Have you played the games from the Myst series? What's your favorite 
age?  (Try to avoid spoilers, probably. No serious spoilers below.)

I liked Channelwood (and the path to its linking book) a lot from the 
first Myst, and the path to get to the Shipstone age on the original 
Myst island.  (I.e., Shipstone itself wasn't that great, but getting 
access to Shipstone was clever.) Selenic was kind of silly, with the 
maze and all, completely out of character I thought. I enjoyed the 
mechanical age too, just figuring out where the pages might be (spoilers 
avoided). I was kind of stuck on Myst for a while, even opening up the 
clues and going "huh?", until I realized I really needed to get my sound 
card fixed to be able to understand what the blinking "tower rotation" 
light was all about. :-)

I think Myst did a great job of driving a plot without being obnoxious 
about it. There's a natural boundary - you're on an island. You get 
suckered into it, so there's no need to accept any particular backstory: 
could have happened to anyone. It almost made sense that you'd leave the 
combination to combination locks sitting around but obsfucated (altho, 
again, why would you lock doors on an uninhabited world?).

Riven was fun, too. I liked getting into Gehn's lab, and the ride to get 
there. That, and realizing that "hey, I can actually look to see where 
the walkways go, and from that deduce where I need to go to get onto 
them." That, and of course, the circularity with Myst (intentionally 
obscured so as not to spoil it: you know what I mean). Oh, and the 
school house. Overall, quite cool! (Altho the rebel age left much to be 
desired.)

As for Exile, I think Amateria was best (the one with the rolling 
balls), both finding the book and the island itself. Possibly because I 
did that first and hence didn't expect the end, along with still being 
mildly phobic of heights and playing it late at night in the dark the 
first time. Voltaic (rocky with power supplies et al) was fun, kind of 
silly too (lava routing controls *inside* the volcano??). The very final 
age was neat too, with all the different endings. I'm not sure why it 
seemed so difficult the first time I played it and so easy the later 
time, in terms of transliterating the symbols. "There's one think I've 
learned about linking books: The doors they opened don't close behind 
you."  I'm a bit disappointed with where you don't get to go ... I can't 
figure out how to say it more clearly without spoilers.

Revelation was nice, but come on. If you could write an age, wouldn't 
you make it possible to work *both* elevators at the same time? (Yes, I 
know there aren't two elevators: If you already played it, you know what 
I mean. If you haven't played it, I've avoided spoiling it.) At least it 
was fun to see the rest of Tomata. At this point, I think the series 
started going downhill: silly puzzles having little or nothing to do 
with the story. At least Exile had a *reason* for there to be blatant 
puzzles-for-the-sake-of-puzzles. (Altho I dunno. The idea that you'd 
build a door across a bridge over a lake to keep the birds out indicates 
you're at least a bit crazy. Maybe building locks onto stuff when you 
know you're the only person in the world is just the same sort of crazy? 
But singing dieties needing help with neurosurgery?) And at least, if 
you're expected to copy characters from one place to another, don't 
compress the images so much the characters are illegible. At least they 
explained where, in the world with only 3 people, the rest of the people 
went.

Uru was pretty sucky, altho some of the effects were nice. Lousy 
puzzles, lame journals, stupid goals. Of course, it was supposed to be 
continued as an MMORPG, but it was still lame. Altho it was kind of 
cool, after reading the first Myst novel, to see some of the places 
described therein. (Not that I'd recommend the novel; it too was pretty 
awful.) I couldn't get Path of the Shell to run - something weird with 
the video driver. (In case you wonder, for example, the giant vertical 
tunnel at the end of Uru is where the heroine gets into D'ni in the 
novel, after finding geological anomolies in the desert (which you see 
at the start of Uru) caused by digging said tunnel).

I played the demo for the fifth Myst series, but I haven't bought the 
game. Anyone who has, care to comment? It looked like they couldn't 
really come up with a game idea, and I didn't really want to spend $50 
on it, but it's probably pretty cheap by now.

Compare to seventh guest (which I gave up when I realized it was all 
classic puzzles like 8 queens set in a haunted house for some reason), 
Lighthouse (which railroaded you into (say) not letting you leave the 
house before you listened to your answering machine, and otherwise was a 
stupid pixel hunt), or Schizm (which had a great premise of having two 
characters you could switch between to solve puzzles, but started out 
with you rescuing an expedition which by the end you find out never 
actually existed (what??!) and which involved absurd rituals on the part 
of the natives obviously designed to just drag out the game without 
needing to actually create more content). Longest Journey had its 
moments, but the puzzles were lame, as well as frustratingly timed 
(e.g., you have grungy clothes. You can't go into the clothes store 
because it's too expensive. You go talk to someone in the next store 
over, who points out you're improperly dressed, so *now* you can go in 
the clothes store). It was more a "string together a bunch of 
conversations with long walks between" than an actual game, altho the 
story was indeed kind of cool. Also I'll admit some of the conversations 
were excellent: "What do you mean these things crash all the time? I 
heard they were the safest mode of travel!"  "Well, sure, as long as 
you're not flying one. They almost never land on pedestrians." I think 
there were maybe three puzzles in the whole game I had to think about, 
but dozens of times where the right thing to do was obvious, but I 
hadn't triggered the game into letting me do it *yet*.

So have you played the fifth Myst game? Have you played something else I 
haven't mentioned?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Have you played the games from the Myst series?

  I have two games of the series, and both are too difficult for my taste.

  Don't get me wrong. I hate nothing more than games which are too easy and
which can be played through in some hours. However, there's a limit in
difficulty after which the game becomes exasperating. When you get up to
a certain point and then play the game for three hours without getting
anywhere, it starts becoming boring. There are clues alright, but they
just make no sense and don't really help you figuring out what to do.
They are too random and they don't really help you deduce anything.
Some of the worst puzzles are those where you have to find a certain
combination and you have no idea if you are supposed to figure out the
combination by using clues or if you are simply supposed to try every
single one of the 2000 possible combinations. When nothing in the game
seems to give any hint about the combinations, it becomes exasperating.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>   I have two games of the series, and both are too difficult for my taste.

Which ones? The only absolute must play IMO is the first. I also played it
with my family so we had three people working on the puzzles, which probably
helped a lot.

I stopped halfway(?) through the fourth because the acting made me sad. Plus
the story was getting pretty silly. Myst worked because it was simple. Riven
had good characters. The guy in Exile was bearable (mostly because you
didn't see him too much), but Sirrus and Achenar in Revelation were just
ridiculous, which was extra painful because of how cool they were in the
first game. I think they missed the point that it's more fun to learn about
the characters by exploring the environments they've created.

I tried Uru but got stuck and had no motivation to continue; merging
everything with the "real world" was really, really lame. It looked cool
though.

Can't really pick a favorite age.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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Slime <fak### [at] emailaddress> wrote:
> >   I have two games of the series, and both are too difficult for my taste.

> Which ones?

  Riven and Exile.

  I actually got pretty far in Riven, but then I hit a wall as I described.
Exile seemed so difficult right from the beginning that it wasn't very
addictive. Perhaps I should try it again.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Have you played the games from the Myst series?
> 
>   I have two games of the series, and both are too difficult for my taste.
> 
>   Don't get me wrong. I hate nothing more than games which are too easy and
> which can be played through in some hours. However, there's a limit in
> difficulty after which the game becomes exasperating.

Ah yes, the delicate art of "game balancing".

Too easy is boring. Too hard is boring. Gotta hit the part just in the 
middle. Not easy...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/

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> Slime <fak### [at] emailaddress> wrote:
>>>   I have two games of the series, and both are too difficult for my taste.
> 
>> Which ones?
> 
>   Riven and Exile.
> 
>   I actually got pretty far in Riven, but then I hit a wall as I described.
> Exile seemed so difficult right from the beginning that it wasn't very
> addictive. Perhaps I should try it again.
> 

Similar experience here with Riven. Maybe it would have helped if I had 
played Myst before...

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Warp wrote:
>   I have two games of the series, and both are too difficult for my taste.

I'd be happy to give hints. Playing Riven without playing Myst is sort 
of like coming into a soap opera in the middle, tho. Lots of the fun is 
seeing how it links back to what you learned in Myst.

There's also a great web site called "UHS" (Universal Hint System, I 
think). Google for "UHS Riven". You ask a question like "How do I work 
the elevator?" The first hint will be "It needs something somewhere 
else." The second will be "you already passed it getting to the 
elevator." The third will be "It needs a power source." The fourth will 
be "The power source is electrical."  By the time you get to the 15th 
hint or so, you have a pretty complete walkthru on how to solve that one 
puzzle.

Which particular part did you get stuck on? One of the things I liked 
about Riven was that when I got stuck, and then later figured it out, it 
was like a "duh!" moment. Oh, well of course! That was obvious! (Like, 
where the dome on the island with the frogs is, for example; that took 
me quite some time to figure out.) But there were some really unobvious 
things, yeah.

Exile, I thought, was a bit more straightforward. Pretty obvious what 
you're supposed to do (except right at the end). At least you know what 
the goal of each age is. :-)

If you find Riven difficult, I'd suggest staying far away from 
Revelation. The skinny brother's Age (sirus?) was pretty much impossible 
to figure out without cheating. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:475d8547$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp wrote:
>>   I have two games of the series, and both are too difficult for my 
>> taste.
>
> I'd be happy to give hints. Playing Riven without playing Myst is sort of 
> like coming into a soap opera in the middle, tho. Lots of the fun is 
> seeing how it links back to what you learned in Myst.
>
> There's also a great web site called "UHS" (Universal Hint System, I 
> think). Google for "UHS Riven". You ask a question like "How do I work the 
> elevator?" The first hint will be "It needs something somewhere else." The 
> second will be "you already passed it getting to the elevator." The third 
> will be "It needs a power source." The fourth will be "The power source is 
> electrical."  By the time you get to the 15th hint or so, you have a 
> pretty complete walkthru on how to solve that one puzzle.
>
> Which particular part did you get stuck on? One of the things I liked 
> about Riven was that when I got stuck, and then later figured it out, it 
> was like a "duh!" moment. Oh, well of course! That was obvious! (Like, 
> where the dome on the island with the frogs is, for example; that took me 
> quite some time to figure out.) But there were some really unobvious 
> things, yeah.
>
> Exile, I thought, was a bit more straightforward. Pretty obvious what 
> you're supposed to do (except right at the end). At least you know what 
> the goal of each age is. :-)
>
> If you find Riven difficult, I'd suggest staying far away from Revelation. 
> The skinny brother's Age (sirus?) was pretty much impossible to figure out 
> without cheating. :-)
>

Riven was the only one I played, and like some others here I got stuck, then 
lost interest, then one of the discs was damaged 2 years later when I tried 
installing again. It was absolutely beautiful though. I would turn off all 
the lights and wear some headphones like suggested. I was totally in awe. I 
should go back and play the original then?

Does anyone have a site that has high quality screenshots of Riven? It would 
make for some good desktop background I think. Off to search for some :)

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Ross escribió:
> Does anyone have a site that has high quality screenshots of Riven? It would 
> make for some good desktop background I think. Off to search for some :) 

I wish the makers would release a new version with HD-size images, 
instead of 640x480 and palleted colors.

Or better: release the 3d files :>
(I wonder what software they used)

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Ross wrote:
> I should go back and play the original then?

You should go back and buy Myst Millenium Edition (which is exactly the 
same Myst, on re-rendered to 16-bit color). There's also RealMyst, which 
has a true 3D engine and one more mildly-silly age at the end that isn't 
really part of the story.

Then do Riven. Then Exile.

> Does anyone have a site that has high quality screenshots of Riven? It would 
> make for some good desktop background I think. Off to search for some :) 

They're out there.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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