The Myst Graph: A New Perspective on Myst

> Curious if any superfans think it would be better experienced as the original in an emulator or similar.

(superfan checking in) -- I still believe the definitive release is the original `realMyst (2000)` (Sunsoft). https://archive.guildofarchivists.org/wiki/RealMyst . If you only ever play one version, that's the one to play. GOG maintains a beautiful version of this (that works well even on modern Windows), but Cyan de-listed it from GOG a while back, so you can't technically buy fresh copies anymore.

Don't mistake this for "Real Myst: Masterpiece Edition", which is (sorry Cyan), not very good. They imported the old assets into Unity for the re-release, and then did some random texture/asset swaps, the lighting and mood didn't survive the import and is all randomly weird -- strongly recommend ignoring this one.

The original release is good if you want the original experience - https://www.gog.com/en/game/myst_masterpiece_edition

And the new Myst (2021/VR, Unreal Engine) release is wonderful and beautiful, but is more of a re-make to modern gaming sensibilities.

> Don't mistake this for "Real Myst: Masterpiece Edition", which is (sorry Cyan), not very good.

I know you link it further down, but there are two Masterpiece Editions, one for Myst (1999) and one for realMyst (2014). The one you link is the MPE of Myst, and technically not the original 1993 game, though as far as I can tell, it's just an upgrade of graphics and sound, whilst remaining faithful to the original.

I couldn't get realMyst to work back when I got it on GOG, so I'll admit I haven't tried it (nor its Masterpiece Edition), but I did enjoy the 2021 remake, although I noticed that even though it had been over a decade, I sped through that game (I mention this, because I actually visited it after having played the 2024 Riven remake, where the changes to the puzzles did stump me from time to time). Though, personally, I am more of a Riven fan.

Since we're getting pretty far down the nerding-out-on-myst rabbit hole: the original version of realMyst, at least for Windows, had some bug that would cause it to immediately crash on any system with a multi-core CPU. At some point someone released a patched EXE that fixed it, I have no idea if gog and/or Steam ever released an official patched version.

Also, while talking about remakes: Riven got a remake last year, and it's fantastic. The sprit of the game is entirely intact, but they made changes to some puzzles that both make the experience fresh (for anyone that played the 90s version of Riven) and much less annoying (for any first time players). Can't recommend the Riven remake enough.

Conceding that it was a technical necessity, the replacement of live actors for in-game CGI rendered characters feels off in the Riven remake to me. Necessary because now you can walk all the way around them, the game can't assume a single viewing angle for videos to play out. Nor would it be practical to record new actors playing the roles (the old assets must surely be too low-quality to pass in a modern game, even if they go back to the source).

Part of Myst and Riven's charm in the 1990s was the immersion it offered, the world felt real, and the actors playing out characters added to it. The original point-and-click format feels dated today, but at the time, it was convincing enough to be believable.

Yeah, I do agree with that. Honestly part of me wishes they would have used the old assets - put whatever you have thought the best available upscaler, and lock the player's position while the video plays. I mean, your position was locked in the original game.. so that should be possible without breaking things, right?

That said, I really do think all of the tradeoffs that they did make were understandable - pretty much like you said. Doesn't keep me from being nostalgic for the 90s, though.

I feel like they could’ve innovated using novel technique, like 3D gaussian splatting (and upscaling the video or better yet record new videos). The vast majority of the time, you’re still pretty much locked unable to move when those CGI character show up, except for turning the camera around (from what I remembered). It could’ve been faked and still work and be much better as I felt it was the only downgrade to an otherwise fantastic remake that I really enjoyed.

> put whatever you have thought the best available upscaler

I kind of suspect all they have had at at this point is the over compressed video files that must have been what, 240p at most?

I suspect it may have been just so low that even if they wanted to they would have no choice but to recast and reshoot.

At least they got to reuse the original audio, IIRC.

I’m guessing the original video source was either lost or also possibly low quality/degraded.

They did use real characters in Obduction, which has similar locomotion options to the new Myst and Riven remakes. They used some interesting workarounds to make it work, like only ever seeing characters through gaps, windows or TV screens.

Myst is one of my favorite games, but I never could get into realMyst. The idea was great at the time, but I thought the visual fidelity was lower (despite being ... "real"), and the click-based movement never played well.

I did like Real Myst: Masterpiece Edition a lot (though it ran terribly on my powerful-at-the-time system). But I'd argue for the OP to play Myst: Masterpiece Edition first. IMO the interface is just as important to Myst as everything else.

All the footage has been archived by The Video Game History Foundation, and is available in their public archive. It’s significantly higher quality than in the game.

https://archive.gamehistory.org/folder/934c3e91-4721-49bb-b8...

Oh wow! Yes, those are much better quality than can be seen in the Riven release. I wonder if it's possible to mod them into the Riven rerelease!

I would kind of like to see some more point-and-click adventure games. There's nothing really fun about walking in games and point-and-click means that every moment of the game can be a perfect painting exactly as the artist visualized.