A Dictionary of the Language of Myst's D'ni

I think it's the first game that really transcended what games were at the time. Prior to PCs, games were mostly just hand-eye coordination checks. Myst was the first game I played that really engaged the brain and problem solving.

You never played interactive fiction games prior to Myst? There was plenty of thinking and problem solving in those games. It was certainly a huge graphical leap forward over the previous point-and-click adventure game, but I didn't feel it was particularly a qualitative jump in puzzle content.

I was wondering about the text based games myself while reading GP. Zork was nothing but a puzzle game that definitely did not require hand-eye coordination or any other skill set other than solving puzzles. That's what Myst was as well, only with pretty pictures

> Prior to PCs, games were mostly just hand-eye coordination checks

Not sure what you call a PC, but there are 17 years of problem-solving computer games (text adventures, click-and-point adventures, RPGs, real-time and round-based strategy games,...) before Myst.

Including from Cyan! But the gps point still stands Myst felt more...alive? than other IF games of the time. The videos, graphics, and atmosphere were top notch of the time, and it drew people in like crazy.

To be fair, they did say "mostly".

Sure, I played the heck out of games like that on my Commodore 64, but it still doesn't match, for me at least, the depth of the puzzles and problem solving in Myst.

Myst was the top selling game for several years.

There were lots of adventure games on PCs before Myst, where Myst differed was in atmosphere and immersion: it was arguably the first game where you really felt like you were in a different world, as opposed to playing something on your computer. I think that's why it is lodged so deep in collective memory.

Cyan even made The Manhole prior to Myst. I remember playing that on a Mac SE/30.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manhole