the game was legitimately difficult. There was this kid at school, Derek, who claimed he’d finished it in one weekend, but we all knew he was lying because it was mathematically impossible unless you already knew all the solutions. The average completion time was something insane like fifty hours spread over weeks of frustration and occasional breakthroughs.
What made those breakthroughs so satisfying was how earned they felt. Modern games often over-explain everything, constantly holding your hand through even moderately challenging sections. Myst just dropped you on that island and said “figure it out.” There was this belief that players were intelligent and persistent enough to overcome difficulties without constant guidance. That philosophy feels almost revolutionary now when every game has waypoints and objective markers and NPCs explaining exactly what to do next.
The impact on the industry was massive. Myst became the best-selling PC game of all time, moving over six million copies when those numbers were unheard of for computer games. It drove CD-ROM adoption because suddenly everyone needed that technology to experience this must-have title. It launched a whole genre of first-person adventure puzzlers, though most of them missed what made Myst special. They copied the look and the puzzle mechanics but couldn’t recreate that sense of genuine mystery and discovery.
For me personally, Myst expanded my understanding of what interactive media could accomplish. Before playing it, games were primarily about skill challenges – beating levels, defeating bosses, improving your performance. After Myst, I knew they could also be about atmosphere, storytelling, and intellectual engagement. They could make you feel like an explorer uncovering ancient secrets instead of just a player progressing through developer-created content.
I’ve revisited Myst several times over the years through various remakes and enhanced editions. The realMyst version with free movement and the recent VR implementation both add technical improvements, but honestly? They’ve never quite captured the magic of that original experience. There was something about the still image presentation that enhanced the dreamlike quality. Being able to wander freely around the island somehow made it feel smaller and more mundane. The original’s point-and-click navigation created this interesting disconnected feeling that added to the mystery.
Plus those original pre-rendered images still hold up remarkably well. They have this timeless quality that early real-time 3D environments usually lack. Sometimes technical limitations force creative solutions that end up being more effective than unlimited processing power.
What strikes me most about Myst looking back is how much it elevated gaming’s cultural status. For many non-gamers in the 90s, this was the first computer game that seemed worth taking seriously. It wasn’t about cartoon mascots or mindless action – it was about exploration, discovery, unraveling mysteries. It appealed to people who enjoyed novels and crossword puzzles and thoughtful challenges. Even my normally game-hostile English teacher Mrs. Patterson recommended it to our class as “interactive literature.” That was unprecedented validation from the academic world.
The story itself was brilliant in its simplicity. You’re transported to this mysterious island through a special book, and you discover that someone named Atrus had created various Ages – self-contained worlds accessible through linking books. Something’s gone wrong though. Atrus is missing and his sons are trapped in prison books, each claiming the other is responsible for some terrible crime. The game doesn’t spell any of this out initially – you piece it together gradually like an archaeologist reconstructing ancient history from fragments.
That narrative approach was revolutionary. Most games at the time front-loaded their stories through opening cutscenes or manual exposition. Myst made story discovery part of the gameplay itself. Every solved puzzle revealed another piece of the larger mystery, making you feel like you were genuinely uncovering secrets rather than just progressing through predetermined plot points.
I still have my original Myst CD somewhere in storage, along with those notebook pages covered in diagrams and symbols. Sometimes I think about framing them as gaming memorabilia – physical evidence of a time when solving puzzles meant actually solving them yourself, not following online guides or watching YouTube walkthroughs. There was something pure about that experience of genuine discovery that’s increasingly rare in our hyper-connected gaming landscape.
As someone who spent most of the 90s defending Sega’s creative risks and innovative approaches, I have tremendous respect for what the Miller brothers accomplished with Myst. They took enormous risks creating something completely unlike anything else in the market, and it paid off in ways that changed the entire industry. That willingness to bet everything on a completely different vision – that’s exactly the kind of creative courage that made Sega special during their best years.
Sometimes I’m tempted to reinstall Myst and see if those puzzles still hold their challenge now that I’m in my forties. I suspect muscle memory would kick in for most solutions – some of those mechanisms are permanently burned into my brain – but I bet something would still stump me. That submarine navigation system in Selenitic Age, probably. Some frustrations are eternal.
What’s remarkable about Myst isn’t just that it was popular or innovative or technically impressive for its time, though it was certainly all those things. What’s remarkable is how it created authentic moments of discovery in an medium that usually just simulates discovery. Each puzzle solved, each new Age accessed, felt like you were truly uncovering something hidden rather than just checking off predetermined objectives. In our current era of open-world maps cluttered with activity icons and collectible markers, that sense of genuine exploration feels almost nostalgic.
I miss finding things without being told where to look. Myst taught me that was possible.
Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”
